Can't afford to keep the house warm - £800 p/m?!

[CinnamonSwirl82]

I'm cold, I'm miserable, I'm skint.

Tried heating the house to maintain 18 across the day and it cost £25. Even turning it on for an hour in the morning (doesn't heat anything) and an hour in the evening pre-bed costs us £15 a day. We keep all the lights off, everything is turned off at the plug and we now just use the biofuel fireplace for heat/light in the evening. All for the cheap price of £11 a day.

I'm feeling absolutely miserable that I have to sit in a cold, dark house and spend £350 p/m for the pleasure of it. Thats over £4k per year. It's only myself and my partner so we don't need to keep the house warm for kids and we can sit in the dark with a couple of candles/fireplace. We live in a 3 bed semi 1970s build.

How is this right? Where on earth did the government pull their figure of £2.5k bill for the average family from? We're less than the average family living in the average home.

I'm contemplating getting in to debt just so it doesn't feel like my nose is going to fall off my face and my joints stop hurting 😭

These figures don’t sound right. If we have ours on for 1 hour per day the total gas spend is around £4.50, obviously includes the standing charge and the hot water that comes on each day morning and night. One hour in the morning and one in the evening (what we’ve been doing only when it’s really cold like now) the total gas spend is around £6.50. Electric is around £5 per day.
Theres something in your house using a lot of energy. How is your water heated?

Are you sure that's right?

I WFH and live in a 4 bed 1960's semi and have the heating on 18 degrees for 3-4 hours a day (doesn't get below 16 degrees in the daytime) and it's costing me around £5 a day in gas.

I'd suggest joining the following Facebook page, and being prepared to put a copy of you bill up. There are loads of people there with knowledge to spot mistakes or help you reduce costs.

m.facebook.com/groups/966754150512356/

The only thing I'd day is if that £25 is from a very cold house, subsequent days will be cheaper, as the house should be warer to start with.

I've turned the radiators off except in my bedroom, the living room and my elderly mums room.

We have oil which is about 500l and costs approx £500 - that lasts two months and our elective is approx £220 pm.

Even so that's about 450 - 500 a month and there's a loads of us ( my daughter and her husband rent our annexe too although they aren't on the oil supply ).

So 5 adults and two children - yours sounds extortionate. I think you need to do a bit of investigation into what is using such an awful lot of power.

We have a shitty old air source heat pump which is on 24/7 (due to underfloor heating its impossible to regulate temp for short bursts as takes 12 hours to warm from cold). On really cold days it costs a £15 a day. Last month was our most expensive at £350.

Obviously in summer this drops drastically.

Are your figures based on your actual usage or the direct debit your supplier has set? Seems very high.

We also have the hot water on 24/7 as switching it off doesn't seem to make a discernible difference to cost.

Water is heated via boiler. We don't have an immersion heater - I sent DH up in to the loft to check for a tank and we've followed all cables in the boiler room. Definitely no backup heater guzzling fuel.

When I wake up in the morning the meter is already at £1.80. Our fridge-freezer is obviously always on standby - I went online and found it's KWh and it should be costing approx 40p per day. Smart meter says useage per hour is around 0.09p when not using anything. I do WFH, don't have any heating on and only have my laptop plugged in when the battery is all gone. I don't use any extra screens anymore.

I've tried contacting octopus at least 5 times to say something isn't right and they keep ignoring me. I even put in a complaint and their response just mentioned something about our bill showing the government discount and completely ignored the section where I said 'something doesn't seem right'. They installed new meters when we moved in so I'm concerned they're not working properly. Doesn't help when they're just ignoring me 😭

On the day it cost us £25 to keep a constant 18, we heated the house to over 18 the day before so we knew we were starting from a solid baseline. I can't afford £800 p/m for the minimum recommended temperature 😭 it's a second mortgage.

@TellMeWhere we have underfloor heating but that's switched off at the fused socket. It's never used.

Figures based on actual useage taken from the smart meter.

Even on days we're not in the house it still somehow costs us around £8 a day?! Example being Christmas eve when we spent the day at the in laws.

