Suggested DD of £595 per month gas & electricity!

[SugarMitts]

I’ve just had my new ‘forecast’ and it’s saying I need to be paying £595 per month to ‘stay on track’

Obviously I can’t afford this, I’m already in huge debit in my account as I can only just afford half of this!

So I neeeeeed some tips on how to cut my useage, we must be using way over the average but I just can’t see how we’re that much over
I’ll be honest I don’t understand a lot about heating etc, if we’re cold I flick it on, when we’re not I flick it off, it’s on a timer so I don’t mean every single time, but I don’t know what our thermostat is set to (don’t even know what that means) I just go off what the temp on the dial says and if it’s low I’ll press boost, so I need people to talk in very simple terms here 🙈

Family of 6, 3 storey, 5 bed house, 1 bathroom

If your January usage was £400 I'm not sure why your direct debit of £300 has put you in debt. How much was your direct debit in the summer, was it lower?

Our direct debit is £275. In the winter months our usage is between £500-£600 but can be lower than £100 in the summer. So despite our usage being so high in the winter we are still in credit.

It's that high as you are paying for your usage AND trying to clear the debt.

I have a cold house and we still don't go over 18.

Wear lots of clothes, get some thermals especially leggings, hide under blankets, wear slippers indoors with 2 pairs of socks. Proper wool jumpers are a lot warmer than synthetic.

Ours of £300pcm and we have a 4 bed house with 4 of us in the house a fair bit. I have the heating on almost always and spend at least £12 a day Nov-March. We then keep paying the same amount but in the summer we pay £4/5 a day.

I am not sure how you are spending so much.

Mines on 18 most of the day. 20 for the evenings, then back down to 18 before bed. This makes the house comfortable but not hot and toasty.

Set at 21 in a 5 bed house! No wonder it’s that expensive! We only put ours on if it goes below 17 and turn it off at 18 maybe 18.5

Have a look around moneysavingexpert - this is a good place to start then you might also get some advice on their forums too.

MSE Energy saving tips

OP, in simple terms:

Gas central heating works as follows - water is fed into the boiler
It warms as it goes through the boiler
It then leaves the boiler and circulates through your radiators - usually two runs, one to upstairs and one to down stairs.
The colder water in the radiators is fed back round to the boiler and warms ip
Round and round it goes.

The boiler coming on or not is controlled by two things:
The timer controls, which are set to come on and off at times you want it to
The thermostat, which tells it what ambient temperature you want.

If its warm, the TIMER might say you want the heating on but the THERMOSTAT will only ask for heat if needed.
A further layer to this is if each radiator has a thermostatic valve - in effect an individual thermostat on each radiator.

SEPARATELY you will have controls for hot water, either:

On a timer basis, but separate timings to the heating
On a combination boiler, which supplies on demand when you turn the hot tap on and the boiler will fire up.

The TEMPERATURE of the hot water is controlled by a stat on the boiler itself.

COMPLETELY SEPARATELY if you have a hot water storage tank that MAY have an immersion heater - essentially a metal coil which heats up and warms up the water to the temperature you ask for.

Can I suggest tou get a heating engineer to call round and give you a basic lesson in how it all works and check your settings, also checking if your immersion is permanently on.

Going forward, read your meters monthly, get an idea of what KWh you use for both gas and electricity and then you can use the calculations on the back of your bill to calculate the cost of your ACTUAL usage.

Keep a watch on it to see if the KWh use is within your normal tolerances so then you will know if your bills will be higher or not. Don't forget to add in the standing charge costs and 5% vat.

If you've got a combi, it'll only be heating the water when hot water is called for.

Either way, as you know, your bill is massive and only way to get it down is to limit your use. Washing outside as much as possible (ie don't use tumble dryer), think about meals that don't take too long to cook in oven, turn heating down (ours is set to 18c) and reduce shower times/amount of water in the bath. Unless it's close to freezing, keep your heating off in the day. This is what we do, and we pay £135pm dd (have a good credit after a mild winter as well) for three adults. Obviously you'll be paying a bit more than that as you have twice the washing and showers than us.

Switch the thermostat down to 18 degrees.
Turn hot water on the boiler down from 90 degrees to 60 degrees. You'll still have hot water.
Tell teen showers are limited to 10 mins per shower. Explain to her the more money spent on showers the less for other things.
Put a limit on devices. I allow teen 2 hours per evening. That's it. Once it's gone it's gone. He's out most evenings doing Sport so not much more time for devices anyway. At weekends I don't count time he's doing homework for college but TV, YouTube, Blu Ray, laptop for fun all counts. He can have 6 hours per weekend.
You'll just need to cut back. Don't allow DC watching same programme in different rooms.
Unplug devices when not in use. Don't leave things on standby.
Tell kids to wear clothes more than once before washing. I noticed my teen wore trousers once then put them in the wash. I've told him he can wear trousers 3 times before washing. Also less tumble drying and more line drying. I line dry then tumble for 15 minutes to make fluffy instead of 1 1/2 hours tumble drying. Look out for good drying days.

Turn upstairs rads down. Bedrooms don't need to be 21 degrees. I have upstairs rads set to between 2 and 3. Equates to about 18 degrees. So they turn off when room heated. In fact the only rads on full are living room, bathroom towel rail as they don't have thermostatic valves and the hall because that is where the thermostat is and they don't have trvs either

Some people are posting 17 degrees?! My house doesn't even get to 17 with the heating off! 🥶

OP it depends what system you have. We have a combo boiler, heats water and central heating. The thermostat controller we have, you can set it to timer, off or on. If on you can set it to heat up to a temp and then it auto flicks off. Sounds like you are using the off/on method to 20 degrees (I do this too, usually for a blast to 21 degrees as I like it warm and we are well insulated so the house retains heat).

