Boring Question - energy costs/usage
Discussion
I have just got my energy bill through and the monthly DD for electricity and gas has gone up to £150, which seems very high for a 2 bed flat!
A lot of it is probably down to tariff, so I will change that, but the website tells me my average daily consumption over the last year, which is 19kWh electricity (slightly higher in the winter) and 18kWh gas in the light quarters and 60kWh in the heavy ones!
The only gas usage is a 10 year old boiler powering 6 radiators, one wet under floor heated room and 1.5 hours a day to fill a MegaFlo. Should it really cost that much?
Electricity is probably higher than it should be as I am guilty of leaving a lot of gadgets on standby and we have two rooms with electric under floor heating which would explain the winter uplift. Cooking is done electric, but only a few times a week.
Impossible to say exactly, I know, but does it seem way out of whack?
A lot of it is probably down to tariff, so I will change that, but the website tells me my average daily consumption over the last year, which is 19kWh electricity (slightly higher in the winter) and 18kWh gas in the light quarters and 60kWh in the heavy ones!
The only gas usage is a 10 year old boiler powering 6 radiators, one wet under floor heated room and 1.5 hours a day to fill a MegaFlo. Should it really cost that much?
Electricity is probably higher than it should be as I am guilty of leaving a lot of gadgets on standby and we have two rooms with electric under floor heating which would explain the winter uplift. Cooking is done electric, but only a few times a week.
Impossible to say exactly, I know, but does it seem way out of whack?
Edited by kingston12 on Tuesday 27th January 17:16
GT03ROB said:
Yes it does. Seems very high.
You are paying the same as me for a 4 bed, 3000sqft, badly insulated detached house!
I have just changed it to the lowest tariff with the same supplier which brings it down to £115 a month. I could have got a bit more off taking the cheapest uSwitch recommendation, but the current supplier lets you change onto any of their other tariffs at any time which the uSwitch one won't.You are paying the same as me for a 4 bed, 3000sqft, badly insulated detached house!
I'll try and reduce the standby devices a bit as well.
The Money Saving Expert energy club is also worth a look, if you're considering switching.
kingston12 said:
I have just got my energy bill through and the monthly DD for electricity and gas has gone up to £150,
Or insert any other arbitrary amount if using NPower banking services 
I switched my Mum to OVOEnergy as they can bill correctly, have a decent website and resist being a bank (apart from the 3% they pay when you are in credit).
Check your bills over the last 12 months and go onto the comparison sites as I find the meters calculating daily and average usage aren't that accurate. Then pump this info into comparison sites such as u-switch.
Buy a device which will tell you how much an individual item is using so you can see which are the worst offenders and try and reduce consumption. Something like this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plug-In-Power-and-Energy-M...
Is there anything else you can do which is obvious like is the loft insulated, have you blocked draughts, change to LED bulbs, greater discipline of turning items off rather than leave them on standby, turn the heating down a degree or 2 etc.
FFG
Buy a device which will tell you how much an individual item is using so you can see which are the worst offenders and try and reduce consumption. Something like this.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plug-In-Power-and-Energy-M...
Is there anything else you can do which is obvious like is the loft insulated, have you blocked draughts, change to LED bulbs, greater discipline of turning items off rather than leave them on standby, turn the heating down a degree or 2 etc.
FFG
You're using about 1,000 kwh more a year than us which is for a 4bed 2.5 bath.
We aren't particularly economical on electricity, washer and tumble dryer seemingly on for hours. The largest drain on standby is the wifi.
Gas bit difficult to calculate, but if you have 2 quarters at your higher rate and 2 at the lower then you aren't so much lower than us on gas, we are at 20,000 kwh per year.
It's worthwhile getting an accurate value for annual energy usage in kwh before you go to the screen scrapers, u switch and moneysavingexpert for example.
One other thing to watch with them is how they calculate your expected saving. If you are on a tariff where there is an expected price increase, or the tariff is due to end, the programme will assume that you will go on to the standard variable tariff at some point. As the standard variable is usually the most expensive this can give you a false impression of saving.
What I do in this case is to get the analysis from MSE then take their suggestions, obtain the actual standing and variable charges from the relevant company website and wind it into Excel.
150pcm sounds a bit expensive from where I'm sitting tbh.
We aren't particularly economical on electricity, washer and tumble dryer seemingly on for hours. The largest drain on standby is the wifi.
Gas bit difficult to calculate, but if you have 2 quarters at your higher rate and 2 at the lower then you aren't so much lower than us on gas, we are at 20,000 kwh per year.
It's worthwhile getting an accurate value for annual energy usage in kwh before you go to the screen scrapers, u switch and moneysavingexpert for example.
One other thing to watch with them is how they calculate your expected saving. If you are on a tariff where there is an expected price increase, or the tariff is due to end, the programme will assume that you will go on to the standard variable tariff at some point. As the standard variable is usually the most expensive this can give you a false impression of saving.
What I do in this case is to get the analysis from MSE then take their suggestions, obtain the actual standing and variable charges from the relevant company website and wind it into Excel.
150pcm sounds a bit expensive from where I'm sitting tbh.
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