Electric bill since working from home

[Guest2]

To anyone who has been working at home full time since lockdown, have you noticed an increase in your electric usage? Is your company compensating / providing a WFH electric allowance

I have just received this months bill from Bulb and its £154.01
865 [email protected] (day rate) - £130.61
[email protected] (night rate) - £9.82
standing charge £6.25
5% VAT £7.33

34 kWh/day (£5.31) last year it was 11kWh/day which is about right as it was ~£50 a month last. So it's 3 times higher than usual

Electric only 2 bed flat with 2 people sharing, no heating on at the moment other than hot water/showers

 

[Guest2]

Surely the lack of travel expenses cancels this out?

I walked 15 mins to get to the office. It's now closed

 

[Guest2]

You running the shower all day on the hottest setting or something?

Wish I was, i would know where the money was going then.

Maybe its all the COD i've been playing on a 2080Ti. It kicks out a fair amount of heat so guess it's using a fair amount of electric. Usually play for an hour or 2 in the evening

 

[Guest2]

Immersion heater timings have not change - auto
Tariff is 'Vari-Fair'
I have my laptop (pretty low powered i7 HP Elitebook) and 2 screens on between 8am-4pm, along with Desktop PC - i7 [email protected], 2080Ti which sits idle most of the day

 

[Guest2]

+1

+0. I walk to work (or did)

 

[Guest2]

You might want to make sure you know exactly what auto means. It isn't always what you expect it to be in my experience.

Thanks. Brainstorm moment... On 24th March the immersion heater did reset itself for some reason, but I checked the manual and defaults were set.

I had another look now and have set electric radiators from auto to off (even though all are off anyway) and also set the water heating from 07:00 - 09:00 and 17:00 - 20:30
defaults were 06:00 - 09:00 and 16:30 - 22:30??!

Also, the last time I provided metre readings was 3 months ago. Chances are this months usage is lower and the previous two have been higher, but appeared as higher this month based on estimate readings (then providing actual)

 

[Guest2]

Sarcasm aside, does the immersion heat up water in a cylinder stored in the house? If it's relatively modern, that's still way too much. Mine comes on for 45 minutes overnight and there's enough hot water to last me all day. It takes way more than a day to cool down.

Yep, big tank. I've lowered it to 06:00-07:30 and 17:00 - 19:00

Usually its (between 2 of us) 2 showers a day, maybe 4 if we go for a run / going out at night / go for a walk and get soaked and muddy in a thunderstorm (like just now) 1 washing machine run every 2 or 3 days and general stuff like a dishwasher run every 2 days, oven use, cooking etc.

Henry is normal size, not the mini one ...and yes, that is a box of 300 lotus biscoff biscuits you see

 

[Guest2]

Are you sure what you posted picture of (forth one) is the imersion heater timeclock? becuase thats a two channel heating programmer, and while it coul be controlling the I/H via a contactor that would be unsual. Go back to your first picture, you can see the flex to the immersion just looping round near the biscoff biscuits, where do it go?

It goes to a switch on the wall (pics 1 and 2 below)






The only pipe that is hot (almost too hot to touch currently) is the one on the far left, going into the top of the tank

 

[Guest2]

What does that switch say on it, looks like it is engraved?

Can we have a look at your electrical fuseboards, it could be that it is on a separate E7 DB that is pulled in by a contactor during night rate.

Do you have an E7 Tariff (you might have mentioned it already, but I cant see it)

It says 'Water heater' below the switch

Tariff is 'Vari-Fair'

Fuse box

 

[Guest2]

Just seen where you say its electric only. Your heaters, I presume are storage heaters rather than panel heaters?

It would seem afterall that programmer is fore the hot water; in the lower section of the board, you have got two contactors, I would assume that the ABB one is for the heating and the hager one is for the hot water, you can confirm this by asking someone to press boost or override or otherwise bringing it on from the programmer while you stand at the fusebaord, you should hear a 'clunk' and the flag in the clear plastic window on the contactor should change.

I cant find details on the vari-fair tariff, just a load of slaes bumf as is typical.... do you get a separate night rate? you really want to be setting your I/H to heat up during the night (normally something like midnight till 7, or 1 till 8, depending on whether it is BST or GMT)

Panel heaters (electric radiators on walls) we hardly ever turn them on, even in winter.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by ABB and contactors. Reading that would be probably like what my 91 year old nan thinks when I explain my job in remote IT working to her
If I switch water heating to ON then yes, there is a 'clunk' sound

vari-fair rates;

865 [email protected] (day rate) - £130.61
[email protected] (night rate) - £9.82
standing charge £6.25
5% VAT £7.33

 

[Guest2]

I used to spend £300/month in train commute into London. Made redundant Nov last year. New company is 20 minutes up the road. Car diesel on the commute is minimal (majority at steady 70/40mph).

