Average Electricity Costs Poll

Premier_2

johnlewis179 wrote: »

Hi All,
I received my winter quarter bill this month from Southern Electricity and it has come up to GBP 570. I would like to know whether this is a normal bill amount. We have only electricity at home, no gas. My winter consumption details are as follows
- live in a 2 bed room apartment.
- there are 2 adults including me and one 4 yr old child
- Got LCD TV and a Laptop.
- Only one electric heater runs, others are switched off the whole day. The one that is on runs only for a few hours per day.
- we take hot water bath daily.
- we cook 3 meals a day so I think our cooking is quite extensive.
- the house has laminated flooring and doors and windows have double glazing.

For the last 3 quarters, we have received on average GBP 250 so i feel that this quarter the bill is slightly high, although i accept that our winter usage has been quite high. I need some advise as to what i should do. Should i ask the energy supplier to do some investigation if thats possible or should I just pay the bill and accept it as is?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, please!!!

As mentioned in the immediately preceeding post, are both the previous & current readings actual meter readings? Have you checked them yourself for accuracy? (Obviously the previous one would have to have been checked when you got the previous bill, where it would have been the current reading then)

Then if you cannot see any error in the calculation (doubtful since it's all computerised), then the only other option is the meter recently developed a fault (also doubtful ... but you can do some simple checks yourself if necessary)

If you ask the supplier to check the meter, I would expect them to charge you for such work (unless the check actually proves the meter to be faulty)

My guess is that either one or both meter readings were estimated (or otherwise inaccurate) ... or you really have consumed that amount of energy in the last billing period.

grahamc2003

johnlewis179 wrote: »

Hi All,
I received my winter quarter bill this month from Southern Electricity and it has come up to GBP 570. I would like to know whether this is a normal bill amount. We have only electricity at home, no gas. My winter consumption details are as follows
- live in a 2 bed room apartment.
- there are 2 adults including me and one 4 yr old child
- Got LCD TV and a Laptop.
- Only one electric heater runs, others are switched off the whole day. The one that is on runs only for a few hours per day.
- we take hot water bath daily.
- we cook 3 meals a day so I think our cooking is quite extensive.
- the house has laminated flooring and doors and windows have double glazing.

For the last 3 quarters, we have received on average GBP 250 so i feel that this quarter the bill is slightly high, although i accept that our winter usage has been quite high. I need some advise as to what i should do. Should i ask the energy supplier to do some investigation if thats possible or should I just pay the bill and accept it as is?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, please!!!

Something really doesn't add up there - your extremely high £570 bill wouldn't be produced from your description of your usage.

The high cost items in your list are the heating, water heating and cooker - you can forget the rest as their cost will be (relatively) minimal.

The heating seems odd to me - you have a 2 bed place, and to heat it over the last few weeks you just had one heater on for a low number of hours per day? You must like it cold! What rating is the heater? If it is 2kw, then that should cost 20p/hr, do say 5 hours/day is £1per day, so £90 the quarter.

Water heating - is your immersion switched on constantly? do you have a well lagged tank? Taking the worst case, say 3kw (controlled by a thermostat, and to allow for 3 baths per day), say 3 hours, so say anotehr £1 per day, or £90 pq.

The oven/c ooking is a bit of an unkown. But say 3kw for 3 hours per day (again, a theromstat controls it so that means actually cooking for 5 or 6 hours), making yet another £90 pq.

Add in all the other stuff, tier 1 etc, and it looks like the worst case (from your description) should be be about £350 pq.

I've assumed 10p/kwh, so if you are paying 15p (for tier 2, the max I've seen), then it could be £525 max, worst case.

My guesse would be your space heating being the culprit, with either the number of heaters or the length of time they are on being the biggest part of your bill. Heating at non-e7 rates is a killer for bills.

Karen._2

I pay £91 per 2 weeks (or £182 every 4 weeks) to pay what im apparently using and to pay off arrears.

Its Economy 7
iv a top floor one bedroom flat
no gas
had energy saving team out, they say iv correct amount of insulation in roof

today i gave NPOWER my meter reading.... they say my night reading hasnt changed since January!!!!!!

