Is this bill stupidly high or about average?

[billquestion]

We are 2 adults and 2 DC in a 3 bed detached house. Our energy bill this month was £394 for electricity and gas combined (screenshot attached with the breakdown of each). Does this seem insanely high or about average?? 🤔

Higher than mine, four bed with five people. The difference is that I haven’t turned my heating on at all. It’s set to 18C but we’re still above this.

As always, you will get answers from £20 to £1000.
People live in different ways vs others. Pretty obvious really.

Seems high. Ours is £90 for two adults, a flat, mostly WFH. Barely had heating just haven’t needed it been so mild

Double mine - with Eon Next, large 3-bed house, 3 people, heating on for 1.5h/ day on average.

Mine is £404 for me, DH and 2 young DC when our usual bill was £80pm…

It's very high compared to ours but we haven't put the hearting on yet. Ours was £150 for electric and £50 for gas.

5 bed semi with 2 adults and a teenager.

I’m in a 3 bed draughty 1930s semi. My heating has come on in the mornings 7-8 and some evenings 4-10, but it’s off between 8-4 and off overnight. The thermostat is set to 17°C. We wear jumpers and use blankets. I have a gas hob but electric cooker. Two adults showering every other day. My gas usage is about a quarter of yours.

I think it’s very high and you need to investigate. I haven’t used my heating yet this year so I can’t compare on gas. But we are quite high electricity users according to my provider and our electricity is about £100 per month. I use the tumble dryer for bedding and towels every weekend if it’s not dry enough to line dry. I think you need to investigate. Turn absolutely everything off in your house and see if your meter still ticks over. Do you have a smart meter that shows what your current usage is. Ours sits at about 6p an hour for electric when nothing is on. So I assume that’s just fridge freezer and things on standby.

It looks like both electric and gas will be above the ‘average’ of 2,900kwh for electic and 12,000kwh per year for gas.

Electic in particular looks very high, especially as electic use tends to be more consitant throughout the year (if your heating is not electric), so usage in October gives a better idea of what you may use in a year, whereas gas tends to be used more in winter with gas central heating.

The larger the house and more family members there are and the more you stay at home, the higher your energy consumption is likely to be. Unless on a fix, energy bills went up massively in October and will go up again in April when the government cap is likely to stop for the majority of people.

It will be the heating. We have a 5 bed Victorian house and heating on for 3.5 hours a day at 17 degrees and our bill is just over £200. We have a heater in the living room I have on very low when we're in there. Could you turn the thermostat down?

I'm working through the thread. 2 adults, 1 toddler here and combined use of ~£130 this month in a 4 bed. 1 wfh most days, bath every night for the toddler. No tumble dryer (heated airer) and I've mostly used the ninja over the oven. We've got builders in at the moment for a loft conversion so extra drinks/tools etc. Overall seems quite high but explained by the heating. I noticed just having the heating on for an hour in the morning added £2/3 onto the smart meter.

I do our meter readings every month and seen a big jump in October. I leave my heating on, but at 17 degrees on the thermostat so it's not come on much, also now the prices went up in October. Our bills were about £145pm in the summer, last month £235. Also 2 adults 2 kids in a 3 bed semi

We (2-3 adult size people) are on oil so that £1000 in August & done. What is now in the tank will get us thru winter for heating & hot water, spring & most of next summer (maybe part of next winter, too).

Our Lekki DD is down to £2/month & we still have like £160 in sustained credit.

So I would say £178/month on lekki alone is a lot.

It's your electric use that jumps out at me for being quite high. 2 adults in a 4 bed house, one of whom works from home, and our use never tops 400kwh - usually around 360. We don't have gas so our cooking is all electric and we have a lot of devices plugged in... we run the tumble drier a couple of times per week as well.

Our heating and hot water are oil so not comparable.

£25 gas here, £120 electric.
2 adults (1wfh), 2 teens who shower once or twice a day, 2 primary aged who have 2 baths/ week. Heating not on yet bar an orbis plug in heater. 5 bed Victorian draughty semi. Tumble drier 3-4 times a week. I think the biggest difference is the heating, and the frequency of laundry/ baths.
do you use the oven a lot? Or the tv? We tend towards the hob/ airfryer and Netflix on laptops.

Ours is pretty high, though our gas is lower than yours. Electricity is higher but we have two cars to charge,

We have a 4 bed modern end town house.

Dh and I living here full time but work out if the home during the week, I'm home in school holidays and home from 4ish when I work at home, so using laptop etc. DD is home during the university holidays and the odd weekend.

We have two fully electric cars which we charge at home.

We have showers every morning - not stopping them, nor restricting time unless i really had to. Showers are heated via the gas boiler (new one last year) and a tank.

