Please help me/ any tips to reduce energy bills £600!? A month

[Starryeyed2021]

Hi all
could anyone give me any guidance, I am struggling with my energy bills which are for example month of January £600 for both elec and gas,
to put in context I do have 5 bedroom house, two small kids perhaps house is 200sqm so I guess on the larger side but I really don’t think price should be this high! It seems too much? Almost £20 a day!
I have this app for usuage but it doesn’t really help me in seeing how I can reduce or what to change.
we have hive on my phone and I usually just “boost “ when it’s cold sort of drops below 20degrees , possibly three times a day As it does max boost for 6 hours.

any tips? Or is this how much should cost?! I find it hard to believe people pay and can pay this much for just energy per month

If I kept my house at 20 it would cost the same. At 16/17 it’s £360 - £390 at this time of year. Get electric throws and use less heat!

That’s the split between gas and electric? What are you using for cooking?

That’s insane, have you checked you’re on the right tariff for your usage? We keep our house at 18 when we’re in, sometimes boost to 19/20 if exceptionally cold but when we’re out it’s set to come on only if it dips below 15, or 12 overnight.
are you needlessly heating the house overnight?
Is it an old and inefficient boiler/system a the house old and draft? Because we have a 4 bed with a lot of windows and external walls and January was £250 which was horrific enough.

So I would be only heating rooms you’re in, turn radiators down elsewhere, make sure everyone is putting on another layer before turning up the heat. I find that using my oven is significant, so cooking a roast for example does cost me a few quid.

Do you have as much insulation as you can have? Are doors being closed?

Im not sure what the latest offer is on solar grants, but government has just announced something, we have had some for a couple of years and they really make a difference. Our credit builds up in summer and makes winter easier.

do you use a tumble dryer, are all the radiators on high? if a playstation is left on standby this is a massive user of electricity so try and make sure all consoles are completely off when not in use. how many washing machine cycles are going throughout the day? could you maybe do a few short cycles? does the heating automatically turn on during the night when the temp drops? are we having really long showers? check your boiler, is the water and radiator temp turned up really high? sorry to rant but literally all of these things have helped me save over 100 quid during these winter months compared to last year

my house is about the same size and we have lpg which is more expensive than mains gas. My electric bill for January is relatively high at £80 but have been using the tumble dryer more. Gas will be about £160 I guess.
My tips- no heat on in rooms not being used, seems obvious, but we make sure radiators are off. We have a very large radiator in the lounge which heats up quickly and the room is warm within five minutes so we only put it on if we are watching tv.
heat is off at night.
we also go out a lot- am at the gym nearly every day so no heat on!

4 beds here. 3 kids. Old house. Someone home all day. £200 a month. House is chilly, but not impossibly so. Seldom 20 even in the kitchen! Aim for a max of 18. And check to see if you have any seriously guzzly electrics - old fridges and freezers use loads…

Turn your heating off when you go to bed!

Why is your gas heating on at night? Set it on a timer!

Our Bill is about £200pm. Heating on most of the day about 20, hot water tank on once, if using the oven it's full even veg in water. Rooms not in use cold and doors shut. Old boiler. Four bedroom house, dg, 2 bathrooms, 2 oldies home a lot. Forgot to say heavy curtains all round including on front door.

Are you heating the house for one person?

Seriously heating is expensive

No need to heat over night, set it to come on an hour before the first person wakes, set it to switch off when all have left the house for work/school or at least set the temp a lot lower

Im kind of off grid now , so use oil and coal and it all gets complicated and expensive . But when I lived in a city with mains gas and I was at home all day and DH worked, it was an hour in the mornings and came back on again at 4pm till 9pm

The house never got so cold that an extra layer in the day couldn't sort and we would be in bed 10/11pm

Why are you boosting it multiple times a day instead of just setting the temperature you want and letting the heating do its thing.

Also do you have an immersion heater those things cost a fortune.

We never heat over 18 degrees. Turn down/off in rooms not used. Open curtains if sunny and close them when sun goes.
Use electric blanket if cold. And dress in layers.
Never on at night unless drops below 7 degrees. Just wear more in bed and use hot water bottles (electric ones are safer) and blankets.
If just me WFH I just use the electric blanket.
If using the oven, cook more than one meal or roast stuff for a different meal to save costs.

Our thermostat is 18. Heating off between midnight dnd 7.

Currently paying £60 a month gas and electric as we are £600 in credit.

4 in house. 4 mobiles, 4 tvs, washing machine used daily, 4 showers daily. Tumble dryer used daily in winter. Air fryer. Kettle used regularly. Chargers for electric bikes. One heated blanket used by husband each day. Two Xboxes. Cooker. Dishwasher used daily. Heater used daily in loft room. Fan in summer. Chargers.

How do you heat your house? Gas, electric, is the water heater an electric immersion heater, or heated by gas (combi boiler or in a cylinder)?

You seem to be using a lot of electric and gas overnight- what is switched on?

You can see the graph showing when you are using most- what are you doing then ?

These answers will help work out what you can do to economize.

