Disputing energy bill

[asblackasyoursoul]

Hi all. We pay our energy bill every 3 months. So:

From November last year to February this year, we used 1428 KW/h, this was with the heating on the entire time. Reasonable charge for that.

This year, from June to August, it claims we have used 1848kw/h. We had not had the heating on for this ENTIRE period as it was the summer.

I did a meter reading and managed to get £50 shaved off.
I know prices have gone up however that’s not the issue, how could we possible have used that amount of energy during the summer with the heating off and it’s apparently less usage than last winter?!

We’re with SSE and have sent them an email saying we are disputing this, I think we need them to check our meter and failing this the boiler needs checking. The immersion is always on as we don’t have an electric shower etc however this has never caused an issue in the past.

Does anyone have any advice? I’m not really great with this kind of thing. Thank you

We only used to put our immersion heater on for about an hour, as mentioned upthread.

Leaving it on will cost a fortune, and account for your huge bill no doubt.

Are they actually readings?
For am electric only house, I'm tempted to say it's the winter reading that is too low rather than the summer one too high.

OP it is definitely not cheaper to leave the immersion on. It's hugely more expensive. I've tested it with a smart meter.

I’d agree with StillNotWarm. For a house with storage heaters, the winter bill sounds very low, particularly if as you say, the immersion heater is always on too.
With Sse, presumably you’re on the cheapest standard variable rate, as it’s not been possible for those without smart meters to fix recently. It’s still pricey and probably not the best for you, particularly if you’re not on an economy tariff. It may be worth (and this is what I did) paying for an experienced electrician (by that I mean an older one as they tend to be do more familiar with these systems!). They could go through your system with you, advising on the best way to use everything economically. You may have timer switches etc that just need to be noggled and set to run to fit your lifestyle. Hope you figure it out.

Why do people continue to believe this crap about it being cheaper to leave on the heating, the immersion heater etc. Its been proven to be incorrect numerous times and nobody in their right mind can surely think that having an immersion heater on 24/7 is more effective. The tank is a big bowl of water and it has a metal stick in it with an electrical element. Every single time the temperature of the water drops below the temperature set the electrical element kicks in and heats it up to the set temperature again. Just like keeping a kettle boiling 24/7. It will be costing a fortune

How does OP have a boiler if she has no gas? I'm not following. I never heard of electric-firing boilers. Only gas/oil ones.

I think she means the water tank. If she only has an immersion heater it’s that which is providing the hot water. It’s also a fairly simple mechanism and unlikely to be “faulty” if it’s still producing hot water.

You get electric boilers
Immersion heater usually implies electricity is heating the water

If its economy 7 then using the immersion during the day will be more expensive than having it on at the cheaper rate overnight

Hi everyone, I just wanted to provide an update as I've got my finger out and done a bit of research.

So, the system we have is a Megaflo hot water cylinder, so not a boiler.

I was wrong in my original post where I said we have had the immersion on the entire time. We haven't ever turned that on.
I was confused as on ours it shows up as 'boost' which I did not realise meant the same thing as immersion.

Have attached photos of the water cylinder. I have just turned the unnamed plug to the left off which I assume has turned off the entire thing, as I won't require hot water until I go for a shower tonight. Is that the right thing to do?

The heating usage for February - June was estimated at 1222kw/h. We had not been doing meter readings back then but we certainly are now.

I do have to apologise for being so ignorant on all this, this is me just learning!

I also just want to say thank you to you all for being so patient and trying to help me understand!

I'm sure you've got the message b now but it's pointless trying to come to any conclusion if your bills have been estimated

Start now taking an submitting readngs, there won't be anything you can do about the past.
As long as you took a reading when you moved in and you've taken and submitted one now the total amount you've used will be correct it just won't be in the months the bills say it was.

Do you have a timer for the cylinder?
If you have storage heaters do you know how to use them effectively? Is it an economy 7 tariff you're on?

We're on the cheapest SSE tarriff which is called Evergreen.

In regards to the storage heaters, last year I set the one in the bedroom to come on for an hour at 4am just in time for me getting up for work at 5.30.

And the one in the living room we just kept on all the time at number 2 which is quite low but kept the flat sufficiently heated. The rest of the heaters we never even used as the flat is small and does keep heat well.

I have tried to look for a timer on the cylinder but cannot see one. Will need to do some further investigating.

Our fully electric system is a wet system so slightly different to yours with storage heaters but there could be some similarities. We have a huge system which has a main water tank, a small booster tank and powers the heating. Beside it we have 3 power switches - one for the heating, one for the boost/immersion tank and one for the main water tank. We inherited the newly installed system and had a timer switch installed to the power of the main water tank. It means that switch is only live when it's times to be and we set it to only be on during our low rate periods on Economy 10. It's a modern system (as is yours by the looks of things) and should be quite well insulated. We rarely needed to use the immersion/boost but it's good to have the option of heating a much smaller tank of water if needed. That power switch is left on, we just don't put the boost switch on on the unit but could at any time if we wanted to. The heating switch stays on and heating is controlled by a Hive.

1. I would recommend either Economy 7 or 10 with a smart meter (available for both from SSE - my neighbour has one from them)

1. If there is no timer switch for the water tank or anything to programme then have a timer installed to control when the power socket is live so it isn't permanently heating and set the hours to the low rate hours on Economy 7 or 10.

Tbh op

id take weekly readings for a while, that way you’ll have a clear understanding of how much your using

you can input them each week with SSE online

then if you have a week when you use a lot more or less you’ll know why or what’s different

Thanks for the replies, will be continuing to do regular meter readings from now on.

See from the picture I posted of the two switches, with the one on the right being the boost/immersion, and the one on the left being I’m assuming the main plug for the water cylinder? So that switch was on constantly.

Am I right in having it turned off most of the time now and just turning it on for an hour in the morning to heat up water?

I can’t speak for your system , as they’re all so different . But the power switch being on on mine wouldn’t mean that the immersion heater is boiling up all day, it would simply mean there is power to it, so that when you activate the boost, it heats up. However , if you have a timing system set as most of these systems do (for example for the immersion heater to heat up over night, every night) then it would be very costly if you didn’t know this was happening and were not using the heated water first thing (and then even boosting, boiling it up again).