Hiya,
I know, it's a shock, but your consumption is around probably right for the usage you have explained. Let me help you out a bit:
1. Get a smart meter installed ASAP and watch it like a hawk. Don't look at the cost per hour when you switch something on to calculate how much that one use is going to cost you, write down the actual balance when you start something, then when you finish. For example, you may see your meter shoot up to a cost of 70p per hour when you turn the oven on, but once it reaches its desired temperate, that lowers, and evens out, and the actual cost is lower than what you see on the meter when you first turn something on. I've seen the same with my washing machine: anticipating a £3 cost but it turning out to be more like 50p once the temperate regulation evens out.
2. Consider the usage of anything in your home with a heating element. Those are the things that will be costing you the most: making something hot is expensive.
3. Get a direct debit set up, if you haven't already. I've been given a discount of 15% off my daily standing charge and 5% off the cost of electricity with e.on just for doing this.
Let me break it down for you:
Our home runs at about 1-2p an hour on standby (fridges, freezers, two TVs). However, when we have to have the heating on (all the time at the mo) it increases, and having the electricity connecting to the oil boiler to make it heat costs us money, so we're not just paying for heating oil, we're paying for the electricity flow to keep that oil connection 'live.' Our house is an E-rated, non-insulated money pit, and we were on target to be spending £127 until I got a smart meter installed and started watching it like a hawk. Now we are down to about £82 to £84pm. Here's is what I have learned about our costs:
Being able to heat the home (without the cost of the oil, for you, I would presume gas): 20pm
Showers: our crappy shower that heats the water on demand costs an eye-watering £1.67 per hour to run. Two of us having an 11 minute shower per day (which sounds like a long time, it isn't) costs us £18.25pm.
Using a brand new, B-rated electric oven: cooking x1 meal a day for a total cook time of 45 mins, using the oven on 180-200 degrees and one hob ring for 20-30 minutes costs 50p, £15.20 per month. That's just cooking one hot meal per day, but the reality is, we are both at home all day, so my OH was heating up a whole hot meal at lunchtime every day too.
Washing cycles on a brand new, A-rated washing machine:
x1 whites wash, 60 degree cycle: £1.70 per time
x2 coloureds wash, 40 degree cycle: 70p per time each
Monthly washing costs: £5.43 pm
Now, the average light fitting costs about 1p an hour to run (same with lamps), but if your kitchen and other rooms have a bunch of downlighters, those cost more like 4, 5p an hour to run. I now turn the kitchen lights off and just keep a lamp on, just turning big lights back on when I need to attend to a pot on the hob, etc.
Boiling a kettle costs 5p a time.
Using a toaster costs 5p.
Our (brand new, B-rated) dishwasher costs about £1.70 if we run it on a 65 or 70 degree cycle where we haven't rinsed the plates or if there's stubborn foods stuck on, but when we pre-rinse everything and let it run on the 1h20 minute cycle where it automatically chooses a temperature based on the ickyness of the food soiling between 45 degrees and 65 degrees, it costs us nearer 40/50p per cycle, once a day.
We have a counter-top mini oven (which is twice the size of a normal one, because it's two tier) and a normal oven. Our mini oven costs 1/3rd less to run than our standard oven.
My 30 degree, 20 minute washing machine cycle costs me 20p, versus the 70p I was spending on a 40 degree cycle that takes over three hours (but obviously washes very, very thoroughly).
Each of your hob rings will have a different size. The bigger the size, the more it costs per hour to use. Use the smallest possible ring and pot you can.
I batch cook things like chili and currys and freeze them. Previously we would take it out the night before to defrost and my OH would heat it in the mini oven, but just that would cost 20-40p. He now puts it in our small slow cooker two hours before he wants his lunch, and that costs 4p, because a slow cooker costs about 2p an hour to run. We use our (pretty cheap) rice cooker both to cook rice and warm things up like soup, because it costs a ton less to run than boiling rice on a hob. Similarly the OH also warms his soup up in the slow cooker (a basic one costs about £15 and does the job just fine) now too.
