How much do you pay for electric?

[Mull3t]

Out of interest, what sort of 'electrical demanding' things do you use?

I mean if yours has come in at £100 ish a month, based over a quarter, £300 ish, then your not far of the majority here, as it seems its either between £250-£300 for most who have all electric.

 

[Freefaller]

£30 a month and we've got close to £70 in credit on the account at the moment.

 

[tres]

unit prices surely are a better way of comparing rather than usage, as everyone has different equipment, heating etc?

Though I pay out approximately £250,000 on electricity (as part of my job) per annum
And i am SO close to persuading EDF to allow us to collect Nectar points on all of it....... And i say "us", i mean "me"

 

[Psycho Sonny]

hmmmmmmmm im pretty sure our electricity bill must be wrong then, we are paying £400-£500 a month and we have gas central heating

should probably get someone to check it out, would you just phone the supplier?

 

[mattheman]

£270 for a year, running pc, home cinema, lcd tv, cooker etc... but iam single, you should read your meters.

 

[mattheman]

hmmmmmmmm im pretty sure our electricity bill must be wrong then, we are paying £400-£500 a month and we have gas central heating

should probably get someone to check it out, would you just phone the supplier?

read your meter and look at the back of the bill, i do it all the time they keep estimating my bills wrong (always a lot higher)even after giving them reads.

 

[Rotty]

£100 a month sounds about right with electric heating

 

[EffBee]

One point ...

For £10 to £30 you can buy a little meter you plug in between an appliance and a wall socket. Leave it for a period of time and it will tell you how much energy you have used. The more expensive allow you to enter energy costs and give you a direct reading of what you are spending.

I am sure a lot of people unknowingly are wasting huge amounts of energy.

It is actually possible to meter every device you own and work out what they cost to run per minute or even per day or longer. You can arrive at a figure for how long each device runs for per day. This might need to be seasonally adjusted. You can then use Excel to work out your total estimated energy consumption, and costs, per day. If you take daily meter readings as well your spreadsheet can report actual vs estimated and report variances.

If you do this you will know where your electricity is going.

I am doing this as a little background project now.

PS: I used to be a work study/method study man (time and motion) years ago. It shows doesn't it

 

[Ev0]

Just had our bill through and it was about £240 for the quarter for gas and elec, £100 was the electric. That's 2 people, 2 bed semi, gas cooker and heating, electric shower.

Where we lived before was electric only and I'd also say £100pm is probably about right.

 

[Helium_Junkie]

We pay about £100 for both gas and elec, gas heating. Two of us in a 2.5bed house.

 

[Helium_Junkie]

It is actually possible to meter every device you own and work out what they cost to run per minute or even per day or longer.

Can't use it on yer heating stuff though I'd think? Or lighting.
We have one and have measured all we can, and theres still a lot unaccounted which we presume must be heat/light!

 

[EffBee]

Can't use it on yer heating stuff though I'd think? Or lighting.
We have one and have measured all we can, and theres still a lot unaccounted which we presume must be heat/light!

Lighting is easy enough - just take the bulbs out of the lighting sockets and put in a table lamp. If you have exotic spot lighting, dimmers or similar it will be more difficult.

Wired in electrical devices obviously can't be metered in exactly this way...

... but there is a plan "B" I have used for our electric oven:

Turn off absolutely everything in the house. Go to the meter and run an energy intensive device like a fan heater until the meter just changes, assuming digital, then turn off the appliance so no power is being drawn. Record the reading. If analogue meter just record the reading.

The go to the thing you want to test, turn it on. Wait for a while till a few kWh have clocked up (for digital meters you will want to let it just tick over before stopping the test. If you noted the time you started testing, and note the time you finish, then you know the exact time duration of your test you have enough to get your usage figures.

If you test a low energy device like a single spot lamp prepare for a very long while a few kWh tick over. For high energy devices like heaters however you will get a lot of KWh quite quickly. Remember heaters depend on ambient temperatures and thermostats.

You are effectively using the house meter as a test meter.

Incidentally this plan "B" is the method I used to check gas consumption of our various gas fired devices.

 

[Matt]

One thing to check is the lighting... It's not all halogen 50w like in my flat is it? I had 30x 50w halogen bulbs! (now all 7w energy savers).

 

[k00ba]

Hi, I'm new, joined only to share with you mine problem with electric bill. I'm with British Gas. Just got it, for period nov-feb. £741! I live with my fiancée in a 2 bedroom flat, all electric, but we eat at work, so practically don't cook at all. Once or twice a week doing a washing. And we use ONE oil electric heater (sometimes it was on 24/7, but u can't be surprised- 12 degrees in the morning! Bill is for 5219kWh used over 97 days! Over 50kWh per day?! On my previous flat my bill for a year was about 600 pounds (all electric). What rates r u on? Mine r first 153kWh x 24.112p and everything after that- 11.528p. Somebody tell me it can't be right!

 

[SlyReaper]

I pay nothing for electricity. It's included in the ridiculously cheap rent.

 

[tres]

Hi, I'm new, joined only to share with you mine problem with electric bill. I'm with British Gas. Just got it, for period nov-feb. £741! I live with my fiancée in a 2 bedroom flat, all electric, but we eat at work, so practically don't cook at all. Once or twice a week doing a washing. And we use ONE oil electric heater (sometimes it was on 24/7, but u can't be surprised- 12 degrees in the morning! Bill is for 5219kWh used over 97 days! Over 50kWh per day?! On my previous flat my bill for a year was about 600 pounds (all electric). What rates r u on? Mine r first 153kWh x 24.112p and everything after that- 11.528p. Somebody tell me it can't be right!

You have claimed that you're paying over the odds. You're right.
24.11 & 11.52 is ridiculous.
You should be on 10p throughout. Use Moneysupermarket.com

Also, are they estimated bills? Or accurate readings?

 

[k00ba]

It's accurate reading. It's my first bill with meter, before that i was on pre-pay meter and i was paying 1,60 GBP per 20kWh (0,08 pence per kWh). But landlord changed meters :/ What could i do? Is there any chance they could recalculate that on different rate? It's meant to be economy 7, but i don't think it is. On meter it says "G7 tariff". Most of my electricity is used during the day.

 

[D D Danneh]

NONE I USE A POWAH BIKE!!

On a serious note, we're paying a lot for our electricity. I'm pretty sure it's close to £100 p/m, with gas heating.

 

[Fuzz]

Iv'e got one of those electricity meters hooked up to the laptop recently to try and work out the best way to save some money on the leccy.

My 2 bed bungalow with gas central heating and at least one PC on 24/7 (attic server) uses on average,

26KW/hrs pr day

Our two tarriff rate is approx 14p for the first 95kw and then 9p for the rest. pr month

Finding it difficult to use the cost meter side of the gizmo as the dual tarriff part of it is set up like Economy 7 so it only has the option of "time" changes rather than amount of leccy used changes in tarriff.
But meh, it's a start and an eye opener at what the place uses.

http://www.currentcost.com/product-cc128.html
One of those and the connection cable, both available off the "bay"

 

[I_M_Weasel]

£15 per qtr