In the meantime: reset the timer on your heating, 14 degrees overnight is fine, turn the thermostat to 18 max when you are sitting down in the evening. Less during the day while you are out/ busy.
Fluffy slippers, layers of clothes, a vest will keep you warm.
Heating is probably your biggest expense.

Dont waste hot water by leaving the tap running, or washing up each cup in a bowl full of water.
Make sure the washer is full loads only, cooler temperature and line dry/use a clothes horse. Dont use the dryer.

Batch cook- don’t heat the oven for just one thing, use a steamer for veg so you only use one ring. A slow cooker is useful too.

Eliminate drafts with door snakes , thick curtains, door curtains (add an extra set of lining to make curtains thicker).

Is your £600 the bill for January, or do you pay that every month through the year - As that will make a big difference to how bad this is.

We have a 5 bed house (Victorian, so all high ceilings and more volume to heat) but we are paying £140 combined, per month, spread throughout the year. So the energy used in January will have been higher than this, but offset with the energy not used in June, say. But we choose to pay equal amounts throughout the year.

I am another person who is confused as to why you are boosting your heating, if you have it on all the time.

For comparison, my house is about the same size as yours, 200 years old so thin uninsulated walls and single-glazed. My heating bills are roughly double the national average.

Your image shows electricity usage is over 60kWh in one day - that's massive! I've used 19 kWh today, and that includes having the oven on for 3 hours. Your peak-rate is similar at 20.32 kWh, but you also used twice as much, 41.07 kWh, in the six hours between midnight and 6am. How? That's almost 7kWh every hour - I could have every appliance I own running, and still couldn't use that much! What do you have running overnight? The only thing I can think of that would draw that much power is heating, but you've also used 189.48 kWh of gas, so that presumably is your heating. So what is chewing through your electricity overnight?

Gas usage - much higher than mine. Last time I used that much gas in 24 hours, the country was in the grip of The Beast From The East. This month, it's been averaging 100 kWh/day - and remember, I'm in a poorly insulated house but still using nearly half what you are. Thermostat is set to 18, we wear jumpers, I have a blanket over my knees when I'm sitting watching TV / reading.

So, questions on your usage:

1. What is using over 40kWk overnight? That's an awful lot of power to go through in just six hours.
2. How many loads of washing / drying, how much oven use?
3. How well insulated is your home? Double glazed? Thick curtains?
4. Do you really need to be at 20 degrees? Do you wear jumpers etc. or expect to wander around in a tshirt?

You might be able to make some savings, by following the standard advice about improving insulation, thick curtains, closing doors, thermostats, turning the heat down a bit etc etc but it could well be that's what it costs in January - ours are close to £200 but we have a small house and are careful with heating etc. Also only two people and we rarely use a tumble dryer.

But if you're cold below 20 C, you need to think about other ways to keep warm as constantly heating above that temperature is always going to be expensive unless your house is very well insulated. So layers, socks and slippers. Also move around a bit, or use a blanket if you're sitting down for a while.

Have you looked at what your bills are in summer to see how much is actually heating and how much is hot water and cooking? I'd expect your summer bills are less than half what it costs in January.

But this is why people generally pay by DD so you can spread the higher winter cost across the whole year - you probably have 3 or 4 months of big bills, so they're a lot easier to manage when averaged over the whole year.

Start by checking what tariff you are on.

Does your picture show you have a high and a low tariff? Is that for your electricity. It's not a good idea to be on anything similar to 'economy 7'.

If you have a low tariff overnight then do your washing / drying any thing else you can overnight, put timers on.

Warm the person not the room. Are you and the children wearing socks and jumpers? Do you all have slippers?

I use heated throws most of the time.

Make sure you have good duvets on the beds.

Its your electricity usage which is absolutely insane.
You need to look into that. If you are using electric heating, stop, and use the gas.
2/3 of your electricity consumption should easily be able to be cut -we rarely use 20kWh a day and typically are more like 12. You are using 60kWh!!!

Our energy is about £300 a month, we keep the house warm and like yours it is a big house.

Things that have helped (appreciate these are not all 5 minute fixes)

New radiators are far more effective than the original 1970s ones we did have
Triple glazing keeps the heat in
Heating is on 6am - 9am and then about 4pm - 10pm. If you're home all day keep the heating on, boosting it is going to use more energy.
Heating and hot water are gas - if yours is electric it will be expensive.
As pp says keep doors closed

Good point about the electricity @IceIceSlippyIce, I spotted that and forgot to mention it.

OP why are you using so much electricity and especially at night? Electric car? Plug in radiators? Immersion heater? Can that be reduced at all? Normally if people are heating with gas, they don't have a huge electricity bill as well.

That seems high even for a 5 bed. I live on my own in a 3 bed and hate being cold so have the heating on at about 20 and when it gets really cold 22 , this is the whole house apart from bedroom at night when it’s 18ish.

on average my heating is about 45 pcm year round. Electric maybe 30ish, although I don’t use the oven that much.

4 bed semi here. Ours are 230 a month.

Heating on at 21 or higher nearly all the time. Oven and tumble dryer on all the time.

Heating can go off at night, and learn to live with 18 as the highest temp. Use socks/slippers/jumpers.