Average cost of ESB for 2 months for two people?

xpletiv

Hi all,

I am having fierce trouble keeping my Electric Ireland/ESB bills down. I get it every two months and it is always over 100 euro, often up towards 120 and 140, and this is over the summer!

I have no heating on, the immersion set for 1 hour a day IF I turn it on, and then just general electronics. In the last 2 months, I had the heating on for 2 separate days, but have been continually removing plugs from walls and turning off the oven in order to save electricity. Today, I received a bill for 129 euro.

This cannot be right. What can I do, or what can I check?!

Steven81

I am the same comes to about 160 thats for the 2 of us and a 6 month old baby.

Looking at the bill though between the daily charge and VAT that makes up a large portion of it, biggest worry though is the bills never seem to be getting smaller like you say even in summer

CiaranMcDCFC

I have a two bedroom apartment, two people living in it. Cook each evening and other normal electrical usage. No heating on at present however the bll is rarely if ever over 60 something euro. To be fair I do not have an emersion to switch on as there is a communal hot water system in the apartment with a gas bill of about twenty euro every few months.

EI: Una

Hi Xpletiv,

It can vary in terms of the size of the premises, insulation, and other factors.

Are your most recent bills based on estimates or actual meter readings? Are you availing of any of our price-plan discounts (for direct debit and online billing)?

If you like, private message us (see my sig) your Electric Ireland account number and your name/address as they appear on your account, as well as either the contact telephone number on your account or your date of birth.

Our Appliance Calculator helps customers to keep track of usage also. Other pointers here.
And if you do not have Nightsaver already installed, it might be worth considering. For example, timing the immersion to be on during the night/very early morning would yield savings with this facility.

Regards,
Una

xpletiv

MashMash wrote: »

Dont believe I said anywhere that Im not paying or broke, but that it seems high, which it is.

xpletiv

Electric Ireland: Una wrote: »

Hi Xpletiv,

It can vary in terms of the size of the premises, insulation, and other factors.

Are your most recent bills based on estimates or actual meter readings? Are you availing of any of our price-plan discounts (for direct debit and online billing)?

If you like, private message us (see my sig) your Electric Ireland account number and your name/address as they appear on your account, as well as either the contact telephone number on your account or your date of birth.

Our Appliance Calculator helps customers to keep track of usage also. Other pointers here.
And if you do not have Nightsaver already installed, it might be worth considering. For example, timing the immersion to be on during the night/very early morning would yield savings with this facility.

Regards,
Una

Hi Una!

Thank you for the reply.

Just to address a few of your points:
1. This is a medium sized apartment; 2 bedrooms, 1 very small bathroom, hall, kitchen and sitting room. Thats all. The place is kept warm due to the fact that it is in a concrete building and we get heat from all other apartments, so heating is very rarely turned on.
2. Actual Meter readings, every time, since I complained about an estimate I got last year that read as 250 when it was closer to 150, and threatened if it ever happened again, Id leave EI. Since then, its always been read.
3. Your calculator does not appear to work in Chrome; cannot add items to list. Worked in IE.
4. I have Nightsaver but not online statements and pay by DD.
5. I just checked the bill again. It reads as 123.77 for 54 days use, no charges brought forward.
6. I unplug ALL appliances after use and turn off the oven at the mains.

So this does seem extremely high! What benefit will me PMing you my details do?

thanks.

dudara

@MashMash If you can't post anything helpful, then you're better off not posting at all

dudara

seanhalpin

OP,

What type of shower do you use? And do you use it much?

Electric showers absolutely eat up the juice. They are guzzlers.

Things like electronics laptops computer etc generally are light consumers. IT's the stuff that produces heat is what guzzles.

Alexidium

MashMash wrote: »

<SNIP>

Have a little respect? Some people are in difficulties and don't find it funny.

SCOOP 64

My ranges from summer €165 to winter €336, 2 adults 2 children (4 bed house), the €336 i am hoping was a one off came in february 2011,some heart attack that was!

FutureGuy

MashMash wrote: »

<SNIP>

Reported.

dudara

The OP has not mentioned financial difficulty - so let's stop that discussion straight away.

They are looking for advice on how to monitor and reduce electricity usage.

firestarter51

two adults here, in a three bed house, lowest i had was 129 highest (christmas) 160, i thought an apartment would have been cheaper

xpletiv

Alexidium wrote: »

Have a little respect? Some people are in difficulties and don't find it funny.

Dont worry, I reported him already, and its addressed above. The fool should probably think twice about whats funny and whats not.

Getting back to it; I did the calculation on the EI website. It says my useage should be closer to 80, taking into account everything (I didnt realise how expensive a washing machine was!) and also overestimating a lot of things. I do have a projector and an overclocked PC, but wouldnt have thought that could contribute 40 euros+ extra!!

