Silly housemates, how much will the ESB bill be?

DaSilva

Right so, I'm renting with two other students, and for reasons I won't bother explaining for the past month we have been without heating, and so the house was bloody cold. I resorted to sleeping clothes with extra blankets etc..

Anyway, the two other students who are from a hot country, found it unbearable, borrowed one of those electric heaters from a friend, and have been using it for the past month. I told them I had heard those things eat electricity and too use it sparingly. However it turns out they didnt listen to my advice, and had it on all the time they were in the house, when they were watching tv, they had it on full blast the whole time. When they went to bed they had it in their room all night full blast. Basically anytime they were in the house it was on the whole time they were there.

We came to an agreement since I got worried that the ESB bill would be massive that I would just pay an average of what the previous bills were, and they would cover the rest.

However I'm curios to know does anyone have any rough idea how much the bill will be? Average bill is around €75 Euro, with no use of the electric heater. So with an extra month of it being on, for atleast 10 hours every day of the week, any idea how big it will be? I'm worried they are gonna try go back on their word if we get some massive bill.

Karoma

Work out how much they used the heater(above?) & Read heater details - how much electricity it uses.
Read bill / ESB website - how much they charge for electricity.
Do math.

leeroybrown

I knew a guy who shared an apartment with a girl who did this about seven years ago. When he got the electricity bill it was heading for IR£200 which was probably four to five times his normal bill.

You could also check the figure on the meter yourself if you have access to it. When you get the bill be sure to check that it is not an estimated reading. If it is it could be well short of the real figure and the real cost will bite you after the next manual reading.

DaSilva

Karoma wrote:

Work out how much they used the heater(above?) & Read heater details - how much electricity it uses.

Read bill / ESB website - how much they charge for electricity.
Do math.

Hehe I came out with 27000~ Euro

Heater uses 2000Watts (I assume per second, I just remeber the switch for heat level, the highest was 2000, which is what they allways used).

thats 2kW a second
*60
thats 120kW a minute
thats 7200kW an hour

its 12.73 cent an hour per 1kW
so, 7200 * 12.73 = 91656 cents. Or €916.56 cant be right.

Im lost. Dunno if the heater using 2000W a second is right

feylya

Eh, it's 2KW per hour, not per second.

Karoma

feylya wrote:

Eh, it's 2KW per hour, not per second.

not yet! but with this blood organised gang for a government it's only a matter of time.

Signed,
NetWhizSkid.

rediguana

I used Eircom dial up when I was waiting for BT langers to connect my broadband. Cue a E372 bill.

If you're going to be just paying the average of previous bills, you don't really need to worry.

Those heaters are relatively expensive alright, but I don't think the next bill will break records or anything

Sad Professor

Well you warned them, just pay the same as you paid on the last bill and let them pay the rest. Maybe have a camera ready to capture their expressions when the bill comes in

Zab

DaSilva wrote:

Im lost. Dunno if the heater using 2000W a second is right

Try an hour.

leeroybrown

An electrical unit is a KiloWatt-Hour. This means 1000W used constantly for one hour. So a 2000W heater will use two units of electricity per hour at maximum.

Multiplying the rating of the appliance by the number of hours by the cost of an electrical unit will give you the maximum bill increase. Bear in mind that the actual usage will probably be less due to the built in thermostat and the fact that the heater may not have been using full power to begin with.

Karoma

What are you studying?

DaSilva

No need to get so condesending old chappies, I tried to work it out, and Wikipedia told me Watts are a per second measurement, and the heater definately only says 2000W, not 2000Wh, or anything. No need to get so high and mighty.


Comes out at around 76Euro maximum extra for the month, which isn't as much as I was expecting.

@Karoma you asking me?

Karoma

Welcome to t'Internet - pisstakes and porn guaranteed.

Robbo

Karoma wrote:

not yet! but with this blood organised gang for a government it's only a matter of time.

Signed,
NetWhizSkid.

Surely this is all a pittance to a savvy internet millionaire like yourself?

Karoma

Robbo wrote:

Surely this is all a pittance to a savvy internet millionaire like yourself?

Well, as a Communist millionaire (Which I am. Really. Must I remind you each and every time of this undeniable truth?) that votes FG, my interests lay with the common people such as yourself and what would benefit you.



DaSilva: yup. (not aimed at you alone:) People! Grow a sense of humour and/or thicker skin. , p34c3, and so on.

DaSilva

Karoma wrote:

What are you studying?

Was it an attempt at a snide questioning of my knowledge or intelligence?

Well if so congradulations, you've pointed out my lack of concept of daily electrical appliance power consumption. And the fact that it is so glaringly obvious too the majority of the population that when an appliance reads 2000W (a unit measured in seconds) that in reality this is 2000W an hour maximum. Isn't it a little easy to be 'informed' though when someone has else has posted the answer?