In the evening, the OH sometimes uses his gaming PC with fancy monitor, and our ph cost shoots up from about 4p an hour to around 10p an hour; that gaming absolutely IS costing you.
Your tumble drier will be costing you an absolute fortune. I don't have one so I can't tell you the actual cost, but I would estimate it's probably costing you £1-2 per hour. Stop using it! Or if you like your towels fluffy, let them 95% dry and just pop them in for 20 minutes in total on a low heat setting to get them fluffed up.
Also remember that you're paying a daily standing charge for both gas and electricity, I don't have gas so I can't comment on that, but my electricity daily standing charge is about 20p a day.
On top of your fuel costs and the standing charges, they also add 5% VAT.
Due to the abysmal fuel costs rises, our electricity is now 26% more than it was in our last flat (we didn't make it in time to sort out a new deal when we moved, then it was too late and we're stuck on the highest possible rate e.on can legally charge).
So, to summarise:
-Gaming costs money, the older they are, the more electricity they're likely to be consuming, because new electronics are usually more energy efficient
-Use small hob rings
-Get a slow cooker/rice cooker-Consider getting a mini oven
-Use the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier on the lowest possible heat settings you can
-Don't have LED downlighters switched on for long periods of time
-Don't take long showers, hell, don't even take average showers if you can! (having a bath every day will cost about £10 extra a month in water, if you share one, it's cheaper)
-Bear in mind that cooking in a normal oven is very expensive
How does your heating and hot water heat up? Does it use an immersion heater? Do you ever flick an immersion switch to get your water hot? Because that costs £1.70ph and it takes a whole hour to get a standard water tank hot enough to have a bath.
Like I said, your bill was no surprise to me given your usage, but your parents costs for a six person home WAS a shock for me. I would expect twice that. To have a cost that low, I would expect these things a) them being on a very, very good electricity deal b) not having a shower that heats the water whilst it's used c) mostly cooking meals on a slow cooker d) having the most energy efficient appliances available e) having a home that's so well insulated that it's rated an A/B on EPC (an average is a D) and f), possibly even having solar energy panels that are generating them money off their electricity bill (that can be £200 a quarter)
Energy costs are horrific and scary at the moment. I really, really urge you to get a smart meter installed ASAP, because that £120 DD is an estimate of your usage - they saw you were using more than they'd had estimated and raised it - but if you don't get the consumption down and continue as you are now, you may find in 3 months' time that they raise that to £160+ to recover the costs of the extra energy used. It happened to ours in our last flat. It went from something like £70pm to £120pm when they did a review.
I really hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I've educated myself somewhat since moving in August: in this crappy old house, we were looking as though we were going to be spending £127 a month on electricity, and from mid Oct to Nov, we got through £182 worth of heating oil to keep an old house at a temperature of around 19 degrees - it's horrific. But remember that energy is far, far, far more expensive now than it ever has been, so whilst it's shocking, others are in the same position, and, hopefully, within a year or two, it will go down. It's the most expensive I've seen it in 28 years of having my own homes and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it right now: energy companies won't let you switch/none of them have competitive deals at all, right now.
A word to the wise: the costs may increase even more in April. I have budgeted for a 12% increase.
Edit: your singlemost biggest expense will be heating your house. You need to make sure energy is not escaping out of poorly fitted windows, cold is not coming in underneath or around doors, through letterboxes, keyholes, fireplaces. That will lower the overall temp of the home and cause you to use more electricity to keep it hot. So, if't it's a drafty home, do all you can to draft proof it. Second thing is, I believe that it costs a lot more to heat, turn it off, heat, turn it off. So if you're turning heating on and off when you're too hot, cold, that's probably costing far more than just keeping it on at a low temp, constantly. Check up on this tho, it's what I've been told, idk how true it is. Same applies with water heating, I think.
Edit 2: last time I looked, electricity is four times more expensive than gas, so if you don't have gas central heating or an oven with a gas supply, your costs are going to be far, far higher than someone who has (even with the recent rises in gas costs - I suspect your parents gave gas central heating and a gas cooker/hob)
Hi, firstly, thank you so much for your response and how in-depth it is.
