Cost of electricity

[SmartyPants0]

Can I be nosy and ask if you live in a 2 bed maisonette or flat with only electricity, how much do you pay monthly for your electric bill.
I have just submitted a reading and have been told i have used £1600 for the last year. I currently pay £55 a month my payments are going up to £150 a month.
Shocked beyond belief does not cover my feelings right now

[OccasionallyIncomplet]

3 bedroom house - am very careful with my electricity. £30 a month max. Obviously a little more this time of year. Around the same in Gas.

[Fairylea]

That’s expensive!

We have a 3 bed semi and we use the tumble dryer about 2-3 times a day, loads of washing on, everyone using every gadget known to man and ours costs us £95 a month. Which is a lot to compared to many!

[SmartyPants0]

I know... i may have to sell a kidney. I am now having a smart meter installed but the earliest they can do is February... at least it will give me a daily reading so I know what is eating the electricity..
I will also check that I wrote the correct reading number down. I am out 9 hours a day... away at weekend and often eat out.. I still can't believe I use that much

[Tianc]

You don't need a smart meter to find out how much you're using.

You can get your own clip-on or plug-in monitor. Actually that may very well be more useful, as you can plug it in for individual devices and find out exactly what is using what and when.

www.amazon.co.uk/Power-Monitors/b?node=1938287031&ie=UTF8&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

[Tianc]

A classic culprit is an emersion heater left on somewhere (one poor soul on a forum I read discovered a tank in the loft which had been on since they moved in ).

And in general, heating and cooling devices tend to be the big power guzzlers.

[AccidentallyRunToWindsor]

A few variables here that can be at play

• is this a catch up bill? When did you last submit an accurate reading?

-how long have you lived there?

• what type of meter do you have? Dual meters are notoriously hard to read and easy for mistakes to be made. Likewise plenty of customers transpose their economy 7 reads
• what type of heating do you have? If it's electric what tariff are you on and how are you using the heaters

I would be running through all these questions with you to try and get to the bottom of it.

[Jaffacakebeast]

Have you checked you’re on a good tariff?

[SmartyPants0]

Hi all
Tianc thank you for the link but some of the reviews are not good... think I will get in touch again with SSE to see if they have a cancellation and can come sooner to fit the smart meter. Alas I know it's not the emersion as I had guests recently and had no hot water... the waters on for an hour in the morning and again in the evening. Does me fine.
AccidentallyRunToWindsor last reading was a year ago, I've been told I've used £1600 of electricity in the last year... electric heaters, not storage... all have individual timers. I only cook maybe twice three times a week. Away at weekends... out at work all day.
Jaffacakebeast Yes I've checked I'm on a good tariff
Thank you for your help #gutted

[Tianc]

Oh, that was supposed to be a link to a page with a choice of dozens of different electricity monitors. Not sure why it's got "mumsnet" in the link, either...

Sorry, try this: www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aelectricity%20monitor&ajr=0&url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=electricity%20monitor&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

I used one of the plug-in types and it was brilliant for showing that some appliances were drawing daft amounts of power even when apparently switched off.

[Tianc]

One thing you can do without any extra kit is go round the house and switch off EVERYTHING electric you can think of, including fridge and freezer, for half an hour. Watch the meter in that period and see if it's still showing power use. Then go round switching appliances back on, one by one, and watching to see which is causing the increase.

Other possibilities are that there is a fault in the meter (but IIUC it will cost you to have SSE out to check).

Another possibility is that you are paying for someone else's usage. Either your meter has not been correctly registered to your property when it was installed (scarily common), or, well, you say it's a maisonette: there have been instances when a property has been divided up and all left on the one meter.

[Tianc]

Why has my link acquired the words "mumsnetforum" in it again? That's not what I C&P'd.

[Tianc]

TBH, I think paying for someone else's usage is looking most likely, given you're out so much.

[poorbuthappy]

Have they sorted out the issue with changing suppliers when you've got a smart meter? If not I wouldn't get one if you are trying to save money.

[MongerTruffle]

Why has my link acquired the words "mumsnetforum" in it again? That's not what I C&P'd.
Mumsnet gets money from Amazon for doing that.

[hiddenmnetter]

Find out what your tarrif is. There are 3 parts to your bill:

Standing charge: (a daily charge levied for being connected; generally between 20-40p/day)
Unit charge: the cost per kWh of electricity: SHOULD be around 12p/kWh
VAT: 5% on top of your bill.

So- what do you have that is chewing through electricity? Presuming your standing charge is around 25p/day, that’s £96/year (including VAT). So if your unit charge is 12p/kWh, then you have used around 12,500 kWh. For a small flat that is ALOT of electricity. I mean that’s a staggering amount of electricity. I use around 3000 kWh/year in a 4-bed house with gas heating (although I use around 15,000 kWh of gas). Against a 2-bed flat though you shouldn’t be using more than 5-6000 kWh including heating per year. You likely have something that’s chewing far more current than it should.

First of all- what kind of circuit board do you have? Take a photo with the flap up please. I wonder if yours is protected by an RCD. If not, you might have a minor earth that your board is not tripping against.

If you have an RCD then you have some sort of use that is unaccountably high. Go round to all your heaters and confirm what their kWh rating is (how many kWh they use, for instance a space heater will generally be around 2-3kWh).

Once you know what their kWh rating is you’ll be able to work out what is using so much electricity.

[Oddsocksandmeatballs]

It doesn't sound dissimilar to what I was recently paying in an all electric one bedded, house sadly.

[YahBasic]

2 people in 2 bed flat - roughly £45 a month, probably be more around £55-65 over winter.

[AccidentallyRunToWindsor]

@SmartyPants0 are they the type of heaters you just turn on and heat comes out? If so they are the most expensive type of heating you can get, they can use 3 units an hour.

Does your meter have 1 read or 2?

[SheldonSaysSo]

It sounds high to me. We have a similar household with electric heaters and use £50 in summer, about £100 in winter per month

[dementedpixie]

Those who are saying how much they pay in electric plus also have gas aren't really helping as OP has only electric so won't have gas central heating.

Are they definitely not storage heaters and do you have one or two meters?