Switch supplier? You're obviously on a ridiculous tarrif. Also, yes if you need to and you have access then get into debt to stay warm. It's a false economy to freeze, it's so bad for your health. It's very cold at the moment

There must be something awry. I've heard of utility metres running too fast. If Octopus aren't responding to you then you need to escalate this. I've read that in cases like this the utility company will have to start compensating you for the delay in checking your meters if they don't respond in a reasonable timeframe.

I'm in a 70s house and keep it at a comfortable temperature for much much less.

What insulation do you have? And what about your floors? Are they properly laid or do you have flooring directly on top of concrete?

I've identified any places that drafts come in. I have a couple of drafty windows which I have put heavy lined curtains in front of.

I have blocked a couple of tiny but drafty holes on external walls with bluetack!

That figure can't be right or your house has very low insulation. I live in a 5 bed detach and we pay just under £250 a month direct debit. It's averaged throughout the year obviously.

Given that, I can understand where £2500 a year come from because I live in a slightly bigger than average home.

Have you checked the humidity level in your house?

If you have higher humidity, it's harder to get the house to feel warm unless it's practically tropical.

I got a dehumidifier & when the humidity levels dropped, so did how much I needed to have the heating on.

We have gas central heating, old boiler and I keep the thermostat at 19C in the day and 17C at night, for reference. All for £250 a month in a 5 bed.

Is your boiler always on? You can tell by standing next to it? It maybe that you never reach 18C and it's just constantly on. Even today, mine aren't on all the time to reach 19C.

So at no point do you actually say how your house is heated, whether it is by electric, gas system boiler etc.

If it is electric then £25 a day equates to (£25/0.35)=71 kWh per day.

if it is gas then £25 a day is (£25/0.1)=250 kWh per day.

Both of which are pretty staggering figures.

So, what is your heating provided by and how much do you pay per unit on your tariff ? Are you on standard tariffs provided above (0.36 electric and 0.10 gas).

I agree those figures are off. I'm not fixed and only pay £100pm without being careful of electrics, though I don't use that much heat as prefer to be under blankets anyway

Agree with the pps it doesn’t sound right

Ours isn’t that high and it’s four bed

@Perfect28 on an economy 7 tariff. 44p per kWh electric during the day and 15p during the night (washing machine gets run during the night). One bill we had did include a government discount so I'm assuming we're paying 33p during the day.

Gas is 0.11p per kWh.

My house is all electric (boiler + immersion) and on a v cold day it will be £30 a day. However do have appliances on, and a partially sighted DH who wants all the lights on.

But that really is not most days, only those where it is minus degrees all day.

There must be a factor in your house/boiler/meter making your costs so high.

Do you have an electric car?

@ItsNotReallyChaos where/how do I escalate this? I've heard of meters running too fast too and given that they were newly installed and that's when the problem started, I really really think it's the case.

Not sure what's under the floors as they're here from the previous owners. It's laminate in most rooms so will assume there's an underlay there. Kitchen is vinyl so probably on top of concrete.

I've been complaining about it for two months to them. Not sure what's deemed a reasonable timeframe.

@GasPanic heated by gas boiler. We just never have it on any more and only use it when we need to heat water for a bath. I'm using the fireplace to heat the living room/hallway and have a 0.75kwh heater (which does throw out some heat!) to heat the bedroom for 30 mins a day.

I have colleagues with houses twice the size of mine and double the amount of people living there (and WFH) who are using approx the same amount as us daily. They're by no means cold or scraping on electricity either.

Nope. Run on dinosaur goo

Why are you on an E7 tariff?
What is the split between gas and Electricity for the £800?

Previous owners were on one. I emailed them asking them to take us off it (which they've ignored) and put us on standard. Not sure if that would benefit us though as we can run washer& dryer during the night for 40p. Could possibly backfire

What is "the fireplace" and how long do you have it on per day ?

Time (hours) and whether it is gas or electric ? if it is electric do you know the kWh ?

I think something is horribly wrong somewhere with your system. We can find it for you 9or more correctly help you find it yourself) but you do have to provide specific info.

I think your starting tariff isn't great. OTOH even with E7 tariff it is hard to see how you use so much.

What is your daily split between electric and gas in either cost or kWh ? This will tell you where to start searching for the problem.

Your tariff is more expensive than my standard variable deal. Unless you're using a lot of electric overnight, switch.