Electricity nearly doubling in price

[VaderDSL]

If you could, post a screen grab of your bill? just the usage part.

I really need to sort mine out! I know, I need to learn to submit more readings, but the place I live has all the electricity meters in the communal landing in a locked cupboard which is nice and convenient.

The timer on my immersion heater has gone way out of sync. It comes on at 3am and goes off at 8am, but on Economy 10 apparently the low rate is from midnight through 4am, I'd take it apart and change it, but I don't know if isolating the immersion heater at the circuit breaker will isolate me from the mains properly.

Also need to figure out if I'm paying too much and if switching to a single meter/economy 7 style tariff would come out cheaper also, my main usage is probably heating the water at night.

 

[NathanE]

Nope. 6 months ago, my account was £260 in credit. Now it's £417 in the red.

Are you thick or what? Your energy price has not gone up. Your direct debit has!

 

[Goodie]

6 months ago it was the end of a period during which you wouldnt have used your hearing as much possibly? Won't this one have the majority of your winter heating included in it? and, seeing as your heating with electric it could possibly account by the higher bill. Can you compare the usage for the previous 6 months with the same 6 months last year?

 

[Destination]

And yet the only way when you don't have a gas supply. Or a chimney.

Is there no oil in England?

 

[NotAGolf]

That does seem quite high. Have you actually looked at what tariff you're on and compared it to other companies? You might be on the worst one going!

 

[Glaucus]

As said post your bill, it may well be just heating.

 

[SlyReaper]

I haven't got a scanner, so no screenshot.

Electricity charges 16 Nov 11 - 16 May 12
______________________________________________________
Electricity meter number: xxxxxxxxxxx Tariff: Standard (Variable) - E7

................................................ previous ..... latest ........ units ... kWh split .............. price ....... total
Day..... 16 Nov 11 to 16 May 12 ... 86925 (A) ... 90791 (A) ... 3866 ....... 3866 ..... at ..... 15.24p ... £589.18
Night... 16 Nov 11 to 16 May 12 ... 74508 (A) ... 75853 (A) ... 1345 ....... 1345 ..... at ...... 5.77p .... £77.61
Standing charge ................................................................................ 183 days at 18.00p ...... £32.94
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Total electricity charges before VAT .................................................................................... £699.73

 

[MeEsH BaKkA]

OP make sure any electric heating is actually coming on during the economy period, also request that the energy company come and fit a check meter (may cost but it will prove the accuracy of the meter). £100 a month is a huge elec bill if you live on your own and don't run electric heaters 2/47, grow weed, drink 100s of cups of tea a day or spend hours in an electric shower.
If you use electric heating make sure you are on the correct tarrif. Also an easy way to tell if anything is expensive to run using electricity is if it is designed to heat something up. Tumble dry and heat your water/house at night etc...

 

[Glaucus]

Do you have a previous bill?
How much heating have you used?

 

[SlyReaper]

It probably is the heating. I've just never seen an electricity bill more than £80 before, and I thought that was taking the ****, so it had me worried.

 

[NathanE]

What sort of heating is it? Oil filled rads or storage heaters? Or just bog standard electric heaters ?

The most cost effective electric heating is storage heating. But Economy 7 is the wrong tariff for them really (and is partly why storage heaters traditionally have such a bad reputation). You need Economy 9 or 10 really.

 

[Biohazard]

I haven't got a scanner, so no screenshot.

Electricity charges 16 Nov 11 - 16 May 12
______________________________________________________
Electricity meter number: xxxxxxxxxxx Tariff: Standard (Variable) - E7

................................................ previous ..... latest ........ units ... kWh split .............. price ....... total
Day..... 16 Nov 11 to 16 May 12 ... 86925 (A) ... 90791 (A) ... 3866 ....... 3866 ..... at ..... 15.24p ... £589.18
Night... 16 Nov 11 to 16 May 12 ... 74508 (A) ... 75853 (A) ... 1345 ....... 1345 ..... at ...... 5.77p .... £77.61
Standing charge ................................................................................ 183 days at 18.00p ...... £32.94
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Total electricity charges before VAT .................................................................................... £699.73

Standing charge?

 

[PistolPete]

I haven't got a scanner, so no screenshot.

Electricity charges 16 Nov 11 - 16 May 12
______________________________________________________
Electricity meter number: xxxxxxxxxxx Tariff: Standard (Variable) - E7

................................................ previous ..... latest ........ units ... kWh split .............. price ....... total
Day..... 16 Nov 11 to 16 May 12 ... 86925 (A) ... 90791 (A) ... 3866 ....... 3866 ..... at ..... 15.24p ... £589.18
Night... 16 Nov 11 to 16 May 12 ... 74508 (A) ... 75853 (A) ... 1345 ....... 1345 ..... at ...... 5.77p .... £77.61
Standing charge ................................................................................ 183 days at 18.00p ...... £32.94
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Total electricity charges before VAT .................................................................................... £699.73

That's 5211 kWh used in 183 days, 28.475 kWh average per day which means you were drawing (on average) 1.186KW all the time which is really quite high.
Might be an idea to get an Owl energy monitor or similar to monitor what's going on.

 

[MonkeyBasher]

I had this same issue. Its a bit late now since you wont be using the heating to see what impact it has. But what I ended up doing was reading the meters at the same time every day for a week. I also got one of the plug thingies so I could see the usage of each eletric device.

For me, I changed some of my routines, switched my gas boiler down and stopped using my extra electric heaters.

The biggest impact on my bills was the elctric heater. I bought some thick socks and jumpers instead.

Washing machines use a lot of electric if your running them a lot.
Also a faulty fridge/freezer can use a lot.

If your only/preffered option is an electic heater then rather than heat the entire house. Buy a portable heater and move it about with you.

 

[PistolPete]

I thought night rates were supposed to be cheaper?

5.77p was cheaper than 15.24p last time I looked


Hmmmm...... ninja edit!!

 

[The Halk]

You'd be better off that tariff it seems, since you're not using many night units.

 

[Biohazard]

5.77p was cheaper than 15.24p last time I looked

Yeah I noticed!

I've been doing that and transposing dates and figures all day

 

[SlyReaper]

What sort of heating is it? Oil filled rads or storage heaters? Or just bog standard electric heaters ?

The most cost effective electric heating is storage heating. But Economy 7 is the wrong tariff for them really (and is partly why storage heaters traditionally have such a bad reputation). You need Economy 9 or 10 really.

I chucked out the storage heaters and replaced them with standard ones. Storage heaters are worse than useless because they discharge all their heat while you're out at work, and it's freezing cold again by the time you get back home.

 

[NathanE]

Yeah as I said that will happen if you put them on a pointless E7 tariff.

E9 or E10 is more suited because the off-peak periods aren't all at night. I for instance have a 2 hour period between 12 and 2pm where my storage heaters can charge up...

Worst thing you could have done is get rid of the storage heaters. All you needed to do was move to a more appropriate tariff... Now it's costing you dearly for your negligent research.

 

[The Halk]

Haven't storage heaters been vilified to the point where they automatically put a rating of C on a home report?