Why are flats expensive on electricity???!

[purplebaubles]

To be honest, I just want to move to a house!

2 bed flat (new build 'apartment') - 2 adults, one baby. Storage heaters. Only use one of them though, as aware they're expensive. Other than that, water is on for 2 hrs in the morning, and 2 hrs in the evening.

Microwave, washing machine (goes on overnight on economy 7, cheaper rate), tumble drier (used occasionally, again on economy 7) oven, fridge, tv, phone/laptop chargers, hairdryers, lights. That's all I can think of that uses electricity.

We are currently paying £170 a month and according to my last bill (which I couldn't make head nor tail of, I'd inputted actual readings online, but when the bill came, it split it into 3 different lots of day rate, and 3 different lots of night rate!!) we only used £30 a month BUT for the same period (30 days) and same daily consumption (44units) the month before, they'd charged us £160.

Seriously. WTF is going on!

It's Scottish Power. Anyone else find their billing system ridiculous to understand?! And their bills high?

I also think it's madness that we use 44 units daily - HOW?! How does the TV being on and laptop use that much? (with the odd cup of coffee being boiled!) What do other people use daily?

Any help?! Suggestions?!

I pay by direct debit monthly..which they upped to £170 because we'd got into arrears 'only' paying £90 a month!

I'm puzzled that you say it is a new build and the insulation is poor.

How thick is the loft insulation, and are there any gaps or thin patches?

What colour is your cylinder?

Well, newbuild, it's 7 years old now. From what I can gather, the David Wilson apartments that were built the year after us, had gas in them. At the time, they said that it wasn't possible to use gas in flats due to H&S risks.

Also very puzzled that a new build does not have energy saving lamps. They are required by building regulations in E&W; I don't know about Scotland but surprised if not.

Downlighters and spotlights are especially wasteful.

I had David Wilson homes out to check the thickness of the insulation in the loft space and they said it met guidelines (this was about 4 yrs ago)

Technically we don't have loft access rights, so not sure how thick it is - but think I will send husband back up again to put more down! We have already done this once though...it is a huge roof space. (we're quite a large apartment, square in shape, and the roof is diamond shaped and covers our entire floor space plus communal hallway area)

Cylinder doesn't have a colour - it's a pulsacoil 2000 a thermal store filled with water that never changes basically.

It's spotlights that we have everywhere Piglet - worth changing over then?

I looked up the pulsacoil

It will be most efficient if you leave it connected to the off-peak supply and switched on so it fully charges overnight. It will be less efficient if not fully charged and you have to top it up during the day. It has a thermostat so it will not use more electricity than it needs to charge up. It is very well insulated so heat leakage will be very low.

Yes, change to energy saving lamps. You will not notice a difference until summer comes. Once your heating goes off your usage will drop greatly, I would guess from 45kWh to about 15kWh, and energy saving lamps will cut it a bit more.

Sorry to say that I do not think your bills are wrong, it's just that you are now getting the winter bills.

CFL energy saving lamps are the cheapest to buy, you can get LEDs which are equally efficient but more expensive to buy. Lamps for spotlights are expensive to buy and to run, however some people think that inefficient lighting looks stylish.

The standard for loft insulation in E&W is now ten inches of mineral wool quilt. If you buy any, get rolls marked as treated with Ecose which prevents them shedding irritating dust and fibre. It is brown not yellow. Knauf make it, but is is also sold as an own-brand by Wickes and some other chains.

Make sure you are reading the right thing for night rate, day rate. Took me a while to work out that my meter was wired the wrong way round compared with the How To Read Meter guide.