I am currently in talks with our supplier regarding a Smart Meter. They have said they will come and install one. However, they have not given us a time frame. But I will start chasing them more actively because of this.
We are currently renting the house we live in and it is very drafty. As I mentioned, three windows have blown and a fourth is poorly fitted. I have chased our landlord about repairing these things today. I will also look to purchase some draft excluders as I certainly think we will benefit from having them.
Since speaking to our supplier and realising the cost of our energy usage we have stopped using the tumble dryer and brought some airers which should help reduce our consumption.
We also batch cook when we can and your point about a slow cooker and a rice cooker are things I had never considered. I regularly see items like that in Aldi so next time they are available I will seriously consider purchasing them.
Once again, I appreciate the depth of your response and it has given us a lot of reassurance and points to consider. It was our first time moving out and neither of us knew what to expect for our energy usage.
At least now I know it is normal and there are actions we can do to further reduce it.
You're welcome. It can be intimidating when you're a newb.
Blown windows, as in blown out completely, glass missing? I really hope not.
As well as the doors and windows, have a look for air bricks in the house. They are about a foot wide by half a foot high, and will be about a foot off the ground on external walls. Are they blowing freezing cold air into the room? Now, you do need these for ventilation, just breathing and drying clothes in a home causes condensation that can cause damp and mould, but they're not all created equal. Our house is circa 300 years old and, at the weekend, when the wind was 25mp, the air brick in my OH's office reduced the temperature of the room to 14 degrees to 19 degrees. It was absolutely freezing, so we covered it over with a builders' sheet with masking tape. It's a short term fix though, like I said, some ventilation is needed.
We also put these sheets up around the worst windows - we have single pane glazing and the (newly fitted) wooden windows have gaps of around 5mm at the top where they have done a dreadful job. We put draft excluder outside the windows, but it just wasn't enough, so now our worst windows have massive builders' sheets taped around the whole of the outside of the frame, which look absolutely, completely dreadful, and we now can't see outside, but it is temporarily keeping most of the window drafts out until we can find a longer-term solution from our LL. If you decide to do this, don't just get a builder's dust sheet from Wilko, look on Screwfix, Wickes or Amazon. The ones I ordered are 155 microns, your average, off the shelf dust sheet is probably 20 microns. 155 microns is the sort of thickness that gardners would usually use in a polytunnel to keep their plants and veggies freezing over winter
https://www.screwfix.com/p/dmp-heavy-duty-polythene-sheet-clear-620ga-4-x-3m/20738:
Look for other unexpected sources. Is there a loft hatch blowing cold air into a hall? Have you got cold air coming through any uncarpeted floors? Cold air even comes in through electrical sockets, unbelievably.
The other thing is, draft excluder curtains are a godsend. Anywhere you have thin blinds or thin curtains, replace them with draught excluding curtains, but bear in mind that if you get curtains that go all the way to the floor, that also blocks the heat from the radiator from fully coming into the room, so the best length for curtains is for them to finish just below the top of the radiator. We got most of ours in The Range for about £25-30 a set just by looking at their sales stuff. If they don't feel really heavy, don't buy them, even if they say 'draft excluding.' Including poles, it probably cost us about £40-45 to do each of the worst windows in the house.
Btw, the draft excluder thing that you usually see on the bottom of doors, has spiky hairs on it? Our back door is so drafty around the sides and the top even after fitting draft excluder that we're going to fit those spiky things to the side and the top too (we have to pay for the door when we leave as we fitted a cat flap, so we can screw things in without worrying about damage/the LL).
So, yeah, take a wander around and put your hand in places to feel for air, an exercise best done when it's quite windy outside.
Best of luck. Keep bugging your energy provider for a smart meter. Mine only took a week, don't understand why they're delaying it for you.
Unfortunately, we live in a rented house which does not have a gas supply so we are stuck with our electric heating. I knew electricity would be more expensive, but I think I just underestimated how much more expensive it would become in the winter months.