Normal shower but immersion heating.

Really wondering what it could be.

seanhalpin

Again OP

What type of shower is it? Electric? If it is a high flow power shower it will use even more. A shower like this can be up to 10kW.

Another thing to check is that the meter you are paying for is actually the one supplying the appartment. It has been known to occur that meters have been assigned to the wrong appartment and you are actually paying for someone else electricity. You can check this as follows:
- switch absolutely everthing off. Everything.
- check the meter: the disc should be stationary or the LED not flashing if it's a newer meter
- then go back in and switch on a few heavy consumers like the oven and the shower.
- recheck the meter. THe disc should be spinning furiously or the LED slashing like mad.

If it doesn't work out like this somethings up.

If you're happy the meter is for your appartment but suspect that the meter is giving faulty readings you could fit your own contactless CT clamp meter to the meter tails and then compare the readings from both meters and take it from there.
A good product is The OWL.

Anyway, I had the opposite problem a few years ago in an appt i rented. After I moved into my appartment we were trying to get the Electric bills signed into our name. TUrns out the bills that were arriving to the appartment were actually for a meter somewhere else across the city. We contacted ESB with our meter's serial number but they told us that they had no record of it and there was no MPRN or account associated with it. THey said they'd get back to us but never did and we never heard anything more of it for the 4 or 5 years we lived there.

So basically we had totally free, unbilled electricity for 5 years as our meter officially didn't exist.

xpletiv

seanhalpin wrote: »

Again OP

What type of shower is it? Electric? If it is a high flow power shower it will use even more. A shower like this can be up to 10kW.

Another thing to check is that the meter you are paying for is actually the one supplying the appartment. It has been known to occur that meters have been assigned to the wrong appartment and you are actually paying for someone else electricity. You can check this as follows:
- switch absolutely everthing off. Everything.
- check the meter: the disc should be stationary or the LED not flashing if it's a newer meter
- then go back in and switch on a few heavy consumers like the oven and the shower.
- recheck the meter. THe disc should be spinning furiously or the LED slashing like mad.

If it doesn't work out like this somethings up.

If you're happy the meter is for your appartment but suspect that the meter is giving faulty readings you could fit your own contactless CT clamp meter to the meter tails and then compare the readings from both meters and take it from there.
A good product is The OWL.

Anyway, I had the opposite problem a few years ago in an appt i rented. After I moved into my appartment we were trying to get the Electric bills signed into our name. TUrns out the bills that were arriving to the appartment were actually for a meter somewhere else across the city. We contacted ESB with our meter's serial number but they told us that they had no record of it and there was no MPRN or account associated with it. THey said they'd get back to us but never did and we never heard anything more of it for the 4 or 5 years we lived there.

So basically we had totally free, unbilled electricity for 5 years as our meter officially didn't exist.

Sounds like some great tips Sean. I wonder!!!

Its a triton, and I believe it is an electric shower, but Im positive it doesnt heat water in the unit, and at least 6 years.

jameshayes

xpletiv wrote: »

6. I unplug ALL appliances after use and turn off the oven at the mains.

So this does seem extremely high! What benefit will me PMing you my details do?

thanks.

The best thing I ever bought was an energy monitor, they are simple and easy to use, open your electricity box, hook a magnet to your meter and your 'real time' usage is displayed on the monitor.

This lets you see what you are using at that moment in time and how much juice it is using...

things that I have noticed that reduce the costs 100 fold;

- Electric showers are unbelievable, I bet you'd see a difference if you spent 1 minute less in the shower every day
- The kettle is a big user also, if you boil it - don't walk away from it and then boil it again 5 mins later, and only boil what you need - its pointless boiling more than you need and it uses more electricity.
-The hoover is a heavy user too, swap it for a sweeping brush some of the time
-lights are a nightmare, I had a light in my hallway with 3 bulbs, each 100watt, I got a new light from ikea with 1 35watt energy efficient bulb (100w equivalent) and I get the perfect amount of light from it. I have spot lights in the kitchen and have to keep remembering to turn them off when I leave the room
-if you have a UPC modem, turn it off when you go to bed, its not a big user and you'll be only saving pennys but they use about 30 watts and you probably dont use it throughout the night unless you need your phone line
-dont keep opening your fridge, the more you open it the more it will need to run its motor and cool down
now the big one;
-the cooker. the cooker uses barley anything when not in use, so turning it off at the mains is a waste of time - like 1 or 2 watts. But the big thing to remember is, each hob and each oven will use about 2500 watts, so if you have 2 hobs on and the oven all at once that is 7500 watts!!! Try only cooking by 1 method, ie. all on the hob or all in the oven - also, for heating things like milk, beans etc - use the microwave- at 800 