Help - £200 bill for 2 weeks of electric in new flat!

[swiftt]

Moved into a rented flat a month ago. 2 bedrooms, 3 old storage heaters in total throughout the flat. Have had to use electric convector heaters to boost the heating in the evening - one on for maybe 1-2 hours most evenings, storage heaters on always. I work Monday to Friday 9-5 so only home evenings and weekends. 2 loads of washing done a week. Water heater switched on for an hour at night to do dishes. Submitted meter readings on 31st December to new energy supplier with an E7 tariff. Was projected £55 a month DD. Have just submitted meter readings on app, just to gauge how much I’m using - £227 for the period 31/12 to 16/01! I could cry. £400 a month? That’s almost the same price as my rent. I cannot afford this. What do I do? Switch all the storage heaters off and freeze? I really don’t feel like I’ve been using electric excessively so I’m really worried. I’m pregnant and absolutely dreading next winter when I have a baby here too - I think I need to move!

I’d double check your immersion heater. I lived in a flat with a very similar set up, but standard electric heaters (not storage) and no E7 tariff and paid approx £90 a month averaged over the year. The tenants who moved in later had £200 bills - it turns out they hadn’t set up the immersion heater timer properly.

Immersion doesn’t need to be on cheaper circuit - you just need a timer to run it at cheap rate.

This is what I found out looking at economy 7

There are 2 circuits - normal and cheaper. Cheaper ONLY gets electricity overnight, normal gets all the time. Electricity on normal circuit is more expensive at day and cheaper at night. Cheaper circuit was from days before timer switches so you had your storage heaters on “all the time” on the cheap circuit but they only got electricity overnight.

You need a timer on the immersion heater so you can heat the water overnight for use during the day - it will heat on cheap electricity. Run your washer/dryer overnight too for same reason

@DorotheaDiamond but how do I put it on a timer? It’s literally just an on/off switch like a light switch. Do I need an electrician?

@thatonehasalittlecar I only have access to an on and off switch for it, literally like a light switch. I don’t even know where the actual tank is, must be in the loft. Feel totally clueless but I’ve always lived in properties with combi boilers so this is all new to me.

Yes you need an electrician to change it to a timer switch...it’s a really easy job ...no more than an hours work. Do you rent? Ask the landlord to do it if you do (I’m a landlord and I’d pay for it)

Speak to the landlord / letting agent about it. Many tanks will also have 2 immersion heaters - one as a back up - so it could be that one is on all the time, accidentally. But £200 pm is not right - and it could also mean the flat would fail the EPC - I’m not an expert on this but rentals have to be grade C or above - can’t see how it could be with that energy usage.

We had two switches for our immersion. One was the on switch, which heated overnight using cheaper electricity the second switch was a booster if you needed more hot water. We only realised after we had horrendous bills that ours was on boost all the time.

Thanks everyone. I’ll speak to landlord too about the immersion and see if we can sort something out.

Agree that the immersion could affect the bill, although maybe not the main problem if it’s only on for an hour during your peak timings. I’m on all electric - my heaters are fairly new but am afraid it’s a rubbish form of heating. Electric heating is expensive (4x that of gas). Even with output set to 0 during the day they lose heat and run out by the evening. Only good for people who are home all day and go to bed early!

Storage heaters are such a nightmare. If the system looks old I would be asking the LL or agent to look at Green Energy Grants to update the heating.

www.gov.uk/guidance/apply-for-the-green-homes-grant-scheme

In the meantime if your washing machine has a timer run it overnight during low rate energy or if not add one to the plug if you can. You definitely need to understand what's using electricity when in order to control costs. The supplier will be able to re work the figures, they may want you to take photos of the meter during the day so they know for sure which reading is which, I recently had mine reworked after more than 4 years - supplier couldn't tell me which reading was which so I aired on the side of caution and more recently it became apparent they were the wrong way round.

@swiftt definitely ask your supplier re the relevant times - otherwise you can eye your meter at say 7am / midnight etc and see if the reading stops going up on one rate, and starts going up for the other IYSWIM x