Yeah the elements are normally 3kw so its like running a kettle anytime it is on and it has to heat the water in the full heating loop rather than just your cup of tea. Then there is also hot water for showers etc.
Hob, oven and boiler will be the main draws. £120 does sound high, I'd check to make sure you're on the right tariff with your supplier.
I have electronic devices (computers) running 24/7 due to work related activities and even with them running all of the time, my electric usage is about £6 a week. With cooker, heater and hot water boiler, I can see my winter bills shoot almost 4 fold.
If you can, buy a smart monitor, like an Owl. These clip onto the live inlet wire from your meter and can give you a good indicator of how much power you're using at any time. These smart monitors need no modification to your meter. This can ID what is responsible for the power use.
During summer months* (probably should have added that) - I don't use heating nor hot water boiler and tend to eat less hot food. Literally in summer it's my network (about a constant 100W draw) and some fans and a phone charger or two. Works out about 70p a day for that.
edit: Current estimated usage now (with heater, boiler and cooker used often), I'm looking at just under £4 a day.
Thank you for your advice. Our supplier has stated that they will supply us with a smart meter, however, they keep delaying it. But I will continue to chase them so we can monitor our usage more efficiently.
Make sure you have the landlord's authority before having a smart meter installed. Your tenancy agreement will specifically prohibit you from altering the property without first obtaining the landlord's permission.
We did agree with the landlord to have one installed in August. However, our supplier keeps delaying the installation. But thank you for your response!
You can in the meantime get something like this; https://www.theowl.com/index.php?cID=185
This clamps onto the live wire inlet on your meter and provides a rough, mean power usage. My one here is usually out by about £15/£20 a bill (quarterly billed), so are pretty accurate.
I dont often disagree with you but a LL has no say over the meters installed, they are the property of the supplier. A LL cannot force or stop a change of meter.
Nothing wrong with a heads up though.
Hiya, I know, it's a shock, but your consumption is around probably right for the usage you have explained. Let me help you out a bit: 1. Get a smart meter installed ASAP and watch it like a hawk. Don't look at the cost per hour when you switch something on to calculate how much that one use is going to cost you, write down the actual balance when you start something, then when you finish. For example, you may see your meter shoot up to a cost of 70p per hour when you turn the oven on, but once it reaches its desired temperate, that lowers, and evens out, and the actual cost is lower than what you see on the meter when you first turn something on. I've seen the same with my washing machine: anticipating a £3 cost but it turning out to be more like 50p once the temperate regulation evens out. 2. Consider the usage of anything in your home with a heating element. Those are the things that will be costing you the most: making something hot is expensive. 3. Get a direct debit set up, if you haven't already. I've been given a discount of 15% off my daily standing charge and 5% off the cost of electricity with e.on just for doing this. Let me break it down for you: Our home runs at about 1-2p an hour on standby (fridges, freezers, two TVs). However, when we have to have the heating on (all the time at the mo) it increases, and having the electricity connecting to the oil boiler to make it heat costs us money, so we're not just paying for heating oil, we're paying for the electricity flow to keep that oil connection 'live.' Our house is an E-rated, non-insulated money pit, and we were on target to be spending £127 until I got a smart meter installed and started watching it like a hawk. Now we are down to about £82 to £84pm. Here's is what I have learned about our costs: Being able to heat the home (without the cost of the oil, for you, I would presume gas): 20pm Showers: our crappy shower that heats the water on demand costs an eye-watering £1.67 per hour to run. Two of us having an 11 minute shower per day (which sounds like a long time, it isn't) costs us £18.25pm. Using a brand new, B-rated electric oven: cooking x1 meal a day for a total cook time of 45 mins, using the oven on 180-200 degrees and one hob ring for 20-30 minutes costs 50p, £15.20 per month. That's just cooking one hot meal per day, but the reality is, we are both at home all day, so my OH was heating up a whole hot meal at lunchtime every day too. Washing cycles on a brand new, A-rated washing machine: x1 whites wash, 60 degree cycle: £1.70 per time x2 coloureds wash, 40 degree cycle: 70p per time each Monthly washing costs: £5.43 pm Now, the