We are off grid for gas but spend about £150 per month max in the winter months!

We never use our timer we just have the dial on the thermostat in the living set to 12/13 and if the temperature drops to that the heating kicks in.

The bedrooms heat up much faster than the living room (which has an open plan staircase so loses LOTS of heat) so we have the valves on the bedroom and bathroom radiators turned to 2 so that they don't get as hot and therefore don't use as much energy.

We turn the dial on the thermostat off when we go to bed as none of us like it on during the night and just layer up with blankets.

If we're watching TV at night we all usually have PJs and a blanket (which I prefer, the air being too warm stuffs up my nose and aggravates my asthma).

DS used to complain about it being cold until I pointed out that's because he was walking round in shorts and a t-shirt - bought him an Oodie 😂

another idea for you like your house warm, get a ceiling mounted clothes airer - our clothes dry faster on it in winter than they do outside on the line in summer!

Definitely reduced how much we needed to use the tumble dryer.

Also check our tumble dryer - mine was almost 24 years old when it died on Christmas Eve, it's only now that we have a new one I realise how much energy the old was using

I live in a 5 bed detached house and pay approx £350 per month so yours is high.

Lets get back to basics.

You have a digital thermostat with a timer, yes. Your thermostat should be located in a part of the house that is cool but no draughts (not by the front door or every time you open the door the heating will kick in) and not where direct sunlight hits it or under a lamp that heats up.

My thermostat is set to 20 and is in the hall. It is set to come on between 6am and 8am and again between 5.30pm and 10pm. This means that when the temperature of the hall is under 20 degrees the heating comes on and when it reaches 20 it turns off. The radiator in the hall is always on full to achieve this.

Do your radiators have thermostatic radiator valves? they should be set according to the type of room eg my living room thermostat is set to no 4 as it's a cold room but my bedroom is set to number 3. The kitchen is set to no 2 as it retains the heat. The spare bedroom is number 1, just enough to prevent damp. Having all the radiators blasting out all the time will use lots of heating.

In addition look at things like always closing doors after you to keep the rooms warm, are you losing heat anywhere. Dishwashers and tumble dryers use a lot of electricity. Are you turning lights off. Do you have radiators that are blocked by furniture etc.

How many units did you use

For example last month for me

Gas was 56 units for heating - mine is old so I times by 32 to get the number so 1792 x 7p - so £124

Electricity was 266 x 27p - so £72

Plus standing charge each and vat

So total bill was £230

Much lower then nov dec Jan

My dd is £200 so doesn't quite cover it but the build up over summer means it should build up over summer and then cover winter

Wear coats indoors and sleep wearing them. Means cheap energy costs plus feels nice wearing warm coats

If you are £2k in arrears that is why they want you to pay higher than average DD because how will you ever clear the debt.

Oodies all round. I got given one for Christmas and I wear it all the time when I'm in the house. Admittedly I live in a mid terrace, but I think I've only put the radiator on a couple of times this winter. If I feel chilly I put another layer on. I'm also lucky that there's only me in the house, so nobody to have to listen to complaining 'I'm cooooooooold!' but it means my electricity bills (no gas in our village) have stayed within reasonable limits (because no other income coming in to cushion me!)

@Karenanderson937 That was an extremely unkind and unnecessary post. The OP is asking for help. Lots of us aren't great at household tasks. On the plus side, at least OP has good manners.

@SugarMitts

Are you using hive? Just when you said "boost" that's what out hive system calls it too.

So, our heating is set to 15 at night, and 20 during the day. 20 feels a bit cold to me, so I usually boost a couple of times on the days I'm home. The boost lasts for 2hr 45 mins.

I'm a really cold person though, and I will wear a dressing gown over my clothes so I don't overheat everyone else/the house constantly.

Shower and baths are every day. Dishwasher on at least once a day. Washing, one or two loads a day. One TV will be on somewhere in the house all day.

We are using around £350 a month gas and electric for 2 adults, one teen and two younger children. This is winter months.

When I was at home very day, last winter, I managed to run up £680 one month, just constantly boosting the heating. Makes a big difference if you aren't at home all day.

It won't just be the washing. There's 3 of us in a 3 bed, washing machine twice a day and heating set to 20° 24/7. I pay £170 a month and am still £600 in credit.

Electric showers burn money as do tumble dryers and ovens. Leaky fridge and freezer doors also waste a lot of money, been there ....

You both have your home heated to a high temp (mine is set to 18 or 19 if I really feel cold, and I don't have any radiators turned up to more than 3 out of 5), a large home and a lot of debt. The direct debits are probably designed to pay down your debt while also paying your in-month costs.

We use around 300 kWh of elec and between 900 and 1,400 kWh (depending on the outside temperature) at this time of year.
The heating comes on for an hour in the morning and is on again from 5pm to 9pm. Last month's bill was £285 for a 3-bed house. If either me or DH are WFH, or cold after 9pm, we use heated blankets / oodies.
Our elec consumption is fairly consistent during the year. It's the gas heating that uses the £££.

@SugarMitts Turning the radiators down will mean they get less hot so will use less energy. Yes they won't make your rooms as warm. But it's more efficient to have the heating on slow and low than in intense bursts. The gas engineer who serviced my boiler in October also recommended I turn the heating setting down on the boiler to about 2/3 of its full capacity and similarly have it low and slow. It was good advice, it's reduced my bills.

If you really don’t know how your heating works, find somebody who does! Seriously, when is it next due service? The person that comes to service, it should be able to tell you how to adjust it/make it work. Do you have any user manuals from when it was installed?