In summer, turn off all Eco7 and you can ten tell which reading is which. Though my Eco7 uses 4 units a day even in Summer - the timer I guess is responsible for that, have a mechanical timer.

spotlights are power hungry. If you have 10 x 50w spots in one room that's 500w half a kW an hour. Compared to another flat that may light the same room with two 36w low energy fittings it's a massive user of energy in your flat.

are your storage heaters coming on during the expensive rate?? They should only come on during the cheap times.

piglet Thanks for that. So, would that mean it would be cheaper to leave it 'on' overnight, for say 6 hours at the cheap rate, and then use THAT hot water to take us through the whole day - rather than just heating for 2 hours overnight, and then re-heating/boosting for another 2 hours at day rate in the evening?

Will have a look at the bulbs and insulation -thank you.

cindy definitely reading the right rate. Done quite a few checks on it.

lavendar Storage heaters heat up overnight, which is the cheaper rate.

the best way to identify what is using the energy is to switch everything off, then put one item on at a time, and take readings at the beginning and end, say of an hour, or half a day. I would say it is your storage heaters and hot water which is racking up huge bills tbh. You do need to use as much as possible during the cheaper tariff as your day rate will be so much higher too.

It has to be, as we have nothing much else!

I'm due to go on mat leave shortly - think I shall devote a day or two to looking into this!

So, would that mean it would be cheaper to leave it 'on' overnight, for say 6 hours at the cheap rate, and then use THAT hot water to take us through the whole day - rather than just heating for 2 hours overnight, and then re-heating/boosting for another 2 hours at day rate in the evening?

Yes, it will be cheapest to use the maximum heat at the overnight cheap rate. The night-time charge will (should) be controlled by a timeswitch either inside or close to the meter, or close to the water heater. It is worth verifying that the clock is about right and has not stopped or got out of adjustment.

Like an electric kettle, once it is up to temperature, the thermostat will turn it off so it will not keep using electricity. You probably have a top-up switch for daytime boost, try not to use that.

I've got led warm white spotlights in three rooms, even if I switch them all on it would only use 68W. That's roughly one and a half normal mr16 bulbs.

Buy them from ledhut.co.uk and register with topcashback.co.uk to get another 12-15% off in cashback.

My water thermostats only set to 60c, every house I've moved into has been set to 70c. It's expensive to heat water that extra 10c.

Do you have a dishwasher? Washing up by hand isn't cheap.

Hi OP I live in an all electric house and am currently on a Scottish Power Economy 7 tariff paying £122 per month. £170 seems a lot to me, are you sure they don't owe you money? We have storage heaters in our living room and kitchen, the hall and the bathroom and panel heaters in the 3 bedrooms which we currently have set in the children's rooms to come on an hour before they go to bed and half an hour before they get up. If they are playing upstairs I put the heaters on a low heat so the chill is off the room. OH and I don't like heat in the bedroom so ours only goes on for 30 minutes or so before bed. The bathroom heater remains on for the whole year mainly because the switch to turn it off is hidden behind a bed in one of the bedrooms and the others are switched on at the end of September/early October and are still on now. We also have an electric fire in the living room but have not had the need to use it at any time this year other than for decoration as the storage heaters are quite modern and are set to give out background heating during the day and the bulk of the heat in the evening. I have a delay start on my washing machine which means that I can set it to come on and finish during the cheaper night time rate but needs sometimes dictate that it goes on during the day as well. I cook a lot from scratch, use the slow cooker for casseroles at night but certainly don't stint on using the cooker and other appliances during the day. I don't have a tumble dryer and washing goes out on the line if at all possible, otherwise its hung in the kitchen and around the various heaters. We rarely touch the emersion heater as it is set to come on during the night when electricity is cheaper and the tank keeps the water hot enough all day to wash all the dishes (no dishwasher). If we need more hot water at the end of the day, say for a bath, we have the facility to put the emersion on again, but now that the children are older we rarely need to do so as they are happy to use the shower everyday instead. Apart from OH who has his shower when the night rate still applies the rest of us have ours after the day rate has clicked in. There is at least one person in the house all day. The TV is on and off and the computer is always on. Although I try my best I am awful at remembering to turn lights off (and we have plenty of them in all our rooms including multiple spotlights in the kitchen and bathroom). The amount I pay currently has kept us on a fairly even keel bill wise - we may owe them a bit when the next one comes but once the storage heaters go off for the summer months our account will catch up.

