Electricity bill

anthony4335

Hi ,
I recently got my last 2 month electricity bill, and it was a little shocking, at 325 euro, previous bill are usually around the 250 mark. My house is a dormer with about 2500 sq feet. Is there any way of trying to find out what might be doing the damage. We don't use a tumble drier too often, maybe 10 mins a week, don't use the dishwasher, have a electric oven, use for about 35 minutes a day, LCD tv which is on quite a lot.
Any advice will be great.

Jimbo

Do you have your immersion left on by any chance?

Or was your last bill estimated?

cute_cow

hi there

we were in the same position. Our house is about 1000 sq feet, your normal smallish 3 bed semi, and our bill was €355.

I know the VAT has risen on it, but they have also lowered the price. And as it was over Christmas, we were out of the house for almost 10 days, and had nothing but thr fridge plugged in.

We use the washing machine maybe 4 times a week, the oven for bout 30 - 40 minutes a day. Just usual things that we use day to day. we don't leave lights on for any length of time if we are not in the room.

I found it very surprising. We normally have bill between €180 and €250, so was quite a shock to be honest!

anthony4335

The last one was an estimate , but even at that it still too high. I was checking with other people with households that should have a higher usage than ours, and they typically have bills in the 150-180 mark. I just was talking with a friend and he suggest that turn everything off and check the meter and then turn on the big appliances one at a time a check the usage. So I will be doing that tomorrow. Any advice is welcome.

Davy

The best way is to get a energy meter. If you really cant work it out yourself its the only way to know exactly how much every appliance is using.

Something like THIS is what what you want. I dont mean buy this one, they can be gotten a lot cheaper, various designs, wired, wireless etc. whatever suits your needs.

I would also suggest using the ESB your account online where you can also enter readings to stop getting estimated bills. It also shows you a simple compassion of usage of bill to bill.

Esb also have an appliance calculator you can use it to estimate how much your home electrical appliances and lights cost to run.

northdublin

we got some owl enegy wireless meters in the other day, they clamp onto your incomming mains and tell you how much power your using and how much its costing you. dont know if there a good or a bad thing, not sure how they would help you reduce your bill, only give you forewarning of its cost

Davy

northdublin wrote: »

we got some owl enegy wireless meters in the other day, they clamp onto your incomming mains and tell you how much power your using and how much its costing you. dont know if there a good or a bad thing, not sure how they would help you reduce your bill, only give you forewarning of its cost

The idea is so you can switch on and off and notice how much is being used by what, so making you more aware of what you are using and increasing your bill with.

sukikettle

Every January they charge dramatic bills.They settle back to the norm by March. Your lights over the shortest days of the year being turned on from 4ish maybe all day on dark days are the culprit.

dcom

A couple of people Ive spoken to are saying the same. Our bill is around €100 higher than our normal bill.

I have checked back on our bills for this same period for the last two years and they are nowhere near this one. According to our bill we have used 300 units more this period than any other period in the previous two years.

I cant really figure it. I know the price has gone up recently but this is crazy..

dlambirl

over the winter months people turn on the lights earlier and with christmas lights and the fact that the weather was so frickin' cold the boiler was on more and using more electricity??

anthony4335

I have started to take my own readings, and plan to do this for a while charting the usage. I started on Saturday and in the last 51 hours the usage has been 40.45 units, which seems a little high, so I think that I might just invest in one of those clamp meters. It might be good if one of the mods could put in a poll to see what peoples average usage is.

Just found this on the net ,looks like the one that daveton linked but a lot cheaper.
http://ecologics.ie/home/efergy-electricity-display-device/

Heroditas

anthony4335 wrote: »

I have started to take my own readings, and plan to do this for a while charting the usage. I started on Saturday and in the last 51 hours the usage has been 40.45 units, which seems a little high, so I think that I might just invest in one of those clamp meters. It might be good if one of the mods could put in a poll to see what peoples average usage is.

Just found this on the net ,looks like the one that daveton linked but a lot cheaper.
http://ecologics.ie/home/efergy-electricity-display-device/

That's a savage amount of energy! :eek:

We've used 46 units in the last 7 days .... and that's included having the tumble dryer running quite a bit along with the central heating (pump for the boiler).
Now, we're in a 3 bed semi but our maximum bill would be around €100.
In the summer our bi-monthly bill would be typically €50-€60.