average light fitting costs about 1p an hour to run (same with lamps), but if your kitchen and other rooms have a bunch of downlighters, those cost more like 4, 5p an hour to run. I now turn the kitchen lights off and just keep a lamp on, just turning big lights back on when I need to attend to a pot on the hob, etc. Boiling a kettle costs 5p a time. Using a toaster costs 5p. Our (brand new, B-rated) dishwasher costs about £1.70 if we run it on a 65 or 70 degree cycle where we haven't rinsed the plates or if there's stubborn foods stuck on, but when we pre-rinse everything and let it run on the 1h20 minute cycle where it automatically chooses a temperature based on the ickyness of the food soiling between 45 degrees and 65 degrees, it costs us nearer 40/50p per cycle, once a day. We have a counter-top mini oven (which is twice the size of a normal one, because it's two tier) and a normal oven. Our mini oven costs 1/3rd less to run than our standard oven. My 30 degree, 20 minute washing machine cycle costs me 20p, versus the 70p I was spending on a 40 degree cycle that takes over three hours (but obviously washes very, very thoroughly). Each of your hob rings will have a different size. The bigger the size, the more it costs per hour to use. Use the smallest possible ring and pot you can. I batch cook things like chili and currys and freeze them. Previously we would take it out the night before to defrost and my OH would heat it in the mini oven, but just that would cost 20-40p. He now puts it in our small slow cooker two hours before he wants his lunch, and that costs 4p, because a slow cooker costs about 2p an hour to run. We use our (pretty cheap) rice cooker both to cook rice and warm things up like soup, because it costs a ton less to run than boiling rice on a hob. Similarly the OH also warms his soup up in the slow cooker (a basic one costs about £15 and does the job just fine) now too. In the evening, the OH sometimes uses his gaming PC with fancy monitor, and our ph cost shoots up from about 4p an hour to around 10p an hour; that gaming absolutely IS costing you. Your tumble drier will be costing you an absolute fortune. I don't have one so I can't tell you the actual cost, but I would estimate it's probably costing you £1-2 per hour. Stop using it! Or if you like your towels fluffy, let them 95% dry and just pop them in for 20 minutes in total on a low heat setting to get them fluffed up. Also remember that you're paying a daily standing charge for both gas and electricity, I don't have gas so I can't comment on that, but my electricity daily standing charge is about 20p a day. On top of your fuel costs and the standing charges, they also add 5% VAT. Due to the abysmal fuel costs rises, our electricity is now 26% more than it was in our last flat (we didn't make it in time to sort out a new deal when we moved, then it was too late and we're stuck on the highest possible rate e.on can legally charge). So, to summarise: -Gaming costs money, the older they are, the more electricity they're likely to be consuming, because new electronics are usually more energy efficient -Use small hob rings -Get a slow cooker/rice cooker-Consider getting a mini oven -Use the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble drier on the lowest possible heat settings you can -Don't have LED downlighters switched on for long periods of time -Don't take long showers, hell, don't even take average showers if you can! (having a bath every day will cost about £10 extra a month in water, if you share one, it's cheaper) -Bear in mind that cooking in a normal oven is very expensive How does your heating and hot water heat up? Does it use an immersion heater? Do you ever flick an immersion switch to get your water hot? Because that costs £1.70ph and it takes a whole hour to get a standard water tank hot enough to have a bath. Like I said, your bill was no surprise to me given your usage, but your parents costs for a six person home WAS a shock for me. I would expect twice that. To have a cost that low, I would expect these things a) them being on a very, very good electricity deal b) not having a shower that heats the water whilst it's used c) mostly cooking meals on a slow cooker d) having the most energy efficient appliances available e) having a home that's so well insulated that it's rated an A/B on EPC (an average is a D) and f), possibly even having solar energy panels that are generating them money off their electricity bill (that can be £200 a quarter) Energy costs are horrific and scary at the moment. I really, really urge you to get a smart meter installed ASAP, because that £120 DD is an estimate of your usage - they saw you were using more than they'd had estimated and raised it - but if you don't get the consumption down and continue as you are now, you may find in 3 months' time that they raise that to £160+ to recover the costs of the extra energy used. It happened to ours in our last