To be really confused and worried about energy bill

[Hanooooooo]

I rent a 1-bed all electric flat (UK) and am with Octopus. I have always felt my electricity bill was a little high - £70/month, considering the size of the property, but they have just written to me and following the price hike. Their new recommended monthly direct debit is £121!

I thought this was perhaps normal given the situation but having spoken to my friend in a 2-bed on a £40/month DD I am really worried.

I know all-electric is more expensive and unfortunately there is only an old convector heater (think hot air blowing) in the living room, where I work from home in the day and relax in the evenings.

There is a 'hot tank' for hot water which is very large and old and I am going to investigate turning the temperature down but otherwise I really don't know what to do.

Apparently in January I used 826.0KwH in January - no idea if that is normal.

Please help!

Do you have the immersion on (the hot water tank switch) all the time? As that's v expensive. Or is it only on for an hour or two or day to actually heat the water?

Apparently in January I used 826.0KwH in January - no idea if that is normal

That's absolutely enormous.

I'm also a one bed flat, gas central heating but barely ever have it on, perhaps 5-10 hours a week maximum. Everything else is electric and I used 140KwH the entire month of January, WFH as well.

Convection heater will be expensive to run. Do you have a washing machine going constantly? Immersion heater on permanently?

You need to check your usage is right, have you previously had estimated bills, but yes energy bills are increasing hugely.

My current fixed rate is about to end and the new rates I've been offered are double for electricity and three times for gas.

Presumably you have a smart meter with Octopus, is your usage comparable to last year or has it changed?

Wash at 40 degrees twice a week and always line dry.

Hot water heater is only on 2 hours a night.

I don’t have a smart meter - octopus claimed they couldn’t put one in in my block for some reason. I’ve contacted them asking for help to understand this.

Thanks everyone.

The £121 a month is high, but your friends £40 a month is incredibly low. I live in a 2 bed flat and, with 7 people living there at the moment, my monthly direct debit is £110.

Wash at 40 degrees twice a week

Use 30 degrees for starters.

Is the hot water tank properly insulated? If not, ask your landlord about adding a jacket to it. Turning the temp down could well be a good call - most of the time you mix the hot water from your tank with cold to get it to a usable temperature. Much better not to heat it so high in the first place. Be aware of the risk of legionnaires though - I think you are advised to turn it up to 60 once a week, but it can be lower the rest of the time.

Work out how much it’s costing you to run the old convection heater

electricheatingcosts.com/convector-heater-running-cost/

It might be more cost effective to buy a new type of heater. When we lived in a flat we had oil filled radiators with timers and thermostats. I can’t remember them being too expensive to run but I think halogen heaters are cheaper still now.

www.thegreenage.co.uk/what-is-the-cheapest-electric-heater-to-run/

Family of 4, in an older property (bungalow). Use tumble drier if the weather is poor, run a dehumidifier, cook a lot, DH works from home, teens have computers in their rooms. Our usage is above average and we use 6700 kwh a year.
Your usage is huge.........check how much the heater is costing you to run.

@Tricked2003

Family of 4, in an older property (bungalow). Use tumble drier if the weather is poor, run a dehumidifier, cook a lot, DH works from home, teens have computers in their rooms. Our usage is above average and we use 6700 kwh a year. Your usage is huge.........check how much the heater is costing you to run.

Surely you aren't heating your home with electric at that level of usage though?

We are in a 2 bed electric only home. We used 441.2kwh for the month 10th Dec-10th Jan. Yours seems exceptionally high. First thing I would do would be to take a meter reading and then another an hour later and see how much it has gone up by. Also turn everything off and make sure your Meyer isn't still moving. Then perhaps get an energy usage monitor from somewhere and turn things on one by one to see if there's a massive leap at any point. You could have a faulty fridge or other electrical item causing your bill to be so high.

@Hanooooooo

Wash at 40 degrees twice a week and always line dry.

Hot water heater is only on 2 hours a night.

I don’t have a smart meter - octopus claimed they couldn’t put one in in my block for some reason. I’ve contacted them asking for help to understand this.

Thanks everyone.

Are you in credit or debit with your current payment? I know they ask for monthly readings so how does your payment compare with your usage?

Do you have storage heaters and if so are you on and economy 7 tariff?

You can get a plug in device to monitor the power consumption of portable devices.

Devices like portable heaters can use a lot of energy.

A 1000 watt heater will use 1 kilowatt of electricity in 1 hour. That's 1 unit

The new cost is 28p per unit.

If I run an 8000 watt shower for 1 hour, that's 8 units and £2.24 .

So a 10 minute shower is about 35p.

You need to look at the devices you have that consume a lot of electricity (heaters and devices like electric showers) are classic examples.

You should also be able to look at the meter itself and take measurements during the day to see when it goes up and if you can see any patterns.

Hello. Popping in to let you know that we're doing a Q&A with fuel poverty charity National Energy Action about these energy price hikes on Wednesday 23rd Feb at 12 noon. The thread is now open for questions here.