I said 'iv been telling you I thought there was something wrong with the meter for years!'
'Oh, no it doesnt mean there was a problem before your last reading'

WALL-HEAD-BRICK comes to mind!
Arggghhhh!!!!

wild666

At the old place I used to pay £100 for GAS & £100 for ELECTRIC on prepayment meters for a three bedroomed bungalow that was built in the late 80's and it would never be warm just checked on -line and this new place a 2 bedroomed flat is going to cost £56 for GAS & £35 for ELECTRIC. Butt he tight sod I am I will have that down by the end of the year as the prepayment ELECTRIC meter that is in now has used only £1 a day since we moved in, but like I said they will come down I will make sure of that

HappyEnough

We are a family of 6, in a 3 bed terrace house, with all the usual electronic gadgets, 4 tvs, xbox, wii, 2 laptops, im a sahm and so im in all day and use washing machine average 2 x daily, dont tumble dry and only have heating on after 4pm until 9pm, never in the mornings, and it goes on the middle of october and OFF 1 april each year.
We have prepay card meters and use:

Winter GAS - £15 pw
ELECTRIC - £15 pw

Summer GAS - £10pw (i dont use all this, i let it build up for the winter, and usually start off october with about £100 spare)
ELECTRIC - £10 pw.

I think this is pretty good really?

j-lo1972uk

After reading some previous posts, I'm shocked....

I live in a 2 up, 2 down mid terrace....I live alone...run my washer on average 3 times per week, dishwasher the same and don't leave anything plugged in or on standby (even my cooker and hob get turned off unless they're being used)....gas central heating, 5 radiators and nothing else on gas....I'm out all day at work....and don't think I use either service excessively....

According to EDF, I'm using

£104 electric per month
£63 gas per month

This is a year round figure for both....

Some people in much bigger houses/families etc seem to be paying MUCH less than me....

shanson

I live in a small flat with electric only. I was doing really well up to September (£20 a month), but then I left the heater on too much.

I'm with NPower on the Sign Online 17 Economy 7 tariff.

FEB to SEP: 413 kWh (night) + 698 kWh (day)
TOTAL COST: £140

SEP to NOV: 270 kWh (night) + 690 kWh (day)
TOTAL COST: £101

Average monthly for the 9 months around £27

Still havn't recieved a bill since NOV, I know its going to be bad though what with the new rates that started in Jan.

Sign Online 17 Economy 7 tariff rates (inc VAT)

The New Rates that started Jan 4th:
Daily Unit Standing charge: 25.2p
Day Unit Rate: 11.6p
Night Unit Rate: 4.29p

The Old Rates:
Daily Unit Standing charge: 20.16p
Day Unit Rate: 11.15p
Night Unit Rate: 4.45p

daisymeadow

We are a family of 3 including small child. yearly units usage of 4700 electric no gas. so £68 per month . We heat house with wood apart from tiny electric heater in bathroom for 3 hours a day for 6 months of year. Have usual fridge, cooker and washing machine , all energy saving light bulbs , loft instalation, No tv or any gadgets, nothing on standby , only a kettle, Small terraced house, how can we be usung that much , is this normal , does any one think our meter could be wrong.The meter readings are not estimetes. please help. thanks

Chrysalis

daisymeadow wrote: »

We are a family of 3 including small child. yearly units usage of 4700 electric no gas. so £68 per month . We heat house with wood apart from tiny electric heater in bathroom for 3 hours a day for 6 months of year. Have usual fridge, cooker and washing machine , all energy saving light bulbs , loft instalation, No tv or any gadgets, nothing on standby , only a kettle, Small terraced house, how can we be usung that much , is this normal , does any one think our meter could be wrong.The meter readings are not estimetes. please help. thanks

funny enough yours seems low compared to me.

Yours is for 3 people and have an electic heater on 3 hours a day. My units 3240 a year for me on my own. I would love to know how people spend under £15 a month on electric. My sister's is under that but she is barely in her flat however she has lizard tank on 24/7 so hers seems low as well when thinking about it.

Personally I think there is a ton of innacurate meters out there, plus a more than people realise issue of tapping. I remember queryine a very large gas bill, they come and changed the meter, since then much lower gas meter readings. I mean much lower not just slightly, is something in the region of about 1/4.

jase951

Hope you guys can help!

I've just received a letter from Scottish Power claiming that they have just realised that they calculated our previous (~8 months) bills using estimated meter readings. They have recalculated based on actual figures and subsequently sent us a bill for £430 more.

So in total between August 10 and start of April 11, say 8.5 months we've used £830 (9450 KWh) worth of electricity. I live with my flatmate where both of us work during the day, we have storage heaters, electric heated water tank, no gas. On Economy7, ~5.6p night, ~11.5p daytime and standing charge ~13p per day. Does this sound right?

Cheers!

Jase