Electricity costs really high

Scot_39

1) OK

2) New homes tended to be damper - simply because of the build process and plastering etc - a but less than old days - but nevertheless - you could still be drying out the flat - and damp air just feels colder to us mere mortals - and iirc costs more to heat.

Dehumidifiers - start around £100-150 for big name brands - so not cheap to buy - for a small full size nominal 10-12l / 24 hr extraction model - running one for a couple of hours every couple of days might help.

Or save on tumble dryer costs - if used to help dry clothes instead.

3) Get curtains - ideally thermal lined if worried about window losses - I use thermal lined with my old thin double glazing.  (They also double up as black out curtains in many cases - if dont want woken up by sunlight early in am in summer).

4) If front door drafty - a cheap roll of draft proof tape around top and sides may cut down drafts (mine cost c£3 iirc)  and a rolled up old bath towel (or similar)  makes an excellent bottom draft excluder for use once your in house - or you can buy proper ones to fit to the door if want something more permanent - if you think itys the bottom the draft is coming from.

If you think its just cold all over - you could splash out and buy a thermal lined door curtain as well - and fit it - space permitting - to cut losses to communal hallway.  Mines was about £25-30 (from Argos iirc - yep - there even half price when just checked a few minutes ago) plus curtain rail etc

And think about flooring too - ground floor flats can loose heat to the ground - so carpets or thermal barrier under laminate etc can be a good idea - just as ground floor in a house.

Wall loses trickier - nag the council to get entry doors fixed.

5)  kW ?

Is that a power vs energy vs billing or  how do i get the meter to tell me kWh used type question ?

I am not sure how to change your prepay meter to display in kWh or pounds - most credit meters default to kWh.

If you post the model we can find a guide for you.

 

However if you mean what is a kW and/or what is a kWh ...

The W - is short for Watt(s) (named after James Watt so is capital W not lowr case w) is a standard unit of power in science / physics / engineering - and power the rate of work / flow of energy - so 1W equivalent to 1 Joule per second.  

But you dont need to know that - just the actual power for a device.

1 kW is 1000W.

Devices will normally tell you their power rating.  Something using a lot of power like a fire in kW - typically 1.5-3 kW = 1500 - 3000W - for full sized - something small like a phone charger in W (old 5W, fast 15W, newer 25W/45W etc)

Heaters might have 2 or 3 - settings up to the stated maximum.  So a 2kW fan heater might have 2 heat settings I and II - for say 1kW and 2 kW.

Your meter measures your energy use - for convenience - in a unit known as a kWh - kilo-Watt hour  (note no per) and your supplier than charges you at the set unit rate in pence per kWh unit - right now SR electric is around 25p/kWh - your prepay with Utilita rates ?

When growing up my parents would say - as they were taught when younger - for instance - that running "a bar on the fire for an hour costs a unit of electric"  (and it was pretty close - as many fire elements did in their day - provide around 1kW power)

And your actually billed for energy used - and in simple terms

Energy = Power x Time

So say you have a 2kW heater

Run it for for 1 hour continuously - you will use  2kW x 1 hr = 2kWh of energy = electricity from meter - which at 25p/kWh  would cost 50p total.

But if you had to run it say 15 hrs a day - switching off say only when go to bed and no thermostat activating to stop it = 2kW x 15 = 30 kWh - would cost £7.50

So power alone doesn't tell you what a device will cost in normal daily use - you need to know how long it's going to be running for.

Chances are you might have 2 similar rated power devices for heating hot water.  A domestic hot water tank het by electric if you have one - and a fast boil kettle - will typically have an element rated at 3kW power (some larger domestic tanks actually have 2 3kW elements)

It might take 2 hrs plus to heat a small 100-120l tank from cold to 60C - but only upto 1 hr to top it up daily with moderate water use.  But in reality thats determined by the energy - you need to raise the mass of the water and tank - back to the target temperature - which you then divide by the power - to get the required running time (it's just we have done the maths / measured it on our own heaters)

3kW x 2 hr = 6 kWh = £1.50 at 25p/kWh from cold fill

3kW x 1 hr = 3 kWh = 75p at 25p/kWh - to top up daily use on subsequent days

But it might take only 2-3 mins - to boil a kettle - say 3 mins to make maths easy - 3m/60m - 0.05 hrs

3kW x 3min / 60 min/hr = 3x0.05 = 0.15 kWh =  at 25p/kWh = c4p

So a device giving a lot of power for a short time doesn't cost a lot.

But if you left say a modern large TV - that say used 100W - on all day when not in bed - 0.1 * 16 hrs - that would use 1.6kWh.

So often surprisingly small loads on for a long time can add to a lot of energy use to.

A device taking 10W on standby plugged in all day or say a 100W equiv high powered LED bulb -  again c10W = 0.01 kW * 24  = 0.24kWh - c6p.

The most power hungry thing in my house - is my 9.5 kW electric shower (my 3 NSH for heating combined take around 7kW when charging).

So a 10min shower - 9.5*10/60 = 1.6 kWh - or about 40p at Single Rate.

If your topping up £20 and credit balance (ignoring any past debt register or emergency register use) shows your actually spending £20 per day on electricity - assuming say 60p standing charge and 25p/kWh - and using flat rate for simplicity

Your total daily cost = standing charge + kWh used * rate / kWh

So £20 = 2000p = 60p + XX kWh per day x 25p/kWh

So XX = 77.6 kWh per day - which I rounded to 75 above as rough guess above.

If it turns out you are on economy 7 metering

Your total daily cost = standing charge + kWh used off peak * off peak rate / kWh

                                                              + kWh used peak * peak rate / kWh

(If want cost per week or month - just multiply standing charge by number of days)

The problem with giving people just the £/p costs - and why people are asking above how much energy you are using rather than cost - is that some people will be paying very different rates for their energy - some might be using solar - so electric free for over half the day in summer - some will use e7 rates others single rate.

And for those who track their energy / costs long term - well if the unit rate or standing charge changes - the cost in £s does vary - recently very dramatically - even if energy usage in kWh stays the same.  

And the costs have been really fluid recently - electricity standing charges have over doubled for instance in last few years for many regions - energy prices more than doubled at peak of crisis - but despite dropping back - this winter are still maybe upto 70% higher than 3-4 years ago.  So anyone trying to compare if using more or less energy in last few years - really needs to track energy use not just costs.

SAC2334

You don t have to contact Utilita you can see all the info you would ever need from the meter itself . Utilita was one of first suppliers to use prepay smart meters so I expect it's a prepayment  smart meter you have .

The instructions are online for smart prepayment meters if you Google around .

If it's an older key meter with a key to insert and a blue button you can press the blue button then scroll through the various screens ,key needs to be inserted to see the debt and debt repay rates on S and T .

From memory the kWh per unit rate you are on is on screen I ( i) and standing charge  on F .Meter readings for single rate are on screen H single rate . Eco 7 are on day rate on J and night rate on I think it's K but maybe check this out online . Also check screens S and T to see if they have lumbered you with any debt and weekly debt repay .

Prepayment rates are the lowest now for those on standard variable tariff but you could maybe get a lower rate by switching . 

RedFraggle

Unless you have storage heaters economy 7 may not be the the best for you. You pay a higher day rate on economy 7 so if you're running panel heaters and don't have much need for hot water you may be better on a single rate tariff. 
What are the heaters, is the shower fed from the mains water or electric.? 

tamste

Economy 7 only normally worthwhile if you have storage heaters as its the way to get heat stored in your home at the cheap overnight rate. If you just have panel / underfloor heaters, then you would be paying more on an E7 contract as the day rate is slightly higher.