Is this heating bill normal?

[TwinsAndTiramisu]

Just want to know if this sounds reasonable....

Family of 5, 2 adults, 1 teen, toddler twins. 4/5 bed detached.

Twins home all day 3 days a week (nursery the other 4)

Teen home all day weekends and school the other 5.

Us, home most days, DH usually WFH and me some part time work (online seller), with usually a TV on, and heating set to come on at below 21c.

Gas central heating. Electric everything else.

Our precise bill (smart meter) for the last calendar month is £470. £220 electric, £270 gas.

Does this sound vaguely in line with what others are getting billed? A bit toppy, or ridiculously too much? Or indeed, cheap compared to other people in similar circumstances?

On my model, it shows me current usage (in £ or watts) and the daily usage.

I can then scroll through to see weekly, monthly and yearly usage.

The physics lesson:
A device uses power - measured in watts.

So a 10 watt device is using 10 joules a second (that's not important to know)

A kettle is 1000 watts. If you use a 1000 watt device for 1 hour, you have used 1 kilowatt hour - that's 1 kWH - or 1 unit.

If you use a 500 watt device for 1 hour, you have used 0.5 kWh.

So if you know the power rating of a device and how long it's running at that power, you can see what devices are using electricity.

Take a look at the current reading and what does it say. Keep an eye on it during the day and see when it goes up. It's a bit like a car speedometer. The higher it is, the faster energy is being used in the house (higher speed)

Sorry this was how you turn on the half hourly readings in the shell app

Ours was £270 this month combined gas and electric which I was surprised at. There are 5 of us in a 4 bed. DD and I WFH and have a disabled adult son who’s at home most of the time.

I have been putting the heating on for an hour in the morning before youngest gets up and goes goes to school and put it on again at around 2pm as house has cooled down by then, upstairs stays warm for quite a while, leave it at around 21/22 degrees until about 10pm then turn off. Electrics on all day powering 2 laptops, 4 monitors, DS’s PC, kettle and microwave, and the tumble dryer that I’ve been using every day. Older two have been having baths most days as well despite being told to only have one a week so have just hidden the plug! We have a shower cubicle.

I deliberately put the smart meter away as I don’t want to see it. If DD and I were commuting to work and buying lunches, we’d be spending at least £500 a month (DD would spend at least £350 just getting in London) on that anyway.

Yours sounds extremely high OP.

You could try flushing your radiators if they’re bleeding. Maybe your boiler is having to constantly keep working to keep your house at the temp you want if they’re not getting hot enough?

Also something that took me ages to figure out with our dryer if you have a condenser tumbler - you need to wash out the condenser unit regularly as it gets bunged up with fluff. I only found that out from from TikTok (as never read the manual!). Washing was taking hours to dry but after I started doing it regularly it dries in a third of the time. I had 6 bath sheets in there together earlier and they took less than an hour to dry.

You are looking for the energy now bit - and in watts or kilowatts

This is using 6.926 kw (kilowatts) so that's a high power device being used

Could it be that in August you were on a good deal that then ended? That was our situation and then our bills doubled. Check your August electricity usage.
You mention humidity - get a dehumidifier. Yes it runs on electricity but it makes you feel the cold much less and it makes your heating more efficient, so you should save on bills (we do). Bonus is that you can save on tumble dryer.
Check where is your thermostat. If it's in coldest bit of the house you may be heating to a higher temperatures in other rooms than you think. Switch off radiators in the rooms you're not using during the day or put on low.
Get someone to check your boilers and radiators. Maybe do a power flush.
Lights shouldn't be too expensive unless you have really old fittings.

Oh mine looks far more cack handed than this. I appear to have been issued the Nokia 3310 edition.

Will pop a pic on in the morning as to what I can see.

And sincerely, thank you for taking the time to explain the basics, to a grown woman who frankly should know all this.

@TwinsAndTiramisu

For the exceptional amount of electric and gas you appear to use, that amount sounds acceptable. As a few pps have said, why on earth is your thermostat set at 21C?

I don’t honestly think you have a rogue appliance.

