Monthly bill of £374.95???

James_Taylor92

Hi all

I was hoping someone could help me understand something.

So I currently rent a 1000 sq ft 2 bedroom electric only apartment. I have just recently signed up with a new supplier Scottish Power.

My new fixed tarriff is as follows: 
Mon-Fri - 0.25p per kwh
Sat-Sun at 11am-4pm - 0.125p per kwh

having previously used Rebel Energy and being misinformed about my energy usage I had to pay off a rather large bill with them much to my frustration. This I believe was down to the boiler immersion not being on a set timer and occasionally leaving one of the electric heathers on during the day as I have two small dogs.

The apartment is incredibly energy inefficient due to the number of windows it has and during the winter time all the air gets in. Have tried draft excluders but it does feel like I'm fighting a losing battle. Anyway I have electric Nobo heaters which look fairly old and I believe use 1800kwh per hour. 

In the past month I have made significant changes, so only have the electric heater on for a few hours in the evening when I am home, and another turned on in my daughters room to help her sleep (from 7pm-9pm), do my clothes washing in the weekend when its cheaper, have only a couple of LED floor standing lights on, timer on immersion set to a few hours per day and an electric blanket which I'll have on for my 7 hours overnight but uses hardly any electricity.

Given that I work four days in the office does anyone have any idea as to why I have been charged £374.95 for the month? If I lived in a 3 story 5 bed house with a wife and two kids then I may understand it, but I literally live on my own with my daughter who stays 50% of the time.

Any help is much appreciated

Thanks

James

Robin9

Is this bill based on Actual or Estimated readings?

FrugaiMacDugal

Check the bill readings.

Are they estimated, or do they correspond to the start reading when you moved in and what the meter reads now?

James_Taylor92

No it shouldn't be an estimate, I have a smart meter plus I provided them with a reading on the 7th January at 78283kwh. The reading they took on the 5th Feb was 79591kwh which marries up with my meter. Only things I can think are:

A: its just the reality of living in an all electric property being significantly more expensive than gas.
B: The meters faulty which I doubt.
C: The immersion timer isn't working properly and the immersion is still running constantly.

lohr500

Does the £374.94 bill cover the same 7th Jan to 5th Feb period?

Over that period you used 79591-78283=1308kWh. 

What is the daily standing charge and was there any debt carried forward onto the latest bill?

And as others have asked, does the bill show the readings as actual or estimated?

Also, are you on a monthly budget payment plan, or payment in arrears based on actual usage? 

Swipe

James_Taylor92 said:

No it shouldn't be an estimate, I have a smart meter plus I provided them with a reading on the 7th January at 78283kwh. The reading they took on the 5th Feb was 79591kwh which marries up with my meter. Only things I can think are:

A: its just the reality of living in an all electric property being significantly more expensive than gas.
B: The meters faulty which I doubt.
C: The immersion timer isn't working properly and the immersion is still running constantly.

The in house display device will be able to tell you if that's the case

James_Taylor92

Hi lohr500

Yes it does, and it is based on a meter reading submitted by me in Jan, and the reading being taken by Scottish power via the Smartmeter in Feb. 

No debt from previous bill, that was all paid off with past supplier and this is the very first bill I have received from Scottish Power as my new supplier. The invoice I have yet to see as it takes 3-5 working days for me to receive it via email so I can confirm if its estimated when I have it. They did do a direct debit original estimate of £371 based on my previous annual usage but I told them to cancel this as I wasn't aware of certain things that were chewing through my bill and said I will do a month to month payment with accurate readings in an attempt to bring the bill down. 

James_Taylor92

Hi Swipe, so the timer looks like a little white dial, using a youtube video with the same model it absolutely should be on a timer as the switch is set to the clock icon. I mean I have my immersion on for roughly 6 hours a day which based on how much energy an immersion can chew through ends up costing me £150 per month ball park, just for that alone.

lohr500

The thing with the immersion is that even if it was powered 24/7, unless there is a hot water leak somewhere, the immersion heater thermostat will switch off the heater element when the tank reaches temperature.

If the tank is well insulated, I've read elsewhere that the heat loss equates to around 2kW per day.

So the impact of a faulty timer wouldn't be massive.

Swipe

You'd also notice if the water was as red hot as just after the timer window finished, even 12 hours later.

James_Taylor92

This is true, I think the best way is for me to test how long after the immersion times out that the water stays hot. Only at this stage I have no idea.

Thank you for your advice by the way, its much appreciated