How the fuck am I meant to afford this? Electric bill this month

[LadyFlumpalot]

My electric bill is £643 this month. SIX HUNDRED FUCKING QUID.

It's correct, I've checked and double checked. It was £400 last month. In the summer it was approx £180 a month.

I'm in a three story attached town house thing, fully electric. Two adults, two children. One fish tank. Usual tumble dryer, appliances etc.

I've got a balance built up of £450 so with my usual monthly payment I will just about break even this month. Next month will be a challenge though 🥶

And it's only going to get worse.

Not really looking for advise - just sympathy and solidarity. We are about to go full fucking Victorian. There will be no tumble dryer, no dishwasher, no charging appliances at home during the day.

What happens if the heating doesn’t do anything but blow tepid warm air around and costs more than the rent to heat properly.

FWIW we did direct landlord to government grant for new radiators and he didn’t do anything.

I will just clean the mould with vinegar and then bleach and repaint

The house is already falling down.

I extra spin in the washing machine, still can't get bulkier items dry. But then I can't afford to heat my house to 18 degrees, it's an old and draughty house, it will be at 18 degrees and within 5 minutes of turning the heating off it's dropped a degree.

If the government actually gave a hoot about our lung health or properties they would have done something more about the energy crisis. It's like telling people to eat healthy, when people are eating out of food banks. No joined up thinking

This is not always the case with air source heat pumps. We have one; it's a hybrid system so they fitted it alongside a gas boiler but the reality is that in the 2.5 years we have lived here the gas boiler has kicked in so little that we have used a total of 60 units of gas and most of that was just after we moved in when we didn't have all the settings right. It's used about 10 units in 2022, so we would be absolutely fine without it.

It also doesn't use anything like the amount of electricity of normal electric radiators. During the daytime, unless we are cooking, the highest our consumption ever goes is about 3.5kW. And that is only for very brief periods, it doesn't run all the time. We have the temp set to 20 all the time.

We seem to be using about 15-20kWh per day in January - there's only a couple of days which are higher, and it's days when I did things like cooking a full roast dinner.

They absolutely aren't for everyone - our house is modern and very well insulated - but they aren't the expensive devil they're portrayed as in the right setting.

Your daily useage is very high. That's not meant as a criticism, just that turning things of standby is a drop in the ocean if you are using 50 plus kwh a day.

Are you on a standard rate tariff? Running that volume (which will be your heating and hot water tank) on a standard tariff is quite unusual.

In the last couple of years the gap between the two rates did narrow so I'm just wondering if someone took your property off a split rate to give more flexibility. However with current energy rates (and an encouragement to use more off peak energy) that has changed.

High volume users like you are normally on economy 7, economy 10 or in Scotland the old highland tariff. Running electric heating without one of these is madness.

Also drying washing inside us dangerous if not fully ventilated dye to the spores. You know all that stuff you need to remove every second go from the tumble is all floating around and going in your lungs as well as mould.

I really don’t believe that to be the case.

Mould isn’t caused directly by hanging clothes to dry inside - it’s caused by a combination of cold and damp. If there is adequate ventilation then it won’t happen. Mould spores don’t just spontaneously shed from wet clothes.

Equally, the lint in a tumble drier filter is caused from the agitation of the clothes breaking off fragments of fibres. Mechanical damage. If the clothes are not in the tumble drier then the lint won’t form. It’s not going to release into the air just because you dried the clothes on a rack indoors. This is why clothes that are not tumble dried tent to last longer.

Absolutely!

I keep getting astounded by the comments such as "turn off everything thats on standby, switch off sockets unused, don't use the oven but airfryer only, keep the lights off, get rid of american fridge freezer" and so on and so forth.. Doing so will absolutely not decrease your usage dramatically enough (unless you use the oven for hours and hours on daily basis - for us its usually only for 15-30 min) because we ignore everything of that and the cost electrics is only about £40 a month currently.. We use 3.5-5kW daily but the heating is gas, so it is definitely the heating thats eating money for the OP

Heat pumps can be about equal to mains gas in fuel cost if you get them right. I doubt whether many people get a cop good enough to beat gas all year round, but it's probably possible. You probably do because the gas should switch in when its cold enough for the heat pump not to run efficiently.

What you probably aren't factoring in is the two sets of maintenance, one for the heat pump and one for the gas boiler and of course the two sets of purchase/replacement costs.