What sort of lights do you have in the house? Do you have external lighting on at night?
What sort of fridge do you use? Is it working ok?

Also: most importantly, do you have teenagers? They can be a massive drain on power (PS3, TV, hairdryer etc all operating 24/7)

The efergy/owl is ideal, as is the Currentcost.

anthony4335

I have 3 x 60watt ,and one 20 watt outside light, which at the moment on average is on about 1 to 2 hours a day. No teenagers, 4 people in the house 3 of us for the full week. This is a usual days usage
45mins to 1 hours electric oven (A rated)
6 hours of TV 40" LCD
2 to 4 hours of Laptop/PC
30 mins electric heater
30 mins electric shower
Majority of bulbs in main use are CFL, ie kitchen sitting area bedrooms and all in the house are pretty good about turning off lights. But just say 8 hours x 3 20watt CFL, 1 -2 hours of 100 watt normal bulb (bathrooms).
Heating etc, and other pumps in the house such as waste ,and water.
half a wash at 40'c per day (1 load every 2 days).
This all does not appear to be excessive to me and I would assume that my bill should be half that.
Also note that when I went shopping for the electrical items everything was A rated except the tumble dryer, and the TV I have not idea what that is.
Still waiting on the meter so ,hopefully it will arrive before saturday so I can check out what is the energy monster in my house.

Mr Magnolia

I've removed a couple of spammy posts, I also had to remove a couple of posts which were referencing the unsolicited adverisment.

Feel free to PM me if there's any queries.

anthony4335

Just an update.
I received the monitor and installed it yesterday. From checking this out it appears that 7Kw per day are been used by the puraflo pump system. While my usage is still high it can now be accounted for . However I now have to find out why this pump is running so much in the day. Cheers for all the ideas they have all help a bunch.

barongreen

Just for your info an electic shower for 30 mins would be as much as all the other items put together for the day.
Your electric heater should have a rating on it, i bet its >2kw.
Let us know what the story is with the pump.

rh555

Can someone explain those electricity rate changes in January? In the ESB booklet it says 'CER has approved an average decrease of 0.6% in regulated household electricity prices from the 1st of January of 2009.'

However the prices went actually up in January. There must be something i am not getting.
Also how can the price not go down of electricity considering most commodity prices (oil,coal etc.) fell about 70% since last year.
I am not sure how Ireland actually produces electricity but if its commodity related prices should have come down alot. Only other explanation is that they have locked in higher prices of last year and thus don't have any cost savings.


Also, anyone knows if an electric shower of lets say 10KW only uses the full power on the highest setting or does it always uses 10KW regardless what setting u use. I know if I use the middle setting as an example it wont get as hot but water has more pressure so maybe the high water pressure offsets the less heat and it still uses 10kw regardless.

I was looking for an answer to this question on the internet but couldn't find any.

Thanks

davelerave

rh555 wrote: »

Can someone explain those electricity rate changes in January? In the ESB booklet it says 'CER has approved an average decrease of 0.6% in regulated household electricity prices from the 1st of January of 2009.'

However the prices went actually up in January. There must be something i am not getting.
Also how can the price not go down of electricity considering most commodity prices (oil,coal etc.) fell about 70% since last year.
I am not sure how Ireland actually produces electricity but if its commodity related prices should have come down alot. Only other explanation is that they have locked in higher prices of last year and thus don't have any cost savings.


Also, anyone knows if an electric shower of lets say 10KW only uses the full power on the highest setting or does it always uses 10KW regardless what setting u use. I know if I use the middle setting as an example it wont get as hot but water has more pressure so maybe the high water pressure offsets the less heat and it still uses 10kw.

I was looking for an answer to this question on the internet but couldn't find any.

Thanks

the low and high settings would be 5 and 10kw respectively .(there's two elements in parallel .i think they're the same rating).the temperature is regulated also by varying the water pressure with the other control

rh555

Oh cool thx for that. I have 3 settings LOW,MED and HIGH. So I would assume if the rating is 10kw and low is 5KW then medium should be around 7.5KW. I hope that assumption is correct.

