Bills in a shared house

mood

Hi all. One of my house mates is seems very tight with money despite working in a highly paid profession. Now, this is non of my business except when it comes to our shared bills (electricity and gas). He seems thing we should only have the heating on when it's close to or below zero and when all of us are there (which is almost never). It's a very cold house with out double glazing windows so I thinks this is unreasonable. I trying to only turn it on for 1 hour in the evening but the house is still cold or only heated for an hour or so then freezing again!

How often do others have the heating on daily in a 3/4 bed house? How much does you gas bill be? I know ours will be higher than previous bills (because I put the heat on for 1 hour in the evening).

Chinafoot

mood wrote: »

Hi all. One of my house mates is seems very tight with money despite working in a highly paid profession. Now, this is non of my business except when it comes to our shared bills (electricity and gas). He seems thing we should only have the heating on when it's close to or below zero and when all of us are there (which is almost never). It's a very cold house with out double glazing windows so I thinks this is unreasonable. I trying to only turn it on for 1 hour in the evening but the house is still cold or only heated for an hour or so then freezing again!

How often do others have the heating on daily in a 3/4 bed house? How much does you gas bill be? I know ours will be higher than previous bills (because I put the heat on for 1 hour in the evening).

He sounds like a tightarse. Only having the heat on when everyone is there is a ridiculous expectation. You all pay to stay there and you should be able to live comfortably - not freezing your arse off because one person is too tight to fork out for heating.

1 hour in the evening is not excessive at all. If it's freezing in the house then put the heat on. Once it's not on for hours at a time then I don't see the issue. Bills should all be split evenly in a house share and he doesn't get to opt out of paying bills because he didn't turn the heat on.

He sounds like a tool to be honest.

What do your other housemates say about it?

While I do hate the cold, I don't think it's fair to expect him to pay for you having the heating on if he's happy to leave it off. Part of a house share is accepting living with other people, which he clearly has lost sight of, but personally I know some people who put on the heating far too generously. Would it be at all possible to just pay extra on the bills?

While he is being tight on this end of things, different people have different priorities, and it isn't completely fair to expect him to pay if he isn't opting in on having it on. See what your other housemates say.

mood

true-or-false wrote: »

What do your other housemates say about it?

While I do hate the cold, I don't think it's fair to expect him to pay for you having the heating on if he's happy to leave it off. Part of a house share is accepting living with other people, which he clearly has lost sight of, but personally I know some people who put on the heating far too generously. Would it be at all possible to just pay extra on the bills?

While he is being tight on this end of things, different people have different priorities, and it isn't completely fair to expect him to pay if he isn't opting in on having it on. See what your other housemates say.

So he should get his way and I should suffer??? I can't be in a situation where I am getting sick and missing work and not getting sick pay to keep him happy. ONE HOUR of heating a day is not excessive. It's not like I have it on 24/7.

The other house mate spends his time in his parents house so would love no heating on as well.

Oh, there is a mold problem in the house... a result of it being so cold.

Chinafoot

true-or-false wrote: »

I don't think it's fair to expect him to pay for you having the heating on if he's happy to leave it off.

Nah sorry, this is what happens when you live with other people. Its January and while it's not as cold as last year it's certainly not warm. It's completely unreasonable to expect him to not pay towards the heating bill because he'd be happy to leave it off. He just sounds ridiculously cheap tbh.

If he doesn't want to split bills evenly he shouldn't live with other people.

LegacyUser

Is it not the norm in every house to have it on for 1 to 2 hrs a night and then 2 hours in the morning?

OP I have been on the opposite side myself. Heating being left on from 3am to 10am and then coming on again at 6pm till 1am. Sometimes being left on for 24 hours.

When I questioned this I was told it was only for an hour or two.
One gas bill came to 436 euro for two months. Which I was told was normal by the couple I was sharing with. I know live in a fridge to get over the trauma.

Anyways....

Could you put it to him that it needs to be on anyway to avoid the house becoming damp/mouldy...?

And advise him of the above story so he can actually see what "taking the piss" with the heating is. His room could also be warmer than everyone else's so he might not realise. This is the issue I had with my old house mates they had muslin curtains on single glazed windows and could see their breath in front of their faces in their room while I was sweating away in mine.

As for the "only when everyone is there" malarkey ask him what he'd think if you told him he couldn't put on a wash or watch television as long as everyone was there doing it at the same time. Sounds crazy.

Firetrap

No, he is being completely and utterly unreasonable here. What next? He'll be timing people's showers, counting the loads of washing that go into the machine and insisting that nobody cooks meals that take more than 15 minutes to prepare?

I know what I'd be doing in a situation like this. I'd either stand my ground and not bend to this tightarse's rules or I'd be looking for somewhere else to live. This time of year, houses need the heating on for longer than this guy's insisting on. It's not just the cold that's a problem, it's the damp as well. I bet the clothes in your wardrobe aren't fully dry. Or your duvet. It's not healthy either to be living in a house with a mould problem.