I think you just haven’t had to consider your electricity usage before now, so you aren’t particularly frugal in your habits. You use the oven daily as well as the hob, dishwasher is on sometimes twice a day, appliances are plugged in a lot to enable WFH and teen charging etc, electric showers probably haven’t been kept to a quick 5 mins, you have toddler twins so I guess you’re bathing them frequently and there’s a ton of washing that then gets tumble dried.

It would be amazing for you if you do have and can identify a rogue appliance, as that would be an easy fix, but I suspect you’ll have to do the more painful nagging other people to unplug and shower quicker and use the appliances less overall. Sorry.

You should hear me at work going on about this

I am with Shell and I know you can get 1/2 hourly reading if you ask them

I suspect it would show shower times, washing machine, tumble drying times. High power devices sometimes involving heating water. That's where the energy goes

You're absolutely right. It also wouldn't be good for environment if you have a rouge appliance. I hope you'll find the cause.

Have already addressed this earlier.

@cakeorwine it's in account settings in the app to turn on half hourly readings, scroll down and select preferences and click on the meters to change it

I just use the website. I don't need the app. I know who uses electricity in my house. And so does he.

Sounds about right. 21°C is rather warm though. Could you turn it to 18/19 and wear more clothes?

Did you come off a cheap fixed rate some time in the last month or two?

That could explain your electricity costs going up. You're probably currently paying 35 p per unit, whereas an old fix could be less than half of that.

You're also very high users but it will take some lifestyle changes to reduce this, not using the tumble dryer in the summer for example. People who are paying less probably wouldn't do this.

You could have inefficient appliances or lighting but would need an energy monitor to check this for things that plug in, and to check the wattage of your lighting.

If your shower is electric that's another potentially expense use - they can cost £3-4 an hour to run so lots of long showers really can add up, it's not hard to be spending £50 pm just on showering if you all shower each day and take more than a couple of minutes in there.

But your annual electricity use is high by industry averages.

www.edfenergy.com/for-home/energywise/what-is-the-average-energy-bill-in-the-uk

Suggests a high user household uses 4300 kWh of electricity a year, and you're using more like 5500 kWh, so twice the 'average average' of all UK households.

But that would be because you're doing a lot of washing and using the tumble dryer all year around, along with using the dishwasher a lot and keeping your house very well heated.

Most people use less because they would see using a tumble dryer when they could line dry as a waste of money or bad for the environment.

Ours is similar price, but we have our heating on overnight, albeit set to 16

Your electricity usage is double ours (5 bed, 4 adults home all day over the summer, electric oven and tumble drier)! Switch everything off, then switch everything on one by one. Mind you you're using a drier and two loads in the wm everyday, plus hob and oven in everyday - they'll be using masses of power.

I dunno if this helps but
I have heating on a couple of hours a day at 19c
Run a dehumidifier to dry clothes
No dishwasher or tumble, shower daily, bath every week
I'm tight with gas and electric! WFH but don't have heating on for that

Mine is £110 a month for gas and electric

This is why when people give number of people in a household as a comparison it doesn't mean much. There are 3 of us, but DS gets bathed every other day due to ezcema, the (slim) dishwasher goes on every other day and we do about 3 washing loads a week with only bedding/towels/underwear in the dryer.

I agree with this. My total monthly amount (which is tallying with usage so far) is £430, but around 75% is gas.

i live alone and wfh most days, but in an old house which is a bloody nightmare to heat and develops a new route in for draughts every time the wind blows.

I don't understand why so many people surprised about having heating set 21 C ? Even Gov min set from 18-21. This is not unreasonably high, I can't cope with just 17 regardless how many layers i wear, i have to have my heating above 22/23 to feel comfortable (and its not roasting hot as some will start saying), yes is expensive at the moment and i will be repaying gas debt slowly but i can not live in cold property and no way will i turn heating off over night as by morning it will be 12C in the bedroom. I think should understand that some are unable to cope with such low temperatures at home and should not be made feeling guilty for liking their home very warm.

No one is asking them to feel guilty, but when they end up in hundreds of pounds of debt at least they'll know why.

Its just my observation in general from quite a few Heating threads. It seems most people shocked and first response is - you don't need it so high! I'm simply using myself as an example of someone who is not able to live in low temperatures, so i strictly write all my meter reading, my usages, my cost etc so i can be sure my bills are correct and i will be able to balance out the debt during the summer.