We also use the heating- thermostat set to 21c (occasionally up to 22c if feeling particularly chilly) during the evenings and for a short while in a morning, using a smart thermostat system. However living room windows aren't good and have gaps. Though we've temporarily taped them up with some special sealant tape, they do let in a draught. The windows throughout are being replaced next month so hoping to see a difference in the new year.

We do use the tumble dryer once a week for the towels, etc.

PCM ours is -
£155 electric
£220 gas

heating is on max 40 mins a day while everyone gets ready in the mornings, wrapping up in blankets etc in the evening.

2 adults 2 children. 3 bed house.
electric oven, no tumble dryer.

Showers every other day (shallow bath for DS 3)

we are £693 in credit for gas.
£393 in credit for electric.

feel like we’re being taken the piss out of given the credit. It’s shit isn’t it OP. Tips appreciated.

Heating is only on the 40 mins a day when it’s cold also! So maybe 4/5 out of 7 days!!

@Anxietyandwine have you checked the temperatures your boiler is running at (not thermostat temp) and have you had it serviced recently and flushed out?

Our boiler is about a year old so hadn’t thought to look and tbh wouldn’t know what I’m looking at!

Are all your light bulbs LED? That makes a big difference. Also, how long are the showers?

Unless you are billed monthly, the credit you have is not a true credit. The payments you have made will be going towards your next bill. For example we are billed 6 monthly and received our bills last week for those 6 months. The credits we had on both fuels then paid the bills. Ordinarily there is little, if any monies left in credit. When we received the last bill 6 months ago, there was in fact a small debt on the gas account.

We pay a lot less than you in a modest 4 bedroomed bungalow for two of us who are home most of the time. We are on the standard variable rate. You don’t mention if you are on as price fix or SVR so if you are on a cheap fix, your usage will be higher than if you are on a cheaper fix.

Our heating is on constant from morning until bedtime, currently at 18 degrees. At the moment the boiler is only firing up for no more than 45 mins during the course of the day. That will increase as we get into deep winter. We do have the advantage of being well insulated, so after the initial heating on a morning, the house is retaining heat during the day.

If you have an electric shower they can really use some energy. A bath or shorter shower is likely to be cheaper. Our shower runs off gas which is cheaper than electric.

Given the weather I use the tumble dryer most of the time other than for delicates. I can save some usage by washing slightly less. Not so easy with a young family. But if you can make things last a little longer before washing you can reduce costs. E.g. I used to wash bedding without fail every 7 days. I now wash nearer every 10 days. Does every item of clothing need to be washed after wearing once (some yes, but not everything). There are lots of things that we do out of habit rather than because it needs doing.

I have an electric oven and use the top oven where possible rather than the main oven, I also use a multi cooker which also air fry’s. That wasn’t bought as a cost saving measure, but it has reduced our energy consumption.

I will not be using an oil filled rad this winter, which will save us a lot of money over the winter months.

LED light bulbs are essential. We have had them for a number of years, although our outside light still has the normal light bulbs. However it is seldom used, so I will wait until those bulbs go before replacing them as it will cost more to replace them than I will save by buying new bulbs. If money is tight focus on replacing bulbs with LEDs for the bulbs that are used the most.

I have made lots of little changes, which have not impacted on our comfort, but have reduced our consumption by around half for electric. Gas has reduced as well, but the weather has been on our side. However it looks like some savings have been made by reducing the temperature on the thermostat from 20 to 18. It won’t be until we get to the other side of winter that I will know how much we have managed to reduce gas consumption.

So that looks right compared with what you were using last year. It is a lot though. I'm sure there are savings to be made, probably starting with the heating. Which rooms do you heat and when? Who's at home in the daytime, if anyone?

@Ihavedogs That's one thing I do really like about eon next, the monthly bills + smart meter mean I don't get a horrible surprise at the end of the quarter!

We have has a Smets1 for years, which sadly have not yet been transferred to the network and ours may never be. So we are unable to utilise any of the third party apps such as loop or Hugo which can be really handy to track usage. We do have the provider app which is ok, although a couple of days behind. Our IHD does work well, but it is only more recently that we have paid much attention to it. More importantly they do communicate with our supplier. Smart meters can be demonised, but I can only speak for ourselves who have had no issues over a number of years.

I don’t mind the 6 monthly bills and there is no nasty shock especially if the DD is set at the right level, you know it is the right level and also know how to track usage. But I appreciate that a long billing period doesn’t work for everyone and there can be a shock if the DD is not at the right level in the first instance and compounded if usage has not been tracked. I can really see the appeal of a monthly variable DD where you pay for what you use in any given month and still benefit from a DD discount, although not all suppliers offer this.