A lot of people say stuff like "if your house is insulated really well then the heat pump will perform fine and at low cost!" without realising that if gas was used in a similarly very well insulated house then the gas costs would be much reduced as well !

Just taken our meter reading for this month and it's come up at £506. 3 bed semi, No dishwasher or tumble dryer, heating on for 4 hours a day in total, coal fire and log burner. Got absolutely no idea why it's so expensive! It's crazy!

We only have one set of maintenance costs, because it's a single (albeit slightly complex) system so it's dealt with under one contract. Bit more expensive but bearable.

We were phase one of the development - phase two doesn't have the boilers at all as they found they were not needed because the heat pumps turned out to work well. Generally most of our neighbours get on well and the ones who have found them costly tend to be trying to run them like gas central heating with a few hours morning and evening which we found was more expensive.

It's impossible for us to tell whether we'd be better on gas - yes, insulation would also make that efficient. But my point was that heat pumps aren't always a horror story and compared to the electric heating which was being described in the post I was responding to they can be massively more efficient. I think our whole house pump uses less than the poster was quoting for a single radiator.

Admittedly I doubt we personally would be better on gas as we've just fitted solar, batteries and have a cheap night rate. But that's not very common!

I respectfully disagree. Once we measured it we found out that our 20 year old fridge freezer was faulty and accountable for 20-25% of our electricity usage. That’s in a house with 3 people using gaming PCs and big TVs for hours each day. Some unexpected things can make a huge difference.

This is especially true for anyone in rented accommodation…often the appliances are either older models or cheaper models and so not as energy efficient as the average. It’s really good advice to measure exactly where your energy is going.

Have to say - I get annoyed by some of the messaging around drying clothes.

You're not supposed to use a tumble dryer, you shouldn't put them on radiators, you shouldn't be drying them inside......

What exactly are you supposed to do then?

I've had mine hanging around - no sign of any mould or compensation so far. The washing machine spins very efficiently so maybe that helps?

15-20 kws is a £2-300 per month bill

And that is only on 20.

After not using my tumble dryer for a year I have gone back to using one this month as I couldn’t get anything fully dry and I was spending so much time getting rid of the mould it just wasn’t worth my while.

I get it
I live in a ground floor apartment, built with no space for a tumble dryer. Mine is the only one with a garden and I'm not allowed to put washing out there
However next door is a house and they can. So I can lift my airer 6 inches to the left into their garden, and that's fine and the other 10 houses can all hang washing

Even appealed to the management company saying I get why (the other block is a large block and they don't want washing on balconies, ours is 4 apartments) but could they see sense given mine is the only garden
Answer was no. I mean FFS

Should add I dry washing with a heated airer and dehumidifier. When my nosy neighbour who reports everything eventually goes, I'll start hanging stuff outside (he tried reporting me for making toast because it smelled....of toast)
I haven't seen the management company visit in 15 years so I'm pretty safe!

I've got used to living without heating. It's fine down to 8 degrees indoors (because I dress very well - lots of wool) but at 8C I feel a bit shit. Luckily it's been a warm winter so far.

This bollocks about not being allowed to dry washing in communal gardens, balconies etc needs challenging.

It's utterly ridiculous, makes no sense, doesn't harm anyone and is in contravention of environmental sensibilities, probably discriminatory against poorer households who rent or live in smaller properties and don't want to rock the boat against their landlord. It's probably an unfair term as its affecting quiet enjoyment.

If any lawyers are reading and you want to do something for the good of society, this would be a good cause to take on.

Yes, in a 5 bedroom house which is constantly heated, with someone constantly working from home. In January.

In the context of current prices and house size it's pretty good.

Sorry that difficult. Definitely discuss a smart meter, it’s very informative to see when your use is high. I’ve never had a tumble dryer, so always think that’s the most obvious thing to stop using. Cut back on laundry altogether, use dishwasher as little as possible (I use the same mug and glass all day). It’s so mild at the moment we haven’t had heating on luckily

@BarbaraofSeville it is ridiculous. I own the apartment but being an apartment, there's a shit management company with it
I pay £160pm (in the NW) and the lease conditions are lengthy - I mean to the point it says I can't bang a rug outside, or do anything immoral

Switch to a washer/dryer?

@Hungrycaterpillarsmummy most of them are pretty rubbish and TBH I can't afford the outlay for one

I had a good one I can try and find the make of it if it's any use to you in the future..but yes I understand the affordability for now is a different matter. I was more just covering the part where you said not enough space for one.