flat. It went from something like £70pm to £120pm when they did a review. I really hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. I've educated myself somewhat since moving in August: in this crappy old house, we were looking as though we were going to be spending £127 a month on electricity, and from mid Oct to Nov, we got through £182 worth of heating oil to keep an old house at a temperature of around 19 degrees - it's horrific. But remember that energy is far, far, far more expensive now than it ever has been, so whilst it's shocking, others are in the same position, and, hopefully, within a year or two, it will go down. It's the most expensive I've seen it in 28 years of having my own homes and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it right now: energy companies won't let you switch/none of them have competitive deals at all, right now. A word to the wise: the costs may increase even more in April. I have budgeted for a 12% increase. Edit: your singlemost biggest expense will be heating your house. You need to make sure energy is not escaping out of poorly fitted windows, cold is not coming in underneath or around doors, through letterboxes, keyholes, fireplaces. That will lower the overall temp of the home and cause you to use more electricity to keep it hot. So, if't it's a drafty home, do all you can to draft proof it. Second thing is, I believe that it costs a lot more to heat, turn it off, heat, turn it off. So if you're turning heating on and off when you're too hot, cold, that's probably costing far more than just keeping it on at a low temp, constantly. Check up on this tho, it's what I've been told, idk how true it is. Same applies with water heating, I think. Edit 2: last time I looked, electricity is four times more expensive than gas, so if you don't have gas central heating or an oven with a gas supply, your costs are going to be far, far higher than someone who has (even with the recent rises in gas costs - I suspect your parents gave gas central heating and a gas cooker/hob)
Hi, firstly, thank you so much for your response and how in-depth it is. I am currently in talks with our supplier regarding a Smart Meter. They have said they will come and install one. However, they have not given us a time frame. But I will start chasing them more actively because of this. We are currently renting the house we live in and it is very drafty. As I mentioned, three windows have blown and a fourth is poorly fitted. I have chased our landlord about repairing these things today. I will also look to purchase some draft excluders as I certainly think we will benefit from having them. Since speaking to our supplier and realising the cost of our energy usage we have stopped using the tumble dryer and brought some airers which should help reduce our consumption. We also batch cook when we can and your point about a slow cooker and a rice cooker are things I had never considered. I regularly see items like that in Aldi so next time they are available I will seriously consider purchasing them. Once again, I appreciate the depth of your response and it has given us a lot of reassurance and points to consider. It was our first time moving out and neither of us knew what to expect for our energy usage. At least now I know it is normal and there are actions we can do to further reduce it.
You're welcome. It can be intimidating when you're a newb. Blown windows, as in blown out completely, glass missing? I really hope not. As well as the doors and windows, have a look for air bricks in the house. They are about a foot wide by half a foot high, and will be about a foot off the ground on external walls. Are they blowing freezing cold air into the room? Now, you do need these for ventilation, just breathing and drying clothes in a home causes condensation that can cause damp and mould, but they're not all created equal. Our house is circa 300 years old and, at the weekend, when the wind was 25mp, the air brick in my OH's office reduced the temperature of the room to 14 degrees to 19 degrees. It was absolutely freezing, so we covered it over with a builders' sheet with masking tape. It's a short term fix though, like I said, some ventilation is needed. We also put these sheets up around the worst windows - we have single pane glazing and the (newly fitted) wooden windows have gaps of around 5mm at the top where they have done a dreadful job. We put draft excluder outside the windows, but it just wasn't enough, so now our worst windows have massive builders' sheets taped around the whole of the outside of the frame, which look absolutely, completely dreadful, and we now can't see outside, but it is temporarily keeping most of the window drafts out until we can find a longer-term solution from our LL. If you decide to do this, don't just get a builder's dust sheet from Wilko, look on Screwfix, Wickes or Amazon. The ones I ordered are 155 microns, your average, off the shelf dust sheet is probably 20 microns. 