high esb bill

mukki

okay moved into electricly heated 3 bedroom house in april 2005
it has 3 storage heaters that have been set to full since christmas, dishwasher is mostly used at night time

i left out all the estimate readings...

r1=days, r2= night saver

initial reading april 2005
r1 10178
r2 3464

may 2005
r1=10706 so 528 units
r2= 3526

july was estimate

sept 2005
r1=11239 533 units
r2=4002

nov 2005
r1=11524 285 units
r2=4305

jan 2006 was estimate

march 2006
r1=15937 total of 3946 units above the jan estimate
r2=5593


right the last reading is totally mental, and for all i know the neighbour tapped into the mains here, or the digital ESB meter is dodgy, i went down and had a look at it and its reads 16537 now, which is 600 units since it was read (approx on 28feb)


march bill was for €649 its usually about €100

can esb prove that i used the electricity, because there is no way that i did

Tazz T

Sounds like the two estimates are very underestimated.

100 euro for storage heating in a 3 bed house is ridiculously cheap. Ours is 250 for two bed and that's not on full. Even without heating you should really expect bills cllose to 100.

Storage heating is really expensive even with Nightsaver.

On a personal note, I think electricity bills are going to become a real problem for people in the future. They really have gone through the roof in the last five years. it won't be long until people on low incomes will refuse to pay and the ESB start cutting people off.

leeroybrown

From looking at those figures it looks like someone/something turned on some daytime storage heating over Christmas and didn't turn it off. At an absolute minimum a single storage heater on full will be using 5 units per hour of use.

TheDriver

Whole other issue, what should an ESB bill be? Mine is about 35 for two months with gas heating and electric shower, gas hob but electric oven. Used a good bit but presume nothing like a family home. Gas bill is about 40 a month

Sleipnir

TheDriver wrote:

Whole other issue, what should an ESB bill be? Mine is about 35 for two months with gas heating and electric shower, gas hob but electric oven. Used a good bit but presume nothing like a family home. Gas bill is about 40 a month

It's when you have a woman in the house. They just don't turn things off.

Skitbra

3 friends of mine have recently told me they've received huge esb bills. Going from around 70 to 300. The price of electricity has gone up since january i think. The thing is they could've read the meters before then on the cheaper price but they waited until after and now the the bills are a lot more. Of course the next bill will be less but not back to the original estimated bills.

mukki

Tazz T wrote:

Sounds like the two estimates are very underestimated.

100 euro for storage heating in a 3 bed house is ridiculously cheap. Ours is 250 for two bed and that's not on full. Even without heating you should really expect bills cllose to 100.

Storage heating is really expensive even with Nightsaver.

On a personal note, I think electricity bills are going to become a real problem for people in the future. They really have gone through the roof in the last five years. it won't be long until people on low incomes will refuse to pay and the ESB start cutting people off.

i thought that 80-120 euro bills were cheap, and had planned to fit the house i was building with only electric heating because of this. Not anymore!

but i still think its a mistake.....

look at the night saver readings, the storage heaters are off all day, the only thihg on during the day is the tv, computer, cooker, and then a few light bulbs in the evening,
okay i found that one of the convector heators upstairs 2kwatt was set to come on for 4hrs a day, but thermostatically kept the room at 20c, and the room door is spring loaded so that can't be much of a strain on the power

From looking at those figures it looks like someone/something turned on some daytime storage heating over Christmas and didn't turn it off. At an absolute minimum a single storage heater on full will be using 5 units per hour of use.

checked that, the storage heaters are powered by a relay in the fusebox, they can not be turned on before 11pm, there is a built in fan heater but this is noisy, so can not be left on and forgotten about


checked the water heater timer and it is set right, and the thermostat on the tank cuts it off at 60c


maybe this thread should be moved to the diy forum

Tazz T

TheDriver wrote:

Whole other issue, what should an ESB bill be? Mine is about 35 for two months with gas heating and electric shower, gas hob but electric oven. Used a good bit but presume nothing like a family home. Gas bill is about 40 a month

That sounds great. Wish I had gas central heating.

OP the night rate for storage heating went up by a good bit this year. Storage heating is easily the most expensive way to heat your home.

dudara

mukki wrote:

okay i found that one of the convector heators upstairs 2kwatt was set to come on for 4hrs a day, but thermostatically kept the room at 20c, and the room door is spring loaded so that can't be much of a strain on the power

20 degrees Celcius is quite warm, in fact it's postively caribbean. Turn it down to 15-17 degress. You wont notice the difference, but it will save a lot in energy

homeOwner

My last bill was three times my previous two bills. I called ESB about it and got the same story....the previous two bills were estimates....and they were way under estimated.

