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

Thankyou everyone for all the advice
can I ask two last silly questions

1. if the plugs are on do they cost electricity? I mean do I need to switch off plugs when not using?
2. Is it better to put heating on low for longer eg set the hive to 18-19 for longer as opposed to multiple short boosts in the day? Is that cheaper?

thankyou! I will be investing in a nice fluffy warm robe!

We never have our heating on above 18 degrees. Never on at night. Don't own a tumble dryer. Keep laundry to a minimum.

Wouldn’t have thought it was the lights bumping up the bill!

We only have the heating on for an hour in the morning. Occasionally we have a 30 mins boost of after I’ve cooked tea it’s cold as It can get down to below 17 in the afternoon which does feel nippy.

Also get yourself a tariff where the energy is cheap overnight - we have our electric car, washing machine and dishwasher on a timer function so they charge at night.

Make sure you air the house after showers and baths - better to have fresh cold air than too damp.

There are 2 of us in a 4 bed house and are in our late 70s/early 80s. We have a small kettle that will make up to 4 cups of tea/coffee max and only boil water for 2 cups most of the time. I also use a tumble drier as we don't fancy black mould anywhere in the house, so TD is better. Showers are quick, hot water tank only on for one hour (it is a big tank). Washing machine full for 60 deg wash. If the house gets cold, so does your furniture so it is harder to keep the house warm. So it is better to have heating on a lowish temperature most of the time. Dish washer on shortest wash using cheapest tablets, normally more than once (up to 3 times daily). We have found that if you need better quality tablets then the machine is wearing out (we have used various dw since 1980s). When using oven its always full. No electric cars, some tech, one tv, multiple radios. All electric cooking with induction hob, breadmaker (every other day), microwave.

We pay £160 per month all year. This winter the highest amount on our meter was £208 just for December. So lots of credit so far.

The single most expensive element for us is charging the cars. We do it overnight via the Oxtopus tariff, taking advantage of the free hours in the spring/summer when it’s very sunny etc. I think it would be sensible to work out what you use in a period when you’re not charging them, in order to get a better comparison. Having said that, it does sound as if your insulation urgently needs reviewing. We are very lucky to have solar panels and a battery, plus a lot of new insulation, but in a 3 bed 5 recep semi, we still have GCH and still
spend £200 a month or so in the winter. Obviously with the panels, March to Oct we spend very little.

You need to look at why you’re using so much electricity during the peak charge period. It’s double what a high usage household would be using over a 24 hr period.

It’s not going to be caused by leaving a smart tv on standby.

We have saved so much money by getting hive radiator valves. We live in a big, old, draughty house so need the heating on, but it’s crazy to heat the bedrooms in the day or the downstairs at night. Now we can set which radiators we want on when (ie if it gets below a certain temperature at night it turns on the bedroom radiators but not downstairs and vice versa in the day). We control it all in an app on our phones. Highly recommend.

Might be worth getting one or two of these, to see just how much electricity your appliances are using (20 kWh in one day is still high). I moved them from appliance to appliance, leaving them on each for a full week to get a good view of how much each used. I was surprised to find my washing machine and tumble dryer were considerably more efficient than I had assumed, and ended up switching off a chest freezer because it was so power hungry I couldn't justify running it for the fairly narrow use it was put to.

You charge electric cars overnight: Therefore you should factor in the costs if you were using petrol or diesel. You will probably find that your total energy costs are cheaper than someone else using non-electric vehicles.

Charging electric cars over night on a 7p per kWh rate as we do - it’s about the equivalent of 50p for a tank of petrol

we used 70 gas and under 60 for electric last month including EV charging 3 bed standard size semi

Are you carrying any debt from a previous bill?
Did you know that you can get insulated carpet underlay? (My home office is above our garage so we have it in there).

We have a five bedroom house (not detached) and pay £200pm direct debit. We don’t have an electric car but do have a hot tub. A Hive schedule would make more sense for heating. We have ours set to 18.5 during the day when we’re here and 15 overnight. Whether it’s more efficient to keep the heating on all the time or not depends on your insulation. Our house is badly insulated so no point in paying for the heat to disappear. Turn off radiators if you have rooms you’re not using regularly. Get a heated blanket if one person is at home on their own a lot.

We pay £350 a month for G and E. Family of 5 with an EV costing £60 of that per month.
We have thermostat set to 18.5 during the day and 16 at night. Use a tumble dryer daily in winter.
I'd love it at 20 during the day but it's just so expensive and I'm the only one here in the day.

Our house is 125sq metres but it's well insulated. DH works from home. 2 children. Heating comes on at 5am at 23 then down to 22 until 8pm however it clicks off about 11am and keeps the heat.

We insulated the house well. Perhaps you need to up your insulation?

Heating never on overnight but house doesn't go below 19 even in coldest winter.

Our gas bill (heating) has never been above £100 per month.

i’m with OVO, I pay £140/month and I’m £250 in credit.
3 bed semi, with two of us here all day (retired and feel the cold), so the heating is on all the time, set for 18° during the day and 12° at night.
I don’t turn everything off the plug, never have.

Ours was £360 this month. 5 of us is an old detached and we work from home.

I am really strict in heating, use the economic settings on dishwasher and washing machine and have a heat pump tumble dryer.

We also charge the car on the app on the cheap hours and run all our appliances then too - last night it cost 37p to run the dishwasher, tumble dryer and washing machine. They have a delay start option which makes it really easy.

Have you got a smart meter? Mine changed my life in terms of getting my bill down!

3 person family in 3 bed / 3 bath house here plus hot tub in garden on all year round. 1 person wfh. Gas & elec bill has just gone up from £187 to £200 / month.
Even on freezing cold days heat is not on all day. Usually on for an hour 3 X (max) a day. Hot water on an hour a day or every other day. No heating overnight - I can’t sleep with heat on at night. No tumble dryer.
I’ve started using oven over air fryer recently and now plan to revert on that.

How old is your boiler? We moved in 6 yrs ago and ours was 10yrs old. It was condemned last September and our bills have reduced significantly since it was changed. It was inefficient and always on and as such our bills were higher..paying 350/month for a 3 bed semi. Octopus now forcast 250/month. Wish we just changed it as soon as we moved in.

Ours is 27 years old and our bills are smaller and we have no boiler problems at the moment. It is serviced every year.

Look at the big things not plugs in sockets

do you have an immersion heater ?
do you heat unused spaces?
how high is your heating?
do you leave high spec computing things on all the time

Change supplier if you're with a Big Six company like BG

You are using ten times the gas twenty times the electric we use but I think @Starryeyed2021 you have gone away

Get a dehumidifier. An Ebac 4850 would be my recommendation. 30% off at the minute (I'm nothing to do with them). I've got the same series but a smaller version. My house has no signs of damp but I run it on smart setting 24/7 and the moisture I collect everyday is incredible. Reason I recommend it is because it makes the house dryer and cheaper to heat and has reduced my bills overall.

Thermals
Jumpers
Can you fit in wood burners

We are single glazed 500m2 with walls made of hay and don’t spend anything like that OP
We are still cosey but we have become used to no more than 16deg ( high for us tbh )

Only put on full louds of washing at max 30deg ( rugby type dirt more or just soak first)
Batch cook
Get an airfryer
if the freezers not full pack it out with newspapers or something ( saves energy)