Electricity consumption

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
Posts
25,301
Location
Chadderton, Oldham
Hi all.

Me and the girlfriend have just moved into a flat in Manchester, and our electricity consumption or usage habits are pretty similar to where we lived previously with the exception of heating!

In our previous flat, our monthly electricity bill for a 1 bed flat was about 50 quid, now after calculations in our current flat, for a month, we're looking at around £140!!!!!!

Now this doesn't seem right, for a 1 bed flat? The only thing I can think of is it must be the heating, we have underfloor heating in this flat and it doesn't seem to heat the flat up brilliantly, once it's up to temp it's ok, but we're running it all night and if we're in a room like the living room it'll be on the whole time we're in there.

The only other alternative we have is a small Honeywell heater that blasts it out and heats the room up quick, I'm not sure if short sharp bursts will be cheaper with that?

Even so I'm not sure the electricity consumption is even accurate and how to work out what is using the electricity, we're currently with British Gas and I've just switched to SSE who are by far the cheapest, but still we're looking at around £111 every month!!!!!!!111

I checked my calculations but based off this it seems accurate?

Electric - Start - 26/10/2017 - 51815

Electric - Current - 04/12/2017 - 52952

Difference - 1137
Difference in days - 39

(8 days in the next month)

28-31 days in a month

Standing Charge - 26.01 PPD
Unit Rate Pence Per kWh - 14.63
£10.14 Standing Charge
£166.34 - Electricity Cost


Any help and advised or any light can be shed?
 
Electric heating can really push the bill up - when I had a flat in London it went from £10-15 a week with the heating off to £20-25 a week with it on.

EDIT: Underfloor heating calculators put a one bedroom flat with running say 8 hours a day at under £200 extra for the whole winter period :s
 
Last edited:
1137/29 days = average of 29.15385 kWh per day.
£0.2601+(£0.1463*29.15385) = average of £4.53/day.
£4.53*(365/12) = average of £137.79/month.

Unless you have a dodgy meter that looks pretty accurate :/

Do you have gas heating? That's far cheaper to run than electric.
 
The 1137 is actually over 39 days as we haven't had a bill since we moved in, to be honest it seems like the electric company have forgot about us but not risking that.

No just electric as we're in a flat.
 
Electric heating is expensive and having it on 8 hours a day is insane. If you have it on at night look at economy 7 and just changing supplier anyway.

Also if you own the flat, look at upping insulation and seeing how much gas connection would be.

Oh and did you check the start reading, well and the other reading.
 
One of my main criteria when we started flat hunting a couple of months ago was gas central heating precisely because electric only costs so much more. Any with electric only didn't even get a viewing.

Seems to be the trend with newer flats because it's cheaper for the developers.
 
I avoided buying a house I preferred to this one because it only had electric heating. I ran the numbers and it was going to cost a fortune. This house is much bigger and less insulated but still costs a lot less to heat with gas.
 
This time a year my gas+electric is£200+a month, stuff £100 in summer. I have wood burner so heating is only on a few hours a day.:(

12m * 12m *2 rough size of house.
 
LabR@t said:
This time a year my gas+electric is£200+a month, stuff £100 in summer. I have wood burner so heating is only on a few hours a day.:(

12m * 12m *2 rough size of house.
Click to expand...
Wow in the winter months my electricity bill is about £55-65 per month and my gas bill is about £30-35
 
Electric heating is rubbish and expensive. Once you switch it off it doesn’t continue to give off heat the same way radiators do. Had it in a previous flat and it was very expensive to run.
 
woppy101 said:
Wow in the winter months my electricity bill is about £55-65 per month and my gas bill is about £30-35
Click to expand...
My missus does 3 loads of washing a day, + Tumble dryer is on what seems like
Constant. House is actually well insulated. Electric is £90-110 all year round.
 
MichaelAwkward said:
One of my main criteria when we started flat hunting a couple of months ago was gas central heating precisely because electric only costs so much more. Any with electric only didn't even get a viewing.

Seems to be the trend with newer flats because it's cheaper for the developers.
Click to expand...

Newer flats go down the route of a communal hot water loop and then a metered heat exchanger in each flat, where you pay the management agent for how much heat you draw out of the system. Far more efficient than individual boilers or electric water heaters, as well as taking up a lot less space.
 
Had electric heating in a cold old flat with high ceilings, cost an absolute fortune to run but without it temps would drop to 10c or lower.

Great location but god it was cold, glad to move out of that rental.
 
NewGamer11 said:
Electric heating is rubbish and expensive. Once you switch it off it doesn’t continue to give off heat the same way radiators do. Had it in a previous flat and it was very expensive to run.
Click to expand...

Depends on the electric heating. Fan heaters/convectors are as you say. and any heating using full rate electricity is going to be expensive, however For a smaller house/flat E7 storage heaters are not that bad. especially if it is well insulated.

The fuel costs may be higher, but the installation is less expensive, generally more reliable and essentially maintenance free.

Which is why Landlords tend to prefer it as well as developers
 
£75/month, gas and electric, for two of us in a three bed detached here. She works from home too. We're not tight with our use, and it's much less in summer.

Something doesn't seem right your end.
 
£120/month on average over the year (gas/elec combined) for an old 1930s mid terrace 4 bedroom. Our top floor bedrooms have no loft above them so they get pretty cold if the heating isn't on a fair bit. I'd hate to think what it'd cost us if we were heating by electric heaters only.
 
We don't get any beneficial heating too, to the front is corridor, back is outside, side is another corridor and below is the car park, one side has a flat but they're hardly in.

I'm thinking of looking at a smart meter but they're hard wired in so need to get permission (renting), again with E7, doubt I'd be able to get one of those in surely as again I'm renting?
 
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