Electric prices

dreaming

Does your mam have a smart meter fitted for her electric (and gas). and is she (or you) able to log into her OVO account to check her daily usage? I am with OVO and can see usage broken down throughout the day, so I can see my "base" usage overnight when just my fridge, freezer, and router are running, then the spike when I get up in the morning and make tea and toast, and also if I run the wahing machine, dishwasher, or electric oven. You could probably find some of this information from a paper bill if that is what she receives, and it should show what tariff she is on and whther she is still on E7. Personally I would prepared to pay the fee to have it checked out if I couldn't get to the bottom of it by investigating the readings etc. as although it would be a chunk of money it could potentially pay for itself over a few months.

Keep_pedalling

Please get her to stop using candles they are a major cause of house fires. Buy her some LED bulbs and fit them. It will cost less in electricity to run than buying candles does. 

As others have said we need to see the tariff she is on and the actual usage. You might want to check what you are actually using as well as you monthly payments might not cover your actual usage.

QrizB

Keep_pedalling said:

Please get her to stop using candles they are a major cause of house fires. Buy her some LED bulbs and fit them. It will cost less in electricity to run than buying candles does.

Just to illustrate this:

A bag of tea lights from Home Bargains is £2.49 and will provide 96 hours of dim candle light. That's 2.6 pence per hour.

https://home.bargains/product/3892e944-b963-4d04-ba47-bfba481d55bf/12-maxi-tealight-candles-8h

Alternatively, a 10 watt LED lamp will provide 100 hours of bright electric light while using one kilowatt-hour, currently priced at about 25p. That's 0.25p per hour, one-tenth of the cost for a much better light.

dreaming

Further to my previous post I had another thought. Is this monthly bill a combined electric and gas bill. After I posted before I quickly checked my usage and realised that most people combine both gas/elec with one provider so this could be her annual cost averaged out over the year. I pay £85 per month for both (and I have solar panels so am a very low electric user) and currently the daily cost for both is approximately 65-90pence Obviously I haven't had the heating on for a while now but I do have a combi-boiler for hot water (and feeds shower) plus a gas hob. I am also a pensioner and fairly house-bound so am in all day most days. I run usual household appliances (washing machine and dishwasher both go on 2-3 times a week}, I batch cook so use the oven perhaps once or twice a week, i use the computer in the morning for an hour or so, and the tv tends to go on in the late afternoon. By paying £85/month I obviously get quite a build up of credit but this is offset by the increased use in the winter months. Since I was ill a few years ago i feel the cold much more so do use the gas CH as and when I need to, although I also try to wear layers and "heat the person, not the room". My largest monthly bill last winter was £149 in January 25 which was covered by the credit balance. Obviously the standing charge is a huge chunk each month. I know some people prefer to pay when they are billed but a fixed monthly payment suits me - I remember the panic when we used to get the large winter quarterly bill in! So although £50/month may seem like a lot (and it's always worth doing the comparison checks regularly), if it is an averaged cost for both electric and gas then it might be so bad.

Scot_39

Esty76 said:

Can anyone help. My mam lives in 1 bedroom bungalow on her own, has1 tv, sky, charges her phone, sits with candles cis her ekectruc us di high. She used to have e7 now has gas ch. Her electric is 55 a month. Mine I live in 3 bed semi, 6 people, 3 xboxes 4 tvs etc kids leave lights on etc, my combined gas and lec  is 145 a month so us my mams tapping onto old e7 wiring? Contacted ovo they saud sge has to pay 120 for a test. But this test is just meter. How do we know if something else a miss? They won't help. Advice please? She's literally using candles now she's so scared of usung lights. 

Its far better to talk about energy comparisons in kWh than £s.  As not everyone pays tgesame unit rates or standing charges.

Is she actually using £55 pm inc standing charge or is that a reduced but not to full extent yet estimatedvannualised DD figure , still to fully catch up on a recent if was switch to GCH.

The candles are extreme.  And provably cost more than a led bulb would

A modern led light bulb will use sub 10W to replace a 60W in a small room, the more expensive most efficient nearer half that.  O even 100W can be c10W. That's 100-200 hours for 1 unit of energy.  Or c0.25p per hour - or 7p per day for 10W.

£55 to me would be reasonably but not impossibly high even without heating and hot water - given the absense of other things like fish ponds or aquariums etc.

Its about my summer cost for 1 Inc hot water - and hw alone is about half my usage on bill - electric immersion tank and cold fed electric shower - so maybe 40% of the total factoring in the £15pm sc.

Does her new gch boiler feed her shower - or is shower electric ?
Is her new gch a combi or does it heat a tank for hw ?


If tank for hw, does the tank still have a standby immersion heater thats been left on and is actually doing most of the heating (its not an uncommon problem, when people turn off or down their gch for summer etc in some set-ups) ?

A 10m shower uses c1.5kW at 9kW - an elderly woman might need longer - my mum used to be in their for nearer 20min in her 70s when doing her hair as well.