I have lived in an all electric house for many years now and have never been tempted to change to gas - I do switch my supplier quite regularly but can honestly say that I've never had a major problem with any of them. I've always felt that the amount I've paid is pretty reasonable bearing in mind that there are 5 of us, we are never cold and I don't have to worry about getting the boiler serviced!!

piglet Right, have put the timer for the hot water to come on 1am - 6am. (it's attached to the actual hot water thermal store itself) Will see how we go with that, and yes, there is a 'boost' switch if you need hot water later, but we'll try and not use it (don't use it currently as we had the water on for those evening two hours)

fluffy thanks for the links to the lights, will look into them. And no, we don't have a dishwasher.

milly I'm amazed reading your post! You would appear to use substantially more heat than we do (we have only one storage heater and don't use the other heaters at all) yet we're paying more. We turn everything off when we're not using things. Very conscious. The amount you pay is interesting - but how many units are you actually using? That would be good to compare..

You say you're never cold. Honestly, we're mostly freezing in the winter :( We spent £150 on new thicker curtains just to try to make the main lounge/kitchen warmer. We have a little third bedroom/room which literally is like ice in there (keep the door shut on it) DD's room thermometer shows that the house, by 7pm, is at 16 degrees.

Which model storage heaters do you have? Would you mind posting a pic? We have practically no control over ours at all. Technically there's a dial which allows you to set 'output' but it makes bugger all difference!!!

I've sent you a private message Purple - hope it helps

Having read all through this again, I feel convinced that the £ figures you show are for the account balance, and not the cost of electricity.

You said that the monthly payments had increased to pay off previous underpayments. Hence the account balance gets smaller each month as you pay it off. You are not actually using £170 worth each month. Your payments are covering a smaller cost plus an amount to pay off arrears, totalling £170. Once the arrears are paid off your account will start showing a credit balance, and/or your monthly payments will be reduced.

P.s.

Also, you can set the Pulsacoil timer for the entire period of your off-peak period. For example it might be midnight to 7am, or 11pm to 6am. Then you will get the maximum benefit of the off-peak charge. Some tariffs have an hour or two at a cheap price in the afternoon as well. The hours of your tariff rates might be indicated on the bill, or there might be an indication on your meter, or, like the supply to storage heaters, there might be a time switch in or beside the meter which turns the circuit on only during the off-peak periods. Old meters used to have a time switch with a visible clock dial that you could look at.

Like an electric kettle, the store will use heat until it is fully charged, then the thermostat will turn it off. It will not continue drawing electricity once it is fully hot. But you can then be sure you are getting the most value of your off-peak supply. I have read the instruction book, and you can't manually alter the water temperature, it is pre-set to 55c apart from the initial flow which is hotter to sterilise the pipes. I have not used one but I imagine a thermostatic shower mixer would try to keep the jet stable. It will be more expensive to use an electric shower at full-price electricity.

I've sent you a private message Purple - hope it helps

When my timer went on my emersion the plumber who came round explained it costs about £1 (or 85p I can't remember) to heat the middle bit of the tank which is the largest. That does two baths a day here. The boost which is only the smaller part of the tank on top costs £2.50 to heat in the day. My hot water lasts all day and is hot when I come in after work at 5, when it wasn't hot at 5 one of the elements had gone so get that checked out as it should last.

This is why I love mumsnet :)

Real information, and help.

Thank you all.

Thank you especially pigletjohn and millymae.

I shall update on what Scottish Power come back with (their completely confusing bills, which are impossible to comprehend!) and next month how we're getting on cutting the bill (hopefully)

Just said this on another thread about storage heaters-they're expensive!

Turn them all off completely and get a convector heater from Argos for every room. Keep the room doors shut and you should see a big reduction in your bill, we halved ours!