High electric bills

[Handsoffmyhamster]

We have had continually high bills since moving in to our current property.
We have had the meter checked by the supplier and it seems to be fine.
We live in a 3 bed semi detached, so not a massive house. We do have storage heaters, so aware our bills will be higher. However we lived in a similar sized property, same supplier, same appliances, less than a mile away and we were only £120 per month.
Over the winter I have only switched on 2 of the storage heaters and used the log burner.

We have been paying £320 per month for electric. Just had bill through (not an estimate) and we are in debt. Basically they are saying we need to pay £410 per month.

We cannot continue paying this much. We have used a lot of our savings towards the bills, I wouldn’t mind so much but the house is always cold!

Does any one have any ideas what I can do now?
Should I get wiring checked? Can you ‘leak’ electricity?

Please help if you can!

That sounds really excessive. Do you have or does your provider have the option to get a smart meter fitted? We got ours last month and it’s useful for seeing what is using up your power and when.

We don’t have a smart meter yet. They said it would be 2019 before we got one, but I just checked the website and they are inviting people to request them now. So I’ll give that a go. Thank you.

In the meantime test by turning everything off and checking the Meter if it’s still moving then somethings very wrong! Unlikely but worth a try. Our 3 bed semi averages £80per month for gas and electricity although we do have a gas boiler for water and heating. Good luck x

I think they're delaying the rollout as currently many don't work if you change supplier.
Have you shopped around in the meantime? That does seem excessive!

Hermie, I’ll give that a go in the morning. Thank you.

Just a thought they didn’t switch you to their standard tariff when you moved did they? We had a month with the previous owners provider when we moved due to the time it took to do the changeover and their standard tariff rates were horrendous

Are you on an economy 7 tariff and do you know how to use your storage heaters? Do you have your hot water on all the time?

Yeah, we have shopped around. The price per unit doesn’t seem to be too bad. It’s just the number of units we seem to be using!

What makes it worse it that my DH worked from home until December, so was home 24/7 using electric, January he started going out to work. So for the period of this bill he has been out working and I decided we would only use 2 Storage heaters rather than 3 over winter but our usage has gone up! I just don’t understand.

We are an all electric house - 3 bedroom semi with storage heaters and pay £96 per month. The account is currently over £100 in credit.
We are on an economy 7 tariff with Scottish Power and are certainly not overly careful with our use of electricity.
How does your water heat up? Our immersion is on a special timer set to come on overnight, and we rarely have to boost it during the day.
Your bill seems excessively high in comparison to mine

We are on SSE THTC tariff. It is for properties with storage heaters. I think it is only used in rural Scotland, it involves 2 meters, 1 for heaters and 1 for general electric.
Have always had storage heaters, so know how to use them.
We have an electric water tank which comes on for about 2 hours in the middle of the night, immersion boost is used very rarely.
Millymae- your bill is the one I dream of!

We had this when we moved it turned out we'd left a switch on that meant the electric override was heating the water tank 24/7 even though our timer said it was only on 2 hours a day.

How many kWh did you use, over what period? Is the usage lower now that the weather has warmed up? As you have storage heaters, please say the off-peak usage and the daytime usage.

Are the bills for the actual amount of electricity you used? Or are they a standard monthly charge based on estimated annual usage?

Do you have other heaters as well as the storage heaters?

Is your immersion heater on an offpeak timer?

How often do you use the tumble drier?

OMGoodness that electricity bill is the stuff of nightmares.

I agree you need some kind of smart meter urgently.

In the meantime one thing that might be worth checking is the hot water tank temperature. My meter identified that I was spending a lot on water heating. I turned the tank temperature down. I also played with timings to ensure I heat my tank for the minimum time required to match my hot water needs. For me that is 30 minutes a day just before I get up to shower (I have a dishwasher and no kids at home).