So for you Karoma in the words of Comic book guy

"Oh your powers of deduction are exceptional. I simply can't allow you to waste them here when there are so many crimes going unsolved at this very moment. Go! Go for the good of the city!"

Nightwish

My boyfriend stupidly left his on the whole time in his old flat, and the bill was over €800.

the_syco

Karoma wrote:

not yet! but with this blood organised gang for a government it's only a matter of time.

Signed,
NetWhizSkid.

Don't let the mod hear you say that, or you'll get banned. Oh. Right. Nevermind:D

Nightwish wrote:

My boyfriend stupidly left his on the whole time in his old flat, and the bill was over €800.

The icon with the smiley face laughing, on its back, with its hand and feet in the air popped into my head when I read that.

DaSilva wrote:

Hehe I came out with 27000~ Euro

Heater uses 2000Watts (I assume per second, I just remeber the switch for heat level, the highest was 2000, which is what they allways used).

thats 2kW a second
*60
thats 120kW a minute
thats 7200kW an hour

its 12.73 cent an hour per 1kW
so, 7200 * 12.73 = 91656 cents. Or €916.56 cant be right.

Im lost. Dunno if the heater using 2000W a second is right

27000 divided by 60 = €450
916.56 divided by 60 = €15.28

€450 sounds about right. Per heater. Per room. Could come to about €1,250 if they have 3 of them. Inform the landlord, as I think they may run, leaving you with the bill.

User45701

i dont know but i mean when i was in my last place the bill was huge because i had my pc on 24/7 but i never used anything else like i never used the TV or the cooker and the radiator in my room was tunred off so we still all payed equil in the bills because we assumed that it roughly worked out in the end.

faceman

Hey OP, how much do your trust your flat mates? Hope that bill isnt your name only...

DaSilva

faceman wrote:

Hey OP, how much do your trust your flat mates? Hope that bill isnt your name only...

Don't trust em at all really, but the bill is in the landlords name, they are in my class in college, they have to be registered with the local garda station as they are from outside EU, and the landlords daughter is a garda. So I dont think they would get too far unless they dropped out of college and left town

Anti

Its more then likely names to " the occupier " but if the bill isnt paid its left to the landlord.

The last flat i was in had storage heaters in the living room, bathroom, hall and bedrooms. I had them on timed for 2 hours in the morning 6-8am and 4-6pm. If it was cold in the evenings i would just turn them on when i was in the room. I would not call that over use at all, yet my bills came in over 150€ a time.

And these storage heaters were meant to use much less then the portable ones. So im guessing your gonna be in for a fecking huge bill of well over 500€.

When you get the bill, san it and post it up in here. Will be interesting to see it.

DaSilva

anti wrote:

When you get the bill, san it and post it up in here. Will be interesting to see it.

Will try do that hehe. Could be hard though because it comes addressed to the landlord, so we can't open it until she comes to the house too collect rent, we pay her for it then she goes to the Post Office and pays it. But I will ask for it, saying I need a copy of it for my 'books'.

Tar.Aldarion

DaSilva wrote:

Heater uses 2000Watts (I assume per second

Hah! That is some heater.

Lump

It'll be about €50 - €70 extra for the month per heater. As the heater doesn't always heat you can't work it out as 20 Kw per day, that would be the maximum charge.

To get a better idea, I did

2Kw * 10 Hours, then subtracted 5Kw's to indicate the not always on factor,

giving 15KwH @ €.1273/KwH = €1.9095 per day * 31 = €59.1945 per month.

So, all in all not a massive charge. Having a long shower/using the washing machine or Dryer a lot will result in the same charge. Washing machines have 2 Kw heaters!

Leaving a pc on all day, ( a low spec pc with a 250 Watt PSU for example) only costs about €6 to run for a month.... probably less since the PC idle's a lot!

John

brianthebard

How much would it cost to leave a laptop on all day then, out of interest?

My old housemates used to be like that. They'd leave their electric heaters on all night and during the day when I'd resort to my electric blanket (would only cost like a cent an hour or therebouts)

juliuspret

brianthebard wrote:

How much would it cost to leave a laptop on all day then, out of interest?

Not very much at all!

brianthebard

juliuspret wrote:

Not very much at all!

Really? I was afraid that the convertor box bit would burn up electricity needlessly, but I run local cooling anyways, so I feel a little better about leaving it own during lectures etc.

fly_agaric

DaSilva wrote:

Wikipedia told me Watts are a per second measurement, and the heater definately only says 2000W, not 2000Wh, or anything.

"W" is a unit of power - energy per unit time (per second).
For energy itself (which the esb want to charge for) - multiply by time.

(see other posts:)).

boo4842

I live in Canada and pay 5.8cents per kw/h, which is less than half what I paid in Ireland, ecept the Canadian dollar is worth about .66 euro, so I really pay about 3.9 cent a k/w in euros or about 1/3 what I used to pay over there.

I use twice the electricity I used to and it still costs me less