So no, no help and I wouldn't expect any, and better off with a job even if it's at home.

That's fair enough but what if you purposely moved close to work so you could walk then they either closed the office or moved it so you had to make a £300 communte, would you expect compensation in any form?

FYI I am only asking because a where a friend works they are providing everyone with an electric allowance (not sure how much)

In this instance it turns out it's probably my fault. A combination of the boiler (hot water) heating up too much, plus the working from home. I paid my electric bill and moved on

 

[Guest2]

Interesting discussion, I am not usually precious when it comes to usage, I just use stuff when I want to within reason. Turn devices off when not using them as much as possible, but there will always be some kind of power draw in the background.

Dug out the old smart meter IHD today and did a bit of comparison using recent (actual) figures:

8066kwh - 7372kwh = 694kwh
27/06/2020 - 07/05/2020 = 51 days
694kwh / 51 days = 13.6kwh per day

So recently I've been using more due to wfh (my own PC on more + work laptop), and running portable aircon more than usual lately.

13.6kwh per day, if used daily for a year would put me at almost 5k kwhs per year. average consumption for a household in the UK is something like 3600 kwhs.

No increase in pay from work for the extra usage, but as others said I echo the sentiment that I would prefer to have a job than not, so it's not something I can't just deal with by paying a bit extra each month.

I'm paying just over 13p per kwh though, so when it comes to renewal time I will have to look into seeing if I can improve that a bit

The main thing I see here is that you are only using 13.6kwh per day and running aircon.
I am runnning 34 kWh/day and no aircon! That puts me at 12,410 kwhs for a year! ...or 3.5 times the average hourshold... for a 2 bed flat

I'll get next months reading submitted to get a better picture of usage

 

[Guest2]

I don't know why this is even being discussed.

It's an estimated bill.

He needs to provide actual readings before going any further.

Therefore all advice currently is unnecessary unless his bill has actually increased by a lot.

Where did i say it was estimated? I provided readings to bulb on 24/06

This time last year it was 3 times less

 

[Guest2]

I quoted it

Also, the last time I provided metre readings was 3 months ago

That says that you last provided readings 3 months ago.

Yes, actual readings on 24/03 and 24/06. Estimated bulb readings on 24/04 and 24/05.
Bulb say to only provide meter readings every 3 months. For the purpose of monthly usage though, i need to get a reading every month.

Sorry, i should have made this clearer in the original post

 

[Guest2]

If your usage is correct.

Then go around and turn off everything and see how fast your meter is spinning before and after.

Get a smart meter and get an in house monitor.

The main uses of energy are heating air or water. Kettles, showers, tumble dryer, hair dryer, etc.

Is someone using an electric shower for hour long showers every day? Etc.

Apartment block, we have no access to the meters. A consierge provides readings - same as all other shared apartment blocks.
Smart meter cannot be fitted.
2 showers a day of upto 5 mins max each

 

[Guest2]

Can you get readings once a day from the concierge to check the daily values for now?

Unfortunately not. I will ask him to get them next Wednesday though and say its because of unusual usage this month

 

[Guest2]

Is that even legal?

Surely you should have access to your own meters.

Must be
Nope, been the same in every shared complex (flat /apartment) I have lived in. Same for the communal sky dish. No idea where it is

 

[Guest2]

Sounds like the landlord is making the figures up, so he can make money from you

lol. It's the building consierge of around 100 apartments. I'm the owner

 

[Guest2]

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.co...have-the-right-to-access-my-electricity-meter

OK, so it seems like I do (or should) have access based on the following post

A customer has the right to read their own meter, well that's the view of the DNO. I'd have to dig but it might be in The Electricity Act

Whould this over rule anything else in my leasehold agreement?

Edit. I cannot specifically find anything regading access to electric meter but something does exist for access to gas (we dont have gas, electric only)

https://forums.landlordzone.co.uk/f...ions/317-access-to-gas-and-electricity-meters

 

[Guest2]

**facepalm**

People will literally moan about anything Seriously what about all the time you save not commuting? Sitting in unnecessary meetings? Lunch etc? WFH is a benefit that literally 90% of people are hoping will stick around afterwards rather than going back to sitting in the office all day.

What about all the time people don't spend reading threads properly. I have said it multiple time - I do not commute to work. I have not commuted to work for almost 10 years