How much electricity do you use?

Kris_90 said:
How often do you leave your electric heaters on? When I first moved into my house I had a bit of damp (caused by condensation) under my stairs, I had two electric heaters on 24/7 for about two months - my electric bill tripled.
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My heaters are on for maybe an hour a day, unless I'm trying to dry washing, and then on a weekend it can be 3-4 hours as I can't dry the clothes outside except in summer. Some days not on at all though. I have an electric blanket I sometimes warm the bed up with before I get in it as well.

My flat is only 5 years old though, so the building and the heaters are fairly new/efficient.
 
1 bed flat with just me, everything electric. One storage heater. PC left on 24/7.

£46 per month DD and am over £70 in credit in the middle of winter. This winter has been particularly mild though.
 
1bed flat on crappy top up meter..
3 payments in January 2013 £35.00 CR [total not 3 payments of 35 quid]
2 payments in February 2013 £30.00 CR
3 payments in March 2013 £35.00 CR
3 payments in April 2013 £49.00 CR
2 payments in May 2013 £40.00 CR
2 payments in June 2013 £32.00 CR
2 payments in July 2013 £18.00 CR
2 payments in August 2013 £23.00 CR
3 payments in September 2013 £30.00 CR
1 payments in October 2013 £20.00 CR
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hotwater and heating is separate though a fix charge of I think £4.95 a week.

but I doubt I use that so they will probably owe me monies (I only use the radiators for an hour each day and just turn the boiler on for hour when I need a shower)
 
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That bill sounds about right to me. I used 920Kwh last quarter which works out as 1840kwh for 6 months.
Granted, im living in Darwin, but replace central heating with aircon (in bedrooms only), solar hot water. I have a laptop thats left on 24/7 as well as a NAS drive.
Im in a 3 bedroom bungalow but most of the time, im the only occupant.
 
Unluckyalf said:
That bill sounds about right to me. I used 920Kwh last quarter which works out as 1840kwh for 6 months.
Granted, im living in Darwin, but replace central heating with aircon (in bedrooms only), solar hot water. I have a laptop thats left on 24/7 as well as a NAS drive.
Im in a 3 bedroom bungalow but most of the time, im the only occupant.
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but he's in a one bed flat so there is less cabling and less plug sockets so not as much electricity escapes into the atmosphere to create static electricity and lightning strikes.

OP do the baloon test to see how much electricity is leaking out.
rub the baloon vigorously against a jumper for a short period of time and then see if enough static builds up for it to pull your hair like a magnet.
if the pull is strong you are leaking loads of energy

to much and you could end up with ball lightning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_lightning
 
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knip said:
1 bed flat, everything is electric. £27 a month.
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These sort of usage stats blow my mind (:p). I actually have an energy monitor connected to my incomer, my house base loads at around 500W of draw when everything is switched off bar "services". "Services" being 24/7 items, off the top of my head in my case being items such as routers, access points (cellular/wifi), switches, fridges/coolers, freezers, file servers, printers, AV devices, car battery conditioners.

This is £50/pcm absolute minimum for base services. I imagine most sizable houses as opposed to flats probably have similar running as a base load although if i lived in a flat i cant imagine that it would differ greatly. I would guess at a usual house using £100-£150pcm in electricity all told ignoring heating costs which would usually be a different fuel.

The answer to the thread is that everyone uses vastly differing amounts and a sensible bill for one person is not sensible for another. There is no way even turning my house to complete "idle" mode all month with us on holiday that it would use as low as £27 worth of units.
 
Was just looking through our bill and usage. Five bedroom house (gas central heating/hot water).

  • July 2013 - January 2014 (6 months): 3652 kWh
  • January 2013 - July 2013 (6 months): 4135 kWh
  • July 2012 - January 2013 (6 months): 4005 kWh
(All actual readings, not estimated).

Reduction in usage for the last 6 months is probably caused by replacing some of the incandescent & halogen bulbs with LEDs.

Lots of stuff running 24/7 (Modem, Router, switches, APs, server, HTPC, Car Battery Charger, Fridge, Freezer, etc).
 
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Looking at this itemised bill I got, I don't think it can be right, for example there are a lot of estimates and guesses and they seem very high, very stupid of me not to take a monthly reading, lesson learned! For example the first 3 months I lived here "estimated KW/H over 103 days - 1261 KW/H" This was in the summer with NO HEATING, I put this into an online calculator and that would be 760w for 16 hours a day every day for the 103 days with no heating at all as it was summer, I think I will dispute this as I cannot believe I used that much for 1 x PC with 20" monitor, 1 x LED TV, 1 x Amplifier, 2 x lightbulb, A+ rated fridge, no water, cooker 2-3x PD and kettle. Only way to prove it is to buy a plug in meter and measure all my stuff, but I am not pleased about this bill and I have noticed on this thread that people on pay as you go seem to be paying a LOT less than people with monthly bills, I think the electricity companies are ripping people off.
 
Jez said:
These sort of usage stats blow my mind (:p). I actually have an energy monitor connected to my incomer, my house base loads at around 500W of draw when everything is switched off bar "services". "Services" being 24/7 items, off the top of my head in my case being items such as routers, access points (cellular/wifi), switches, fridges/coolers, freezers, file servers, printers, AV devices, car battery conditioners.

This is £50/pcm absolute minimum for base services. I imagine most sizable houses as opposed to flats probably have similar running as a base load although if i lived in a flat i cant imagine that it would differ greatly. I would guess at a usual house using £100-£150pcm in electricity all told ignoring heating costs which would usually be a different fuel.