The other thing worth checking is the power usage in your overhead lights. My living and dining room both had overhead lights with 10 bulbs. The kitchenand bedroom 6 bulbs each. I now have two lamps in the living room and remember to turn the overhead lights off when leaving a room.

Finally I fitted another layer of insulation in the loft.

All little changes, but they definitely reduced my bill.

We have just had the loft insulated in hope it helps.
The bills are for the actual amount of usage. The current bill covers 31/01-28/04. We have used 5302kwh on the heating meter and 4235kwh on the standard meter.
I work this out at approx 60kwh & 48kwh per day, respectively.
We have electric panel heaters in the bedrooms which were used for approx 2h per day, only on the coldest days.
We still have one storage heater on, as we are on a chilly Scottish island we have yet to feel the warmer weather! So usage is much the same.
The water heater is on a timer set by the electric co, I think, as there is no timer switch etc for me to see. It comes on at midnight for approx 1 hour, same at 5 am and 4 pm. I can hear when it is on, so I don’t think the water is heating constantly. We very rarely use the boost button.
We do have a tumble drier, it is only used for towels and bedding, so maybe 6 cycles per week.

From the bills, is our usage of standard electric high? (48kwh per day)

We do use more on the heating meter. Is it possible that the water tank could be heating all day, even though I don’t hear it? As I said, we rarely use the boost as we never really run out of hot water?

As we have 2 meters, is it possible that some items could be going through both meters? Or is that silly?
When we moved in to the house we had the consumer unit changed, it was one of the old ones with wires, electrician changed it to one of the ones with switches. Wondering if he could have somehow made a mistake and this is a reason for the high bills?

most improbable.

But sometimes the reading from meter 1 gets recorded on the account for meter 2.

It will be very useful to know your kWh used (meter readings). Otherwise we're just guessing.

Thanks PigletJohn. I’ve put the units used on the post this morning at 10.36, is that what you mean?

just seen your earlier post

60kWh per day means you are running two 3kW heaters continually for ten hours each, or equivalent usage. Which seems unlikely. Unless that covers a winter period, your house would be roasting. It's likely that your off-peak meter covers about 8 hours a day and your daytime one about 16 hours, and that off-peak costs about half as much as daytime, but you would have to check your tariff.

However, if you had a running hot tap, or a hot water leak, your immersion heater uses 3kWh per hour.

Or maybe an electric heater has been left running in the loft or shed to protect against frost.

Post some photos of your consumer units and of your meters and I will explain how to look for the culprit.

I am all elec including night store (but 3 bed mid terrace) and under 100 per month. In the middle of winter I use 3500 units cheap rate, 800 full rate (per quarter, assuming I'm reading my bill right) so I use proportionately more cheap rate than full (it's much cheaper, less than half the cost). Is it possible either your night stores/water heater are coming on on full rate electric time, or I've heard that faulty fridges/freezers can use masses of electric?

You can buy clip on meters to show your energy use from Amazon or other places on line for about £20 which may be better and quicker than getting a supplier fitted one.

Thanks for all your help. I will get some pics shortly. No heaters in lofts or sheds. And the house is freezing in winter, despite the high electric consumption. In laws won’t come in winter as it’s too cold for them!

We have just had to remove a chest freezer last week, it malfunctioned whilst we were away for a few days. Wondering if it was maybe faulty and using loads?!

I think I’ve had a breakthrough!!
Went to take pics of meter for pigletjohn, found a smart meter in the box.
Connected it up to the heating meter.
Pic 1 with 1 storage heater on. Pic 2 heater off. Storage heater should only take heat at night. Not in the day.

Damn lucky if youve sorted it, thats a ridiculous amount haha.

i'm in a 2 bedroom house with 4 adults and a computer that never gets turned off and we use between £40-£60 a month metered.

I am really hoping this is the reason! We can get them changed for other heating and stop paying so much every month!
The storage heaters are old, maybe they have malfunctioned and are using electric all day?!

a storage heater is a brick that heats up, nothing to go wrong. but plenty to cock up when connecting it....