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 😭

Are you sure about your figures? I heat mine for 90 mins in morning and 2.5 hours per evening, hot water is at same time and it's £6.90 today currently, usually £6.50-7 most days.
Our standing charge is high here too. I cook with gas as well.

What were your costs pre rises. I was paying £90 a month pre 2020

I’m using roughly £7 a day on smart meter for gas and electric combined, and that’s me being really careful with usage. (My dh used his flashlight to go in the kitchen as he said he didn’t dare put the light on or I’d moan 🤣 he was taking the piss obvs) but that’s how strict I am with it.

We shower daily at the gym, use eco wash on the washer one load a day, drying on the airer and only using tumble dryer once a week for towels. Air fryer for cooking, heating on max of 1 hour a day (and even then that’s not every day) everyone has dressing gowns on, blankets on sofa etc, I give ds a really quick 3 min shower a night (needs showering daily, he’s gross 🤣)

Cant cut back anywhere else but I can’t afford over £200 a month on gas / electric either.

Its ridiculous.

It’s clearly an issue maybe not the whole issue but certainly an issue

I also have that smart meter, and since the price rises, or the switch from Bulb to Octopus (not sure which) it doesn't give me accurate readings anymore. Occasionally it tells me I have used £400 of energy in a day, other days it says I have used less than £1. It does correct itself when you look at the history, and my bills seem to be correct. So this might not be the same problem that you are having. But it would be worth you checking the figures on your meters too, to see whether they are different

There is absolutely no benefit to being on Economy 7 unless you are an all electric house. You also need to double check the unit prices as we are Economy 10 with edf and day rate has gone up and is way way more than any standard tariff rate. I continually do the maths to make sure the combined kWh's we use wouldn't be cheaper on a standard tariff but as our water is heated overnight and washing/dishwasher run during low rate times through the day plus heating mainly during those hours it's still worth it for us. Look at your actual meter readings and work out what you would spend if you were on a standard tariff.

Placemarking

We have a 4/5 bedroom house and have the heating on for 90 minutes of a morning while the kids get up and from 4pm to 8.30pm. We have electric showers and electric blankets, family of 4. We've spent £110 so far this month.

Two of us wfh. The house is 14 degrees this week but we do not put the heating on. We wear oodies, fingerless gloves, electric throws. This was what we did pre bill increases because we can't afford to spend money on fuel and we cut back, and because I was raised with no central heating or double glazing and so use heat sparingly, when the kids are about.

In the nicest possible way, we would love to have the house at 18 but it just isn't financially viable, never has been for us, and it's just not in my upbringing. I simply put another jumper on. Even sitting at my desk all day at 14 it hasn't been "miserable" and we have a big house to heat too.

Are you taking all options to keep yourself warm without cranking the heating up? This includes hot water bottles, heated blankets etc?

The old Economy 7 systems had a traditional electromechanical "disc" meter paired up with a black box called a Radio Teleswitch. The disc meter actually had two sets of number wheels - one kept track of the units used on the day rate and one kept track of three units used at night - the job of the Radio Teleswitch was to switch the disc meter over so that it started measuring units used at night when the night tariff started and also to switch the disc meter back again in the morning to start measuring the units used at the day rate. I'm assuming you have a smart meter that does this now - can you check that there is some indication on the display that tells you it has switched over to the night rate and dues it tell you what the unit price is for the night rate? Also check that out is switching back to the day rate in the morning. If the smart meter hasn't been configured for Economy 7 it may not be switching between the more expensive day rate on to the cheaper night rate - this might account for your higher than expected usage/cost - doesn't your bill tell you how many units you have been charged for at the day rate and at the night rate? Are you sure you are still on the economy 7 scheme - it's been planned to be phased out for many years?

Is your smart meter (not the display unit) working correctly and actually sending readings?

On the Octopus website you should be able to see your half hourly readings if you click on ‘explore my usage’ then ‘go back to old dashboard’ at the bottom. That will allow you to see when electric use is the highest during the day, and maybe you can pinpoint the issue that way.

I’m also with Octopus and have never had an issue getting through to them on the phone.

Okay, I rang them up.

He laughed when I told him we were showing as using 24kwh a day between two of us and agreed something doesn't seem right. He's sending health checks through to the meters and is going to get them checked over because it's very high usage given that we're not using it and it's still high on days we've not been home.

Switched over to the standard tariff from E7 as I shouldn't have been on it - it's 10p/kWh cheaper now. He said our day rate was showing at 0.80p/kWh and it was the highest he's ever actually seen.

At least I know I wasn't going crazy and somethings definitely wrong.