Even a small hw tank can take 7kWh to heat 120l from cold to 60C.  7kWh = £1.80 at sr over £2.20 at e7 peak.  And if a tank fed shower, could easily be approaching half that per day.

Is her cooker gas or electric. Each ring could by using 1kW, an oven 2+ kW for 20m plus every use.  

Does she have a smart meter for electric - if so use her supplier portal or app or a third party app / site like bright to look at when that power is being used.

Old lcd tvs and crts can burn well over 100 watts - old sky boxes were pretty power hungry too on standby iirc.  My 50" led uses half the power c70-80W - vs my old 40" lcds - c170W.  100W over say a 15 hour day for someone at home = 1.5kW extra " 40p per day - £12pm.

So run around the home look at 

High power uses - any panels, fan heaters, towel rails, plug in fires.
Moderate power uses - ovens high power low times, tvs etc lowish power use but potentiallylong times = kWh per day.

Check if fridge / freezers etc operating efficiently, doesn't need defrosting or stuck in a defrost cycle loop, doors sealing properly etc.  Can run to extra kWh per day in extremes.  Again sone old large American style were real energy guzzlers. If she's on own, a modern smaller unit might pay back in a reasonable time vs one of those.

Look for low power alternatives and if not now switch when need replacing to energybefficient alternatives.

Led bulbs, maybe air fryer / microwave vs full sized electric oven etc etc.

And dont forget external lighting - my parents had 2 500W filament pir security lights - and regular triggered by neighbours pets and for couple of years a local wild fox family.

Has she actually switched off of e7 tariff - you need to use around 35-40% of your energy at off peak rate or you could pay more than even single rate.  In my region at one supplier, sr is c26p, e7 is c13p night but c32p day.  Those 6ps add up quickly.

Without say storage heating and hot water tank at night she might still be paying tge c32p for most of her energy if not switched.

QrizB

Scot_39 said:

Its far better to talk about energy comparisons in kWh than £s.  As not everyone pays tgesame unit rates or standing charges.

£55 a month, assuming an annual budget DD, is £660 a year. The electricity standing charge is £200 a year, and £460 will buy you about 1800kWh of electricity. That's a good match to Ofgem's "low" dual fuel TDCV:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/average-gas-and-electricity-use-explained

So it could be about right?

Esty76 said:

How do we know if something else a miss? They won't help. Advice please? She's literally using candles now she's so scared of usung lights. 

As previously mentioned, candles aren't safe and will cost more than electric light. Even old incandescent lamps are cheaper than candles.

Common causes of high electricity bills include:

- old fridges and freezers (especially any that are over 20 years old)

- electric heating (immersion heaters for water, portable space heaters - not electric blankets or pads, which are usually very efficient)

- old electrical/electronic equipment that's left on standby (TVs, digiboxes etc - anything that gets warm)

- anti-frost heaters in garages, lofts or greenhouses (not such a problem in August)

It's still not clear whether there's anything actually wrong with her system. Can you check her bills and make sure they're based on actual readings rather than estimates? And what tariff she's on? Share some details here if you'd like is to give an opinion.

Scot_39

Thanks QrizB - Could be - but the op doesn't list too many things his mum is using power for.

1800kWh is around half my annual all electric use for 1 in 2 bed.

So things like pcs that add kWh to my use some days.

Including year round hot water/ shower and albeit modest winter heating.  Likely excluded from that tdcv in many dual fuel homes.

Suggesting their could be other issues in ops mums case or savings to be had.

But the biggest likely already moved over to her gch costs of course as bungalows can be lossy to heat for their size.

badmemory

Please stop her using candles as others have said it really is not safe & only for use in a power cut - if then.  I have 7 lights on 24/7 (yes really) & it doesn't cost me 50p a day.  I suspect she keeps the candles quite close as the light is fairly poor & it just takes her to nod off in the chair & knock the candle & the rest doesn't bear thinking about.

RavingMad

Perhaps it's the thought of one person paying £x a month that seems a lot but if there were two people, the usage wouldn't double.

You should do what you can to identify what cost savings can be made as suggested but 4 or 5 kWh a day isn't much. On holiday, with things turned off where possible, our usage was still 1.6kwh daily 

MWT

QrizB said:

Scot_39 said:

Its far better to talk about energy comparisons in kWh than £s.  As not everyone pays tgesame unit rates or standing charges.

£55 a month, assuming an annual budget DD, is £660 a year. The electricity standing charge is £200 a year, and £460 will buy you about 1800kWh of electricity. That's a good match to Ofgem's "low" dual fuel TDCV:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/average-gas-and-electricity-use-explained

So it could be about right?

Exactly, as I posted earlier there is nothing clearly and obviously wrong with the £55 per month cost, it isn't hard to use 5kWh a day, so I wouldn't be rushing to have the meter tested or doing a deep dive into all the household appliances before checking the basics like which tariff and is the £55 covering the real costs, or is there debt/credit accumulating.