I've shared houses down the years and not once did anyone ever quibble about the heating. I suppose if someone was doing the dog on it and had it on full blast 24/7, then that'd have been a different matter. So what if the bills go up a bit in the winter? That's what the heating's for.

R.D. aka MR.D

What strategy does he use to not get cold while in the house?

You say you are getting sick, it must be very cold.

Having it on for a little while is reasonable but there are plenty of people who have the heating on instead of putting on an extra jumper or throwing a blanket over yourself.

If the two of them aren't in the house as often as you are maybe offer to throw an extra tenner in for the bill at the end of the month and that might be enough to keep the peace.

Otherwise maybe look around for somewhere else to live with people with more similar schedule as yours.

ted1

Do you wear an extra geansai around the house? Is there a compromise?

mood

ted1 wrote: »

Do you wear an extra geansai around the house? Is there a compromise?

My compromise is to put the heating on for 1 hour rather than the 2-3 hours it really needs. 1 hour take the chill out of the air but the house is not heated properly. I can see my breath regularly. I wear 3 jumpers along with a vest and top and knee length thermal socks most of the time in the house. I've seen the other housemate wear a coat on a number of occasions!

He wants it all him way not a compromise. I have to add that he has no problem turning it on when him friends are coming around to play cards or his girlfriend is staying the night!

I can't move at the moment due to work contract and possible tranfer etc. I just can't commit to a new lease etc.

So could people please tell me how to find out what the average gas bill for winter (I tried to google it but only got yearly average) or tell me what they pay? I want to facts when he freaks over the next bill.

Morag

work it out yourself, get your last bill and check the number of units and then what you want to use to head the house and do the maths.

theg81der

He is being purely ridiculous and I would actually get on to the landlord because this will damage the house (mold, damp etc). Who`s named on the bill OP?

I have a 2 bed and its well insulated but heating is on minimum 3 hours a day otherwise the walls get cold and its very hard to heat it again. Your house sounds like it needs about 12 hours of heating just to get the heat back into it.

I would either a) move b) tackle the house mates I would even get a termostat to illustrate my point or c) get a heater for my room or just put it on anyway and worry about it later. No way I would compromise my present or future health over something like this.

The Lovely Muffin

Polar opposites wrote: »

Is it not the norm in every house to have it on for 1 to 2 hrs a night and then 2 hours in the morning?

I would have thought so.

When I was renting the heating came on for an hour in the morning and at night it came on for four hours (I think, it was something like that anyway), the landlord had it on a timer so none of the house mates could change it.

That said, all of our bills were included in our rent and our landlord said we could have electric heaters and have them on when we needed. Most of us had them on for a few hours during the day because when we came in from work, college etc the house was cold. We had no/damp mould problems though.

OP I would contact your landlord and speak to them about it, if the house is damp, cold and has mould they may set the heating to come on at certain times whether your house mate likes it or not.

His behaviour is downright selfish, putting yours and his own health at risk because he doesn't want the heating on, not to mention the mould and damp.

We had mould and damp at home (not because of the heating) but the walls had to be washed down and repainted, is he going to wash/repaint the walls himself or cover the cost for your landlord to get it done? I would assume not.

I would turn it on whether he liked it or not and if it was a case his room was too warm etc, then maybe he could open his window for a bit or turn off his radiator for a while. He wouldn't be long about cooling down then.

Neyite

My gas bill is 70 a month -its one of those spread-the-payments deals with Bord Gais, and I think it is basically taking my previous bi-monthly bills and calculating a generous average. Its the same arrangement for the electricity. At the end of the year the meter is compared with the what we paid and gets credited onwards.

However - I live in an apartment block, so the downstairs neighbours' heat probably take the edge of the chill for a lot of the time, and in addition it is a double glazed, very well insulated building, with thicker than normal walls. So we dont have a huge usage, still, an hour in the mornings and a couple in the evening in winter is our norm.

Our last place was a 2 bed in the ground floor of a townhouse style building. There was no dampproofing and badly insulated so any heat given off by the (electricity guzzling) "storage heaters" basically went straight upstairs and kept the upstairs house lovely and toasty (nice and neighbourly, arent we? ) our bills (which included the non heat electricity usage) were usually about 600 every second month, slightly less in summer. And it was still a damp cold house where you would not want to take your coat off indoors.

In short, there really is no way to guage the average. The only way is if you are friendly enough with your neighbours with a similar house they might let you know what they pay on average.

Either way, your flatmate in my opinion is a tighta$e. Some night when its just you and jhe and his friends/Girlfriend there, make sure to quote his "rule" back at him.

ted1

Get the landlord to fit a thermostat. this way the heating will come on when needed and will cut off when not needed.

if he has a problem i'm sure the HSE have some recomended min temp that room should be.

mikemac1

We don't use the heating about nine to ten months of the year.
With fixed and standing charges it's not realy possible to get the bill much lower

So if you want to leave it on a few hours in the evenings then big deal.
It's winter, it's cold though not too cold.
Not point living in discomfort for the price of a few pints

By February or March you likely won't need the heating again for ages.

Tell the guy to cut the drama.
Or maybe he'd be better off getting a cosy bedsit for himself