Pulsacoil Thermal Store and high bills!

hddddt_01

I bought a 1 bed basement flat at the start of September. It is electric only and is fitted with a PulsaCoil Thermal Store to heat my water. I was told to keep the main tank plug on and the top immersion heater off and to only turn it on if I need a top up. 

My flat also has a small utility area with a tiny dishwasher, but I do not have a washing machine currently. I heat my flat with 3x Dimplex heaters (2x1000W and 1x 900W). They are only on in the evenings for a few hours at a time and I never sleep with them on. I take 1 bath a day and sometimes have an extra shower. I am out the house from 7am and come back again at 6pm. I make sure I turn everything off when I am out the house. 

I am currently with Octopus for electricity but my latest bill was 140 pound for a month. This seems extortionate for the size of my property and the amount of electricity I use - I have compared with friends and they are paying more than I do for a 3 bed house where they work from home. 

The flat was pretty bodged when I moved in and I don't think the electrics are that great - they used to trip out when I put the underfloor heating on/towel rail, hence why I removed both. 

Does this sound like a normal bill? Does anyone have any advice on how to reduce it? This is my first home and I am not sure what to do next! 

Thanks in advance

Gerry1

Daytime electricity is just about the most expensive way to heat a property.  If there's no gas in the area and oil or a heat pump are unrealistic for a basement property, you might like to consider high heat retention night storage heaters such as Dimplex Quantum.

As it's a flat, start by doing the Meter Sanity Test to make sure you're not paying for a neighbour's usage.

I trust that you took the opening meter reading yourself and that you're now sending monthly readings?  If you let someone else take the reading you may be paying for usage by the previous owner or during a void period.

Reed_Richards

Gledhill, the cylinder specialist, has developed the PulsaCoil Stainless 150 Litre, a thermal storage cylinder manufactured from high corrosion resistant stainless steel, providing mains pressure hot water utilising off-peak electric, specifically designed for use in apartments.

The intended use is that you heat it up using cheap off-peak electricity.  If you're not doing that it will cost you a lot more to run.

Ectophile

Ypu have about the most expensive form of heating - instant electric heaters.  At a rough estimate, if all three heaters are on 4 hours a day, that's about £86/month.

Electric water heating is also expensive, and it sounds like you're using a lot of hot water.  You might be better switching to Economy 7 and only heating the water overnight.  At that point, storage heaters would also make sense.  But modern ones are quite expensive.

Add all the normal every day electricity usage, and £140/month sounds believable.

matelodave

You need to understand how much electricty you are using in kWh and then then what sort of tariff you are on. Heating and hot water by electricity is never going to be cheap so all you can do is understand how you use it and trim your consumption. I'm assuming that you have direct electric heating, not storage heaters and that you aren't on a non-standard tariff.

Comparing your cost with someone else is a waste of time unless you know how much electricity they use and what it costs them in both standing charge and pence per kwh. Some may not use leccy for heating and some may have E7 or some other exotic tariff that gives them discounts and various times of the day.

However that said, the average rate for leccy is around 25p/kwh so each of your heater will cost you about 25p for every hour that they are on.

Its likely that your hot water tank has a 3kw heater which will cost around 75p per hour until the water is hot (usually around 2.5 hours depending on the tank size). Enough hot water to fill a bath is likely to be costing you around 50-75p a go.

Depending on the type of shower (from the hot water tank or a direct electric unit) and how long you stand in it could also ramp up 50p or more. A 9kw direct electric shower could cost something like 4p/minute

have you got a smart meter - if so you should be able to determine when you are using energy and how much. Most IHDs (the in home device) can give you your energy history, usually hourly for the past 24 hours, daily for the past week, weekly for the past month and monthly for the past year. Having this info can help you identify what is being used and when. 

Failing that you need to do some regular meter reading - turn off everything just before you go to bed (including the hot water) and then read it again when you get up before turning anything on - that will give you an idea of your background consumption. You may have enough hot water for a shallow bath or a quick shower. In the end you have to try out different combinations.

Even if you do have a smart meter you should read it and check that the bill is actually reflecting your meter readings and not using estimates - if it is using estimates then send the readings into Octopus. If you dont have a smart meter then make sure you read the meter on the first day of every month and send the readings into Octopus. Always check you bills, download and save a PDF copy every month as it makes it much easier to track back and rectify any mistakes.