The answer to the thread is that everyone uses vastly differing amounts and a sensible bill for one person is not sensible for another. There is no way even turning my house to complete "idle" mode all month with us on holiday that it would use as low as £27 worth of units.
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That's about what I used to use in my old flat on a card meter (£25-£45 P/M) using exactly the same electricals that I have in my new flat... My old flat / last winter was also a lot colder than this year. Since I have moved to direct debit billing my bills have almost doubled, all these phantom charges, 2 tier pricing, late charges (although it took them 5 months to setup my account after multiple emails), it is a rip off. I am not sure that it is legal for them to charge me the 2 tier pricing in 2014 because I read that this has been banned as it is unfair to people with low electricity usage, for example "cost of first 203 KW/H 21.8p (!) - cost of next 1058 KW/H 13.6p". Only way I will know is to get a plug in meter and measure my stuff, but as it was around half this with a card meter in my old flat I am not pleased about it.
 
I had some high bills when i first moved in to my flat. I narrowed the high cost down to the storage heaters. I turned off the storage heaters at the breaker box and my bills went from £100 per month to £50 per month during winter. I now use a convection heater down stairs and a convention heater on a timer up stairs for a few hours in the morning. The convection heater downstairs is on when i get home till i go to bed. British gas also tried to make me pay for a previous tenant bill when i moved in. If you sign up to their website you can view your usage on a graph and compare it to previous months.
 
In our 3 bed apartment last year which was all electric we were paying on average about £25-£30 a month in Summer and about £50-£55 in Winter.

Storage heaters and water heater were all timed for economy 7 so that saved us money in the long run. In Winter we had 1 storage heaters on most of the time (lounge) and sometimes the bedroom but this wasn't that often as the room was a weird shape and we wanted our bed in the middle which is conveniently right in front of the storage heater, so we didn't have it on too much as we would have been sweltering in bed at night.

I borrowed my brothers gas heater though and bought a Calor canister for that which I used from Oct/Nov and it hadn't run out by the time we were moving out (August). Just wheeled that about the place if we were particularly cold, warmed the room up nicely in half an hour!
 
Well from now on I am taking meter readings every 2 weeks, might also switch to a card meter, I am not going to pay what they have asked until I have measured all my stuff and confirmed that it is physically possible that I could have used 760w, 16 hours a day for 103 days in summer with no heating! Does not sound right to me! It seems that unless you take regular meter readings and know your exact usage they will try and charge you for as much BS as possible!
 
NirK said:
That's about what I used to use in my old flat on a card meter (£25-£45 P/M) using exactly the same electricals that I have in my new flat... My old flat / last winter was also a lot colder than this year. Since I have moved to direct debit billing my bills have almost doubled, all these phantom charges, 2 tier pricing, late charges (although it took them 5 months to setup my account after multiple emails), it is a rip off. I am not sure that it is legal for them to charge me the 2 tier pricing in 2014 because I read that this has been banned as it is unfair to people with low electricity usage, for example "cost of first 203 KW/H 21.8p (!) - cost of next 1058 KW/H 13.6p". Only way I will know is to get a plug in meter and measure my stuff, but as it was around half this with a card meter in my old flat I am not pleased about it.
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You are unsure if it is legal?
What?
You're either on a tariff or you are not.
What tariff are you on?
What was your starting reading, what is your reading now?
What is your unit cost for the sections of your billing period?


When they setup the account for you (after these months of emailing, when a phone call might have sorted it) what account did you actually sign up to?
 
NirK said:
Well from now on I am taking meter readings every 2 weeks, might also switch to a card meter, I am not going to pay what they have asked until I have measured all my stuff and confirmed that it is physically possible that I could have used 760w, 16 hours a day for 103 days in summer with no heating! Does not sound right to me! It seems that unless you take regular meter readings and know your exact usage they will try and charge you for as much BS as possible!
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Estimated reading are correct by actual readings.
It doesn't matter what they estimated for the summer, your actual reading will override it.

If you start on one unit, and after 6 months they estimate you to be on 1000, and after twelve months they estimate you to be on 2000, and you are actually on 1800, then the next bill will reflect this. Its like you've paid in advance, its not as if they old figure is swept away never to be recovered. They don't start from zero again.

Start submitting actually readings, and the bills correct themselves.
 
I think the biggest problem is that the UK has some pretty terrible houses for Heat retention, thus say having to keep the heating on for hours on end, is just a waste.

Probably should be mandatory to fix this frankly.
 
NirK said:
Well from now on I am taking meter readings every 2 weeks, might also switch to a card meter, I am not going to pay what they have asked until I have measured all my stuff and confirmed that it is physically possible that I could have used 760w, 16 hours a day for 103 days in summer with no heating! Does not sound right to me! It seems that unless you take regular meter readings and know your exact usage they will try and charge you for as much BS as possible!
Click to expand...

What was the actual meter reading six months ago when you moved in, and what is the actual reading now?
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
You are unsure if it is legal?
What?
You're either on a tariff or you are not.
What tariff are you on?
What was your starting reading, what is your reading now?
What is your unit cost for the sections of your billing period?


When they setup the account for you (after these months of emailing, when a phone call might have sorted it) what account did you actually sign up to?
Click to expand...

I signed up to the standard tariff, I did ring them up and also sent about 7 emails. I did not realise there was about 500 different tariffs and that you need a masters degree in electricity usage just to find out what the best deal is, I also did not know they could charge 2 tier tariffs (which has now been banned in 2014 as it is clearly unfair). This is because this is my first time using billed electricity, all my previous flats were on a card and cost about 40-60% of the amount they have charged in my bill. I think the whole thing is very misleading and much more complicated than it needs to be, and that they do this on purpose to get as much money as possible.
 
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