Damn!

mukki

Tazz T wrote:

OP the night rate for storage heating went up by a good bit this year. Storage heating is easily the most expensive way to heat your home.

no i mean the storage heating comes on during the night, the bill says i have used over 500 before tax during the day, night use is fine

20 degrees Celcius is quite warm, in fact it's postively caribbean. Turn it down to 15-17 degress. You wont notice the difference, but it will save a lot in energy

will in my feic
i turned it off, and its not coming back on!

endplate

You must be freezing now:D

mukki

just checked the meter again and its gone up over 200pints since my op

for 6 days electricity between 8am and 10pm

thats over €25 before vat for 84hrs.
maybe 10hrs of tv
about 15 boils of the kettle
think we made 2 dinners


surly this must be between esb and my landlord to sort out???

chuckles30

I think you need to contact the esb. I remember neighbours having problems with their meter before and it needed to be replaced as it was faulty. It was flying around. Sounds like you could have a similar problem.

Jumpy

turn off your main fuse.

Is the meter still spinning?

mukki

its a digital meter, no spinning thing

i rang esb and they recon i have to get an electrician out, but its not my house!


BTW, i was on the net for an hour (pc has 400psu and 21inch crt screen), and i went down and it hadn't increased since!, looks like it just jumps every now and then

mel123

how much would u say an hour's heating costs (not storage heating just normal gas heating)?? i keep mine at 20 degrees, its by no means baking (but then again im still waiting to get net curtains and a blind for the windows...7 months later), just out of curiosity??...i reckon on average my heating and water cost about 25 p.w. normally put the water on for an hour a day on average id say and the heating on for id say on average 3.5 hours a day (all this is in the evening too)...how much does everyone else pay??

tabatha

mel123 wrote:

how much would u say an hour's heating costs (not storage heating just normal gas heating)?? i keep mine at 20 degrees, its by no means baking (but then again im still waiting to get net curtains and a blind for the windows...7 months later), just out of curiosity??...i reckon on average my heating and water cost about 25 p.w. normally put the water on for an hour a day on average id say and the heating on for id say on average 3.5 hours a day (all this is in the evening too)...how much does everyone else pay??

well i have gas heating and my last bill was 230 euro. i have my heating on from 6.30 am until about midnight non-stop. i have the thermostat set at about 20c during the day and sometimes at night i turn it up to about 22c-23c. i like my heat! i dont think that this is a bad amount to pay for two months heating.

mel123

do u mean 6.30PM?????

tabatha

nope, 6.30 am!!! i think its great value. mind, i do have a thermostat which a lot of people i know either dont have or dont know how to use. when the house reaches 20c it turns off and comes back on when it dips again.

jonnner

If you want to check if the Meter is faulty;

The Meter measures KWH (Kilowatt Hours).
If you run something that consumes 1000Watts for an hour your Meter will record 1KWH.
If you have a modern electric shower,it will have a rating of around 10,000W and should take around 6 minutes to record 1 KWH.;)

mel123

holy sh*t u really do like ur heat!! that is good value i have to say, for the amount ur bill comes to. i also have the thermostat, same as u when it reaches 20 it goes off and on etc. so is ur water seperate too from ur heating? mine is, the heating doesnt heat up the water like, i have to put that on seperate.

tabatha

no, thats also for the water. i have 8 rads going for that. i live in a 3 bed terrace so i suppose that they are warmer houses anyway. i do love my heat!:D

as for the electricity, i know when my sister moved into her new house bulbs kept blowing all the time. she go onto the esb and they put in something to monitor the power coming into the house to see if there was too much electricity. turns out there was!

mukki

mel123 wrote:

how much would u say an hour's heating costs (not storage heating just normal gas heating)?? i keep mine at 20 degrees, its by no means baking (but then again im still waiting to get net curtains and a blind for the windows...7 months later), just out of curiosity??...i reckon on average my heating and water cost about 25 p.w. normally put the water on for an hour a day on average id say and the heating on for id say on average 3.5 hours a day (all this is in the evening too)...how much does everyone else pay??

but remember that the heating is all on night saver, its a seperate reading, my problem here is the ammount of eletricity i am using during the day ie cooking and tv and pc

anyway my question is, how do i get the landload (faulty wiring) or esb (faulty meter) to settle this as its nothing to do with me except the bill is in my name

Tazz T

I've talked to ESB about h is before and they just say that's how much you've used. The only thing you can do is get an electrician out to check things out. Whether or not your landlord is prepared to pay for that is a different matter.

chuckles30

have you tried explaining the problem to the landlord and asking him to send out an electrician? If there's a problem, it's his premises at the end of the day.

mukki

phew landlord finally rang me back today

he agrees that its wrong
he is organising an eletrician

checked the meter today and its... 16801 thats about €105 in 2 weeks before vat for day time use

dudara

good.

Another handy tip I read recently is to check your fridge setting. If it's on 5, lower it to 3 or so.

mukki

i got a final bill for €851


every time i ring esb they laugh at the idea of my using 70units a day( average is 7units) , yet i still get bills


finally today i got a soliciters letter demanding i pay the sum, i ran esb and the one thought that this was rediculous, and said that the meter was reported faulty, she said she would talk to her boss and ring me back


she never called back!

wonder how it will go in court, everyone in esb agrees that its a mistake

illicit007

Whens your court date, how'd it go?

Did ya get em?