To ask how I’m supposed to pay this heating bill?

[ye10000]

This month I put the heating on set to 18. It automatically clicks off when it’s got to 18 and it goes off entirely at 10pm until the morning. I’ve looked at usage and it says the heating has been on an average of 7 hours a day. This had meant a bill of 502 pounds. We are in a three bed detached. That is almost a quarter of my income and I have one dc in nursery, single parent. I am so worried about the coming months, is 7 hours a day average a lot? I thought I was being careful.

Our heating holds the house at 19 all day - wfh and asthmatic

Our bills are no where near that high

Where can you insulate ? Thicker curtains , curtains over the doors ? In the loft ?

Can you only heat key rooms ( our spare room and the main bathroom we keep the doors closed and the radiators tuned off

Start with your routine..that may be different on weekdays than weekends. Then have heating on for 30m before you get up and go off about 30m before you leave the house. Again programme it to come on just before you return home until about 30m before bedtime. Test timings out to suit you and then adjust next week. The aim being to have it on as little as possible.

The other option is to just put it on for an hour or two when it's chilly as you can often keep warm enough with cooking or heated throws, especially when the weather isn't terribly cold. We do this until winter really sets in and then we do the top paragraph.

I work from home now and have noticed a big difference as I need to keep.warm in the day so as its just me I use a heated throw and a jumper rather than heated the whole house for just me.

Ours is on for an hour in the morning and 3hrs in the evening, thermostat at 16 as the hall where it is is a lot colder than the rest of the house. We keep the radiators in the infrequently used rooms turned off, and right down in the bedrooms. We spend about £2.50 per day on heating. If we're at home in the daytime and cold, then it's more clothes, blankets and activity. Hubby also has a heated waistcoat.

My husband, who works in debt advice, says that we need to change our thinking to heating the person not the house. It's hard to do. We've had to do it. Extra layers. Thermals. Blankets. I grew up in a house where my mum like it positively tropical 😂

I live in a 3 bed, £170 a month gas and electric. I am on maternity leave, so during the day I stay largely in the living room which has an energy efficient electric fire, and I have an electric blanket for the sofa. That room is basically always at 20 degrees. Rest of the house cools down but that doesn't matter. General heating comes on in evening and heats rest of house to 18 degrees.

I wfh. I have the heating on 7-9am then 3.30-8.30 ish so still 7 hours a day. during the day I wear an oodie and that helps!

My husband, who works in debt advice, says that we need to change our thinking to heating the person not the house. It's hard to do

We were doing this but a house full of asthmatics it apparently not good for us to go too low a temperature.

This is why a lot of people pay by monthly direct debit and don't really notice how high the gas part is in winter and how little it is in summer. Paying monthly also means you build a credit in the summer that will get eaten up in the winter.

I used to work for an energy company, our biggest get everyone onto monthly DD push was quarter 1 bills, so Jan-Mar when it would say you don't have to pay this massive bill, you can spread it over the year for X amount per month. It helped people budget too.

The best thing we did in this house was buy a thermal camera. You can rent them for a much smaller price. It allowed us to see where we had heat escaping from the house through doors and we even had a section of the loft that was missing insulation, so we put draft excluder strip round the doors and insulated the loft.

You need to try to keep the heat in, but I agree that if there is only one person home then heat the person not the house.

Ours is that high too, as we're retired and home all day. Unfortunately, some of us live in draughty houses that are expensive to heat. We find shutting doors to all rooms not in constant use helps, as do draught excluders (towels work well) and jumpers.

Sounds stupid but candles on really seems to generate some additional heat.

I'd speak with your electric ans gas supplier, as your bill is excessive compared to use

It's not necessarily about changing suppliers but whether or not you are on the right tariff for your usage, if you have high electricity usage or can load shift (some heating need or general usage) then there may be better options out there than the standard one, it really depends on what and how you use energy. Most people don't really think about it in any detail and just use what they always have. If your bills are too high then sitting down and actually figuring out what and how you use your energy and if changes can be made might help work towards reducing those costs better than guessing which is what most people do.

I put my heating on for two hours in the evening to warm up for when DSS has a bath and so I can get a bit of washing dry, and an hour in the morning when DSS is up and getting ready for school. When it gets colder I’ll put it on for a bit more but I’m prioritising keeping him warm at the moment. I work from home so do get a bit cold during the day but I just wrap up.

i know it may seem a stooges way to live but I can’t afford high heating bills 😫

Can't understand those posters who think 7 hours a day is a lot of heating. If that's a monthly bill it seems very high. Mine comes on at 7am and goes off at 11.45pm, it's at 18.5 for 3 hours in morning and 8 hours in pm, rest of time at 17.5, off at night.
Just read the meters for last month, elec about 60 and gas was 146, I pay 165 a month with Octopus which will cover my annual usage with a bit to spare even if we have a long cold snap, I've tracked usage over the past 4 years so I know how much I use over the year.
My house is 4 bed detached with thin walls and rubbish insulation.

It would probably be cheaper for you to work from a hub than stay at home, then you can keep the heating off during the day.