To be using 27 kwh a day would mean you have something like a hot tub with 2x 3kwh heaters on 247 and used daily
even so with my hot tub I use around £8-£10 electric every day

if the hot tub isn’t on then it’s under £5 generally around £4 a day

without the hottub my electric rarely goes over 12kwh normally around 10kwh a day
so my hot tub uses between 12 and 15kwh a

so basically you are using similar to me but without a hot tub 😂

my gas in a very cold spell can be £40 a week
but generally it’s around 12 a week with the heating set at 18

Actually if your rate is 80p owe kwh
that would explain a lot are you sure it’s not on a business / commercial charge and not residential
I had issues when I changed from E7 to SVR and I was kept on a E7 tarrif of 48 p per kWh

if yours is 80p per kWh that would explain the high bill but not the high usage

so even now if you are on a lower tarrif of 32 .p kwh

On 27 kwh your going to be using around £10 a day as that’s similar to my usage and unit rate

Oh and check your actual meter
the one that’s outside
press either the blue or white button and it will tell you what your unit rate is

don’t trust them to say it’s been done

EDF kept saying I was on the correct rate despite me showing them screenshots of the meter rate being completely different

He said our day rate was showing at 0.80p/kWh and it was the highest he's ever actually seen.

You need to ask for a retrospective rebate for previous bills because you should never have been on that rate in the first place.

Good that they've recognised that the number of units is unlikely to be correct too.

Something about high electricity usage is just not right! I would investigate asking for help from an electrician maybe.. Look, we are family of 3 in 3 bed semi, have lots of things on stand by - telly, microwave, coffee machine, a PC, two laptops always plugged, one of them is 7 years old, American fridge freezer (also 7 years old), mobile phone chargers hanging from the sockets (I don’t bother flicking on and off the sockets either). Boiler is gas but obviously powered by electrics also on standby..
washing machine used twice a week, hoover 3 times, cook on induction hob at least once a day and this is our daily usage (one outlier day is when the oven was being used for 3 hours+)

Apart from maybe a fridge nothing else you mention could possibly explain the daily usage figures of a small office that the OP is apparently using

@CinnamonSwirl82 that's awful

10.5 is far too cold

And even if heating is on for hours it's not going to go much Warmer than 16/17/18 tops as house is so cold

You really need to try and let it get to 18 to warm up first if possible then keep on top of it

Ans yes i want to know where the Average house is they is in line with their figures

We use way over that in electricity

14 a day average

Ans yes i want to know where the Average house is they is in line with their figures
It's a three bed house with 2-3 people
www.britishgas.co.uk/energy/guides/average-bill.html
Some will use higher, some lower. We average 3kwh a day (gas hot water including shower).

Good update OP - are they going to backdate your tariff change?

Saw this and thought of this thread - apparently even some all electric houses are saving money by coming off e7.
www.bbc.com/news/business-64332617.amp

Little tip that might help someone out there

I had a boiler engineer out today to fix a wire that was broken. He loved to chat and while he was going on and on and on the boiler suddenly fired up. He said, do you have the heating on?! I said no its the middle of the day and set really low as I'm not here in the day, today was a one off.

He looked at it and said, your boiler is set to pre heat. I asked what he meant, he said the boiler was set to pre heat the pipes that the water goes through. It does it approximately 10 times a day. He said I wouldn't recommend is as its a waste of money with a combi boiler, when you turn the tap on it will heat the water anyway. He held down two buttons with a tap marked plus and minus on it, and the screen flashed up 'Eco'. He said now your boiler will only heat the water when you turn the tap on, that will save you approximately £3 a day!!

Ive never heard of this before, so I thought someone else might benefit from the knowledge!

Sounds horrendous, sorry OP. This must be really worrying. We are in an older house 3 floors and have turned all radiators down to nearly off and close doors in rooms we're not in. The heating is on at between 5,10 or 18. Smart meter is quite helpful and a normal cold day (-5 at warmest) is about £6. Ovo were quite helpful and a fixed payment where you get refunded if you've overpaid. I'm paying £230 p/M which I thought was extortionate. Maybe change supplier, check if you can put cheap insulation round doors, in attic, door draught excludes.

@MyPurpleHeart thank you, I'll give this a check 🙂

@Blondeshavemorefun we tried maintaining at 18 (heated it to 18 the day before so we could start 'fresh') and that's when it cost us £25 to heat for the day.

I've had a £220 credit added to my account since being on the phone to them so sounds like something must be wrong! That was just for gas.

Haven't had an electric bill come through. The guy on the phone mentioned something about the meter not speaking to them because our tariff was wrong which I guess is why one hasn't generated. The new tariff will apply to everything that we've used so far. Now just to find out where this excess amount of energy is coming from.

Their website shows we've used 102.8kwh of electric in three days 🤣 that's two weeks worth for the average family!!

What a kerfuffle.

If he said your smart meter wasn't sending data to them, how can he tell you that you've used 102.8 kWH of electricity in 3 days OP? I would definitely be keeping record of your actual meter readings. They may be wildly overestimating based on the previous owner's usage (maybe they had a hot tub or cannabis farm?!?)