This is especially important in January, April, July, October which is when standard tariff either increase or decrease so you dont want any estimates to be guessing extra consumption when the price increases (it will increase in January and is like to increase again in April).

Newbie_John

You need to provide the following:
- actual monthly usage in kWh
-what tarrif are you on? Normal? E7 (different rates at night and day) or other?

With electric only places it will be more expensive in winter and very cheap in summer - but we need to understand your actual usage (not how much you pay) to advise further.

tim_p

What was the meter reading when you moved in? What is it now?

Scot_39

With HW tank but not space heating Storage - it's not always clear whether it would be best to stay on single rate or economy 7.

The advice on the twin element HW tank suggests your bottom heater might have ideally been on economy 7 off peak rates - and the top one a day / peak rate if on e7 - to top up on a rare basis.

Do you have one or two readings / rates on your electricity bill - what is your tariff name ?

It makes a major difference to the costs / kWh - so we either need your kWh consumption(off peak and peak if on economy 7 ideally) .

A bath will likely use around 2-3 the hot water of a shower - and although heating is a big use in winter - hot water is probably a close run thing annually in more efficient small properties with decent insulation if taking so many baths.

A low flow rate (even more so in winter unless you like a really tepid shower) 9kW electric shower for 10 mins uses 1.5kWh - about 37p at current regional ave SR. 

Is your shower tank fed or cold fed with own heating ?

A bath could easily cost 2-3x (a 100 l bath (typical UK size to a reasonable depth) - maybe 3.5-4kWh plus if your in their a while and topping it up a couple of times - possibly more ) that all depending on tub size, depth and temperature of the mix.  

These days I'm sad to say a bath is more of a treat for many worried about their electric bills than a daily event.

So that's maybe around 4.5-5 kWh a day on average - lets say it gets to 5kWh ever day just for hot water by allowing some sink / basic use and of course tank losses - likely to be around 1kWh min at 60C - - 5 kWh X 24.5p/kWh = c£1.22 a day (at Oct cap ave SR DD rate) = £37 per month.

It wont quite match your heating 2.9kWx 3+ hours if they are not cycling on thermostat (less likely with fan heaters, more likely with radiators / some wall panels) = nearly 9 kWh - £2.20 per day - £66 per month.  But they could be mark spacing on thermostat.

Add those two guesstimates in winter - thats already over £100 per month (£103) - and would leave only £37 - take out the SC of around £20 about - leaves only say £20 -  80 kWh - 2.5-3kWh per day for other uses. (Fairly close to my non HW / shower summer use - which is majority of my off-peak readings)

A washing machine if you get one - might use 1kWh per mid range / mid temp wash cycle - it's probably not going to add much more than a few £££s to a monthly bill for 2-3 loads a week - a tumble dryer might easily double that.

If your tech savvy and have a smart meter - OCtopus online tools, or apps can get you half hourly consumption - in terms of kWh used - to get a better feel of where your energy use is coming from.


Edit

Oops Forgot to say above kWh to £s use regional ave oct single rate - currently 24.5p/kWh until midnight for Dec bill purposes.  Octopus and Ofgem same iirc.

If on economy 7 at Octopus their average day rate 30p/kWh so heating costs if plug ins at peak rate c20-25% higher, but hot water rates if is e7 off peak - would be at lower Octopus average 13.3p so nearly half price above.

Need OP to come vack with tariff and an annual - wont know as only movd in Sep or pre much heating e.g. Oct ? / Dec split if on e7.

EssexHebridean

Agreeing with some of the comments above - you say it seems extortionate for thr amount of electricity you use, but you don’t actually tell us how much you ARE using! 

Just as a starting point, if we assume that the water heater is pretty much needing to heat fully on a daily basis, and those heaters are on for about 3 hours each per day, then that alone is likely to be in the region of 12-15kWh per day which could be costing you around £3.50 a day just for that aspect before you add in usual background load, washing up, cooking, those showers and etc. Add on standing charges and that seems to be somewhere close to your bill level from what you have said? 

Give us some figures and we can work things through and see if it does look about right.  Over time you probably want to budget to change the heating though realistically - standard electric heaters aren’t likely to get any cheaper to run, going forwards. 

RedFraggle

I have the same hot water system, run on an economy 7 tariff. I had an external timer fitted so it only heats for 2 hours in the overnight off peak period. That gives sufficient DHW. 
A full bath would likely need more. 

RedFraggle

Our uses about 8 kwh in those 2 hours