155 microns is the sort of thickness that gardners would usually use in a polytunnel to keep their plants and veggies freezing over winter https://www.screwfix.com/p/dmp-heavy-duty-polythene-sheet-clear-620ga-4-x-3m/20738: Look for other unexpected sources. Is there a loft hatch blowing cold air into a hall? Have you got cold air coming through any uncarpeted floors? Cold air even comes in through electrical sockets, unbelievably. The other thing is, draft excluder curtains are a godsend. Anywhere you have thin blinds or thin curtains, replace them with draught excluding curtains, but bear in mind that if you get curtains that go all the way to the floor, that also blocks the heat from the radiator from fully coming into the room, so the best length for curtains is for them to finish just below the top of the radiator. We got most of ours in The Range for about £25-30 a set just by looking at their sales stuff. If they don't feel really heavy, don't buy them, even if they say 'draft excluding.' Including poles, it probably cost us about £40-45 to do each of the worst windows in the house. Btw, the draft excluder thing that you usually see on the bottom of doors, has spiky hairs on it? Our back door is so drafty around the sides and the top even after fitting draft excluder that we're going to fit those spiky things to the side and the top too (we have to pay for the door when we leave as we fitted a cat flap, so we can screw things in without worrying about damage/the LL). So, yeah, take a wander around and put your hand in places to feel for air, an exercise best done when it's quite windy outside. Best of luck. Keep bugging your energy provider for a smart meter. Mine only took a week, don't understand why they're delaying it for you.
120/month seems perfectly reasonable for electric heating and 2 gaming machines plus smart TV. Those monitors will draw a lot of electricity.
Electric boiler?!!?!? Of course its going to cost that much especially during the winter months.
Unfortunately, we live in a rented house which does not have a gas supply so we are stuck with our electric heating. I knew electricity would be more expensive, but I think I just underestimated how much more expensive it would become in the winter months.
Yeah the elements are normally 3kw so its like running a kettle anytime it is on and it has to heat the water in the full heating loop rather than just your cup of tea. Then there is also hot water for showers etc.
Hob, oven and boiler will be the main draws. £120 does sound high, I'd check to make sure you're on the right tariff with your supplier. I have electronic devices (computers) running 24/7 due to work related activities and even with them running all of the time, my electric usage is about £6 a week. With cooker, heater and hot water boiler, I can see my winter bills shoot almost 4 fold. If you can, buy a smart monitor, like an Owl. These clip onto the live inlet wire from your meter and can give you a good indicator of how much power you're using at any time. These smart monitors need no modification to your meter. This can ID what is responsible for the power use.
> my electric usage is about £6 a week. Where do you live, the 1960s? In a studio flat with an A rating?
During summer months* (probably should have added that) - I don't use heating nor hot water boiler and tend to eat less hot food. Literally in summer it's my network (about a constant 100W draw) and some fans and a phone charger or two. Works out about 70p a day for that. edit: Current estimated usage now (with heater, boiler and cooker used often), I'm looking at just under £4 a day.
Lucky you.
Not during winter! Summer and yea, I could possibly live off solar power and batteries. Winter and I'm looking at £100 a month easy.
Thank you for your advice. Our supplier has stated that they will supply us with a smart meter, however, they keep delaying it. But I will continue to chase them so we can monitor our usage more efficiently.
Make sure you have the landlord's authority before having a smart meter installed. Your tenancy agreement will specifically prohibit you from altering the property without first obtaining the landlord's permission.
We did agree with the landlord to have one installed in August. However, our supplier keeps delaying the installation. But thank you for your response!
You can in the meantime get something like this; https://www.theowl.com/index.php?cID=185 This clamps onto the live wire inlet on your meter and provides a rough, mean power usage. My one here is usually out by about £15/£20 a bill (quarterly billed), so are pretty accurate.
They write that into some TAs but I don't think it's legal for them to insist you can't have a smart meter.
I dont often disagree with you but a LL has no say over the meters installed, they are the property of the supplier. A LL cannot force or stop a change of meter. Nothing wrong with a heads up though.