To not understand my energy bills

[energyhelp]

Our energy bills are stupidly high and I'm not sure if they are reasonable? Our house is large (approx 10,000 sq ft) and we have a heated indoor swimming pool, underfloor heating and 6 bedrooms. Therefore I expect them to be high but I'm not sure if they should be this high and don't really know if there's anything we can do to become more energy efficient. I'll be honest in that I don't really understand how it all works and what appliances are using what energy... Currently we are paying approx. £2k/month for gas and another £2k/month for electricity - so £4k a month just on energy bills (gulp)

What I'd really love is for someone to come out to survey the property, explain what is using the most energy and maybe advise us on how we can become more energy efficient. Does anyone know if such a company/person exists?! If anyone has used anything like this before I would much appreciate your input. Thanks for any help!

These and a heat pump will save shitloads.

Your house is over 15x the size of the average UK house. The average UK energy bill is about £2200 a year so on this basis you should expect yours to be about £33k or £2750 a month. Add on your electric car charging - say £200 a month and around £300 for heating your swimming pool and I would estimate your energy costs should be around £3250 a month if your house is average efficiency.

Do you have an epc from when you bought the house? I assume if the house is very large it has land, so you could look at ground source heat pumps or other renewable energy. If you have electric underfloor heating that will be very inefficient, wet under floor heating is far better.

If you don't know what is run by gas and what by electric try turning the electric off at the fuse board (one switch at a time maybe) and see what goes off. You may be able to tell by looking in the fuse box, switches may be labelled 'heating', 'swimming pool', 'upstairs lights', 'downstairs sockets', etc for the benefit of any electrician who might need to know, ours are all labelled. Anything electric make best use of your overnight cheap electricity.

Pretty sure its a wet underfloor heating system so presume that's gas? You're right - the pool has a pump which obviously will be electric - didn't think of that. There's also a pond with fish in it that has a pump so that will be more electric.

For those saying heat the pool at night - how do I do that exactly?! Can I just turn the thermostat down in the day and then up at night? If it cools down and then has to work harder at night to heat up could that not be more costly then it just maintaining the same temp?

This is what I mean - we've inherited all these appliances that I've never had before and have no idea how they work. It's why I feel I need someone to come to the house and show my what everything is, how it works and how we can use it all more efficiently. But not sure that person/company exists?! I googled energy survey but nothing really came up for residential properties?

Ok your house is absolutely huge and with a swimming pool.

You are clearly of means so the solution is to get a proper energy consultant in and survey the place. They should be able to tell you what you can do that will make the most difference at the lowest cost, rather than rely on an array of bewildering comments from internet speculators that have never actually seen the place.

As the saying goes, you've got to spend money to save money. I would just want to make sure in advance I was aware of any VIs that the surveyor has.

Just google property energy survey.

I think an energy assessor would be a worthwhile spend for you.
But - check the pool. The pumps probably don’t need to run at full power 24/7, see if you can get them on a timer.
Get an energy quote from octopus, they do good rates for people with EVs.
It maybe be worth looking into solar, but get the energy assessment first and they’ll be able to advise you. You can use this link to find your nearest assessor: www.gov.uk/get-new-energy-certificate

Highly recommend Octopus for their customer service. They have some good tariffs for EV charging as well.

Small changes to your pool set up could help, do you have a cover? Temp difference between water and air impacts as well.

share.octopus.energy/linen-may-473

It's much more expensive to heat by electric than gas.

Do you have an idea what runs on what?

Get to know your meters. I know it's dull but keep taking readings (if you don't have a smart meter). How much does it go up when the underfloor heating is on?

What is on the economy 7 rate? Do you have storage heaters? Does the pool heat between midnight and 7am or all day?

Get your bill for the month and try multiplying the total number of units by the flat rate instead. It will vary a bit by region but it's usually around 24p a unit flat rate (they are listed on octopus website) and economy 7 is something like 12.5p cheap rate and 32p expensive. On numbers like yours the difference could be massive.

If the pool is electric and you mostly use in summer have you a large roof for solar?

It will depend on your heating installation. There are hydro floors running from a boiler and electric floors running from the electric heating element. I would imagine, the pool is heated by electricity and the cost will vary depending on the size and the water temperature.
You bill is also likely to be divvied up equally across the year so, although, your heating is off you may still be paying to settle the debt left by winter heating. Again, there is a big difference between keeping a house at 18 degrees and 30 degrees. My friends have a two bed flat and they walk around in shorts and vest tops in the middle of winter. The flat is insufferably hot so their bills are also though the roof, whereas we wear layers and keep the house at 18 degrees during the day, 20 in the evening and turning the heating off at night. So our bill is not outlandish.

To be honest, switching lights off will be tinkering round the edges when you're also heating a pool.

What temp do you have your general thermostat set to?

I would also add my voice to putting in solar panels. They have saved us so much money (obviously there's an upfront cost but it sounds like you have access to money) that I seriously regret not putting them in when we first talked about it (dithered for years).

Our bills were getting scary high (largish house but no swimming pool!) and we are now in decent credit and I no longer fear putting on the tumble dryer in the winter.

Make sure you get a battery to store excess. Adds cost but very worth it.

If you can turn off all the heating in the room with the pool, you'll knock a huge chunk off. Water is a heat-sink. Just a degree change in the house and 90% of the heating will be used to heat up that huge volume of water.

OP, we are on the Octopus Intelligent tariff as we have an electric car and the overnight rate is 7p per kwh. If you can switch to this tariff and do a lot of your charging overnight it will make a considerable difference.

Car is an easy one to charge overnight as its just set via an app. Appliances like dishwashers normally have a delay start. It may be beneficial to find out who installed the heating system for the pool and underfloor heating and then you could contact them and ask them to come out and show you how it works, that way you can find out how to set those overnight.

Our house is around 3000 sqft and our average electricity bill is around £200pm, also have underfloor heating/immersion heater/car etc. But no pool, I imagine that consumes a huge amount.

Octopus are very good, I would recommend switching to them as a first step.

I had an outdoor pool which was heated April to October but it only added about £250 to our electricity cost as it was an air source heat pump. Can you switch your to something more energy efficient? Being indoors it would be even more savings, though I imagine your pool s bigger than mine was!
Do you use all your rooms? Are there some you can close off and don't have to heat in the winter?
Switching lights off will make minimal difference. What other energy hungry appliances do you have other than the pool? I can see gas being high, but not electricity.
I would see about solar panels and ground source heat pumps. Initial outlay will be high but paying that much already it will pay for itself quicker.

Change from economy 7 asap. your supplier should have suggested this ages ago

seems a strange meter to have, did you have storage heaters at any point?