shockingly high electric bill - help

fuzzyfelt67

We live in a detached 4 bed house, well-insulated with oil central heating.
We have just been told that our electric bill is over £600 for 5 months usage, pushing our direct debit from £52 to £108 a month!
We have a well insulated immersion heater for hot water set at no 5 ( max 9), my children share a small warm bath every other day, and i use the washing machine 1 - 2 times a day. we use the electric shower twice a day, and have an electric oven. We use energy saving bulbs, and we don't leave things on stand-by. I don't leave lights on unneccessary.
We do tend to leave the immersion heater on but I don't use an excessive amount of water, we don't have dishwashers, and i only use the tumble drier a couple of times a month.
My landlord said he left the immersion on all the time when he lived here and his bills were a fraction of ours (based on 2 adults, and 2 teenagers).
Is the meter at fault? Is our use really excessive? I need some serious money saving advice! Thanks for reading

nickj_2

it does seem a lot , but you are using a lot of things that use loads of energy , anything that heats up ... immersion , cooker etc and don't forget the fridge or freezer .
i would seriously consider asking your landlord about getting economy 7 , you will be able to get a tank full of hot water and do some of your washing at night on a cheaper tarrif . tell him that you can't afford to live there and will be looking for somewhere cheaper . that should focus his attention

sharronej

Hi,

I'm in the same position, my last bill was £670 and this bill was £550. I was devastated because I've never had bills like this before. I have also wondered if it was the meter and have started keeping a log am and pm. My monthly payment has gone from £70 pcm to £160 and I suspect they will try to increase it again with this bill - I simply cannot afford to pay.

Sharron

MarkyMarkD

There's no earthly reason to leave the immersion on all the time if you have a well insulated tank.

Turn the setting on the immersion down A LOT; use the timer on it (if it has one) or simply turn it off. You should only need it on for a few hours of the day.

looby-loo_2

Have you checked your actual meter readings to see your useage?

IvanOpinion

Immersion heaters are notoriously expensive and should not be left on. Can your central heating not be set to heat the water only (it may still be a cheaper option) ... you may not want the house heated therefore if needs be you could try turning all but the highest radiator in the system off (and keeping even that one low).

Generally, as others have said, if something contains any kind of heating element then it is going to be expensive to use.

Ivan

fuzzyfelt67

Hi, thanks for your replies. Our radiators are heated by oil as we are out in the sticks but it doesn't heat the water - We mistakenly believed that it did and had the immersion on full time although it was only set at 5 not the higheset at 9. There is no timer, it's just on or off. Our landlord said he had the immersion on all the time and he had low bills.
We have switched all our appliances off and the meter didn't move so i presume that means the meter is ok?
I have been alarmed by how many people are posting on here with high bills - is this our fuel prices going through the roof? Our last house had storage heaters and an immersion and my dd was about £30 per month (2 years ago).
I will ask our landlord for economy 7 or we really can't afford to live here ......maybe we should become new age travellers, lol!

Premier_2

Whilst your electricity consumption is not low, I don't think it is especially high either, bearing in mind the size of house, number of occupants and appliances in use.

A few things you may need to consider.

The meter - you've checked it is stationary when no electricity is being used. This is a good start, but does not necessarily mean the meter is accurate. Think of it like a speedometer on a car. They usually read zero when the car is stationary, but most read fast (by design) when the car is moving. The stationary electric meter does give some confidence that there is no obvious major problem with the meter (and that your neighbour is not pinching your supply - very rare, esp in a detached house), but there could be a fault.

Having said that, the meter may well be accurate.

Electric light bulbs - a great marketing job and indeed does save electricity. Typically energy saving light bulbs save 80% compared to traditional light bulbs That means you could have 5 energy saving light bulbs on for the same cost as 1 traditional light bulb.

BUT...an immersion heater uses the same power as 30 typical 100w traditional light bulbs! (that's probably more lights than you have in the entire house)
The washing machine (especially if it's new which mostly seem to be cold fill only and so needs to heat its own water) and the tumble dryer could each use the same as the immersion heater.

You think that's bad, the oven probably uses at least twice as much electricity as the immersion heater does!

Even worse, the electric shower could be using 3 or more times the electricity the immersion heater does. :eek:

Actually, they may not be quite as bad as all that - the comparisons I make all compare maximum usage. Turn a light on, and it always burns the same amount (assuming no dimmer); the other appliances will have some kind of thermostat that will mean they will not use maximum power every second they are turned on.

Be careful about deciding on E7. Yes you get 7 hours cheaper electricity (typically about 6p per unit), but you pay more for the remaining 17 hours (typically about 13-14p per unit instead of the typical 10-11p for non-E7 tariffs) I've ignored tier 1 rates for simplicity. So unless you plan to do the cooking, washing, drying, bathing & showering at 3.00am in the morning, you could well end up paying more in the long run.

You could perhaps buy timers for the washing machine & dryer (about £10 each) to take advantage of E7 but I would suggest not changing and fitting a simple timer on the immersion would probably be the biggest saving you could make. This would typically cost less than £20 to buy (or perhaps about £50 for an electrician to supply & fit). You may need to ask the landlord's permission, but I wouldn't think any reasonable landlord would object.

MarkyMarkD

fuzzyfelt67 wrote: »

Our landlord said he had the immersion on all the time and he had low bills.

Frankly, what incentive is there for the landlord to admit that the house he has rented to you is rubbish because it doesn't have any cost-effective method of heating the water? I think he's lying to you. There's no way that leaving any immersion heater on all the time is going to result in "low bills".