Anyways main point was if i can save some energy by using the medium setting rather than high (low setting is just too damn cold)

Thanks

davelerave

im only familiar with cold, medium and high .ie:ppump only then 5kw and 10kw for 10kw shower.

themadchef

anthony4335 wrote: »

Just an update.
I received the monitor and installed it yesterday. From checking this out it appears that 7Kw per day are been used by the puraflo pump system. While my usage is still high it can now be accounted for . However I now have to find out why this pump is running so much in the day. Cheers for all the ideas they have all help a bunch.

I have the Bison (similar system) and our electricity bills i thought were always high at around the £200 mark. I asked the guy who wired my house if there was a reason my bills were so high. He said the compressor on that system added around £100 on a bi-monthly bill.

5 years later, my bills are around the €300 mark. to put it in perspective. My sister built a house next door to me, is down every couple of weeks for a weekend. Her bills are only €50 less than mine, and is hardly there...she has the puraflo system.

Not alot we can do about it i think.

davelerave

themadchef wrote: »

I have the Bison (similar system) and our electricity bills i thought were always high at around the £200 mark. I asked the guy who wired my house if there was a reason my bills were so high. He said the compressor on that system added around £100 on a bi-monthly bill.

5 years later, my bills are around the €300 mark. to put it in perspective. My sister built a house next door to me, is down every couple of weeks for a weekend. Her bills are only €50 less than mine, and is hardly there...she has the puraflo system.

Not alot we can do about it i think.

holy cow is that the bison treatment systems .100 euro every 2 months seriously?
i'll have to enquire for the sake of my customers wallets!
they're website shows 86watt power consumption for one of those things .i work that out at 20 euro approx running 24/7 for 2 months.

themadchef

davelerave wrote: »

holy cow is that the bison treatment systems .100 euro every 2 months seriously?
i'll have to enquire for the sake of my customers wallets!

Thats what he told me.

We have a big house, but we dont use upstairs. No dishwasher, dont use the dryer. Electric shower once a day. Central heating heats the water so we rarely use the emersion. standard usage (if there is such a thing after that) and last bill was €300. Bills are always high, even in the summers when the house is empty the bills would only ever drop by €50 at most.

davelerave

are you careful about standby appliances and heating loads etc. and using cfl bulbs . in 'rare' cases leakage current can happen on non-rcd protected circuits mostly on older installations or even faulty meters but it wouldn't be commonplace

Davy

themadchef wrote: »

Thats what he told me.

We have a big house, but we dont use upstairs. No dishwasher, dont use the dryer. Electric shower once a day. Central heating heats the water so we rarely use the emersion. standard usage (if there is such a thing after that) and last bill was €300. Bills are always high, even in the summers when the house is empty the bills would only ever drop by €50 at most.

One thing that strikes me here is that you are using the heating to give hot water, but you are using an electric shower. You should be using a standard mixer shower.

arse..biscuits

themadchef wrote: »

I have the Bison (similar system) and our electricity bills i thought were always high at around the £200 mark. I asked the guy who wired my house if there was a reason my bills were so high. He said the compressor on that system added around £100 on a bi-monthly bill.

5 years later, my bills are around the €300 mark. to put it in perspective. My sister built a house next door to me, is down every couple of weeks for a weekend. Her bills are only €50 less than mine, and is hardly there...she has the puraflo system.

Not alot we can do about it i think.

Hello Mr Chef, could you explain to me exactly what your "system" does? That power consumption seems crazy.

davelerave

must be an urban myth or a rural myth even.it's not possible going by 86watt power consumption anyway if that's typical.they're all protected against leakage current as well

themadchef

arse..biscuits wrote: »

Hello Mr Chef, could you explain to me exactly what your "system" does? That power consumption seems crazy.

Only remembered this thread now

It was put in because of a planning stipulation. I dont know alot about it tbh. The pump and compressor blew there a few months ago and had to be replaced. It was installed in 2004.
Every time i walk by it it seems to be humming away. We got the tank cleaned last August. Sterotypical female when it comes to all things like that so im not really sure is the answer

I really do think we have standard usage in the house. The bills have been high from day one.

I was worried about it, and asked the guy who wired the place back to maybe give me some idea as to why it was so high. That was his explanation. The man has since died, RIP. No idea how i go about checking if that system is the problem or not.

We do have a mixer shower as well. But, we use the electric shower once a day on average. The house is very well insulated and the heating is on a couple of hours in winter and never on really from May to Sept.