energy bill increased a lots - £210 for December (2 beds flat)

[milnelucy]

Dear All

I just found my December bill is £210 (1 November till 1 December). I am using a storage heater (just a big one). But, the night rate went up a lot. Now is 14p per kWh instead of 8p per kWh. I have had the storage heater turned on every night (since 30 October).

Is the bill normal? I am unable to find any energy supplier to switch now from the compare market site. You all have any suggestions to keep the bill down?

Do you have just one storage heater,what do you use for cooking,hot water,are you out at work in the day,do you have economy 7? Sorry, lots of questions.what supplier are you with, how much was your previous bill? If you look up Martin Lewis Money Expert,he says do nothing. As over 20 suppliers have gone bust recently,there are no deals
The smaller companies, because of the government price ceiling,were paying more for electricity than they could charge customers,hence they went bust. Is your place well insulated?

There's so many variables that it's hard to say what is 'normal' but if you are heating with electricity, it's likely to be expensive.

How much is your daytime rate? It might be cheaper to use oil radiators for a couple of hours in the evening than run storage heaters all night.

But £210 might be what you should expect, the annual average energy bill these days is about £1300, and obviously this will be skewed towards winter. And unless you signed up to a fix in the first half of 2021, you want to be on the standard tariff, not a fix, as these are more expensive now.

@nannybeach

Do you have just one storage heater,what do you use for cooking,hot water,are you out at work in the day,do you have economy 7? Sorry, lots of questions.what supplier are you with, how much was your previous bill? If you look up Martin Lewis Money Expert,he says do nothing. As over 20 suppliers have gone bust recently,there are no deals The smaller companies, because of the government price ceiling,were paying more for electricity than they could charge customers,hence they went bust. Is your place well insulated?

I am using economy 7. During winter, 80% use night rate and 20% day rate. Day rate 22p per kWh, and Night rate is 14p per kWh.

Now, I work from home and the storage heater does warm my home well. But, I might need to do some research on oil radiators. My house is built around 1980 which had double glaze windows (energy c rating)

I am on economy 7 in a 2 bed flat. We no longer use our storage heaters as I found they are too expensive and because they are 12 years old they are inefficient. The heat was running out by the evening. Instead we bought a stand alone fan heater and an electric wall heater. Our bills are still around 120 a month in winter. I also use a hot water bottle to keep me warm!

@JessieCaroline

I am on economy 7 in a 2 bed flat. We no longer use our storage heaters as I found they are too expensive and because they are 12 years old they are inefficient. The heat was running out by the evening. Instead we bought a stand alone fan heater and an electric wall heater. Our bills are still around 120 a month in winter. I also use a hot water bottle to keep me warm!

Thanks. I will try that :)

It's a long time since we had storage heaters, but I'm sure the differential in day/night time units was a lot bigger than that, as in the night rate was around 30% of the day rate, not well over 50%.

I know they're not so useful if you are out in the daytime because they don't keep enough of the the heat until the evening, but the other way to keep them affordable was that the electricity you used to heat them up was significantly cheaper than that you could use in the day time, so unless you can switch to a tariff where this is the case, it sounds like it will be worth investing in other forms of heating, hopefully you are able to afford the outlay for this.

It's also probably worth doing some research about which is most efficient in terms of best heat for your money. Plug in oil filled radiators used to be good, but as I've been fortunate to have gas central heating for some years now, I've probably missed out on any new developments in this field.