That is crazy money. I am in quite a large 4 bed and keep the heating on for at least 10 hours of the day. Our combined heating and electricity bill is £370 per month.

I’m sorry to hear of your predicament, OP. I’m also a single parent with a young child and that bill would cripple me.

How much was your bill last month? Has it jumped up significantly? If it hasn’t could it be an anomaly somewhere? I agree with a PP that this is the problem with not paying by DD. It’s alright for someone to say that you can just save the difference in a separate bank account but life just doesn’t work out that way for the majority, and any surplus funds get spent. Especially this year.

I would definitely call your energy supplier and explain the situation and look to set up a DD for future months, then add an extra amount of to cover anything you can’t afford to pay for your current bill (i.e. pay £260 this month then set up an arrangement for monthly DD + £20 to pay off the remainder over the coming year).

I really don’t think 7 hours a day is a lot, and 18 seems low. I tend to keep mine on 19 all day (from 6:00 until I go up to bed at 10ish) and my DD is £125pm, although I have a credit from the summer. My current daily usage is between £5-6 for gas & elec.

Google home insulation grants as well to try and get a longer term solution in for next year.

Good luck with it x

We're with OVO and you can manually change the amount you pay with Direct Debit (within reason, you can't set it to £1) We've had in at £107 for the last 6 months but just had a notification that they are raising to £130 until March...which isnt too bad hearing a lot of the stories above!

TBF we have only just turned the heating on the last couple of weeks as we much prefer using blankets and dressing gowns!

DD is way to go its much easier knowing you are paying a similar amount each month.

Surely those people letting their houses entirely cool down for a few hours are then paying more as the boiler works harder to get the house back up to the desired temperature? Also, temps below 15 mean you're risking mould growth.

Last year, we had the house at 15 in the day, 17 for a couple of hours morning and evening, and 12 at night. Bills were £400 pm. This year we've gone for 18 all day and 16 at night (having read about the mould issue, our ventilation is shocking) and even taking into account the drop in energy prices, we're spending less. I'm sure it's the constant temp. We also have pretty good insulation though.

I work from home and don't put the central heating on at all while I'm the only one in the house. It's on for about 7-8 in the morning and then back on for an hour or two in the evening.

Presumably you are in one room 99% of the day when you WFH, in which case it's a waste heating the whole house rather than just you/the room you're in. I wear an oodie over warm clothes, and either use hot water bottles in the oodie with me or sit on an electric blanket. Occasionally blast a fan heater for 5 mins every hour or so. I've never felt cold at all doing that.

Our g&e is about £150 in the winter for 4 of us in a 4 bed so yeah £500 seems a lot for you and a baby in a three bed, particularly if the majority of it is heating empty rooms.

Can't help you with the bill, but it sounds like you have insulation issues.

You can get free insulation installed. I did this with British Gas in a previous home. Had to wait a month of two, but install took a day and made a massive difference to warmth and hills. Your loft insulation should be 30cm thick, I'm guessing you either have none or it's a few cm of very old flat stuff that needs replacing.

www.gov.uk/apply-great-british-insulation-scheme

And :

www.britishgas.co.uk/smart-home/greener-homes/insulation-installation.html#:~:text=Looking%20for%20our%20ECO%20scheme,of%20the%20government's%20ECO%20scheme.

We have it on for an hour in the morning (from just before we get up) and a couple of hours in the evening (from just before the kids have their bath). DH and I both work from time to time from home, but we don't put it on in the day as policy, just more jumpers on/blanket on knees. Sometimes I work from bed. But by and large I go into the office as it's warm - charge my devices while I'm there too 😂But we are tightwads as we'd like to move house in a couple of years. Do you have t option to go into work instead? Depending on commute/childcare could save you money...

That seems a huge amount to me! I'm wfh and have heating set to 20° all day (at least 15 hours), 4 bed detached and total bill for November is set to be around £220. Gas heating accounts for around £130 of that.

We have a 20 year old, middle sized 4 bed detached.

During the winter months (Dec, Jan and Feb), we spend £15 a day on average so £450 a month. Around £10 a day in Oct, Nov and March so £300 pcm. The rest of the year we spend around £5 a day which is £155 pcm. Our DD has seen £275pcm for a year now to take all of this in to consideration.

Do you pay monthly for what you use? or can you set up a dd for a set amount?

Ours is £350-400 for November, gas & electric together. We have heating on a timer and it's set to 20C, it is on in the morning and then late afternoon/evening so probably getting on for 8 hours a day- though it isn't always "on" due to the thermostat, and it is often 20C in the hall so it wouldn't be on. Five of us in a four bed semi detached.

I agree, it's ridiculous. I had a school friend whose parents barely ever put the heating on. I hated going to her house in winter, it was utterly miserable. We'd sit there bundled up in jumpers and still be freezing.
Her parents weren't short of cash either, they were just extremely tight. It was so horrible for her having to live in a freezing house all winter, and totally unnecessary.

I get that some people are in extreme poverty and genuinely can't afford it, but trying to claim that it's excessive to have the heating on 7 hours a day in the middle winter is ludicrous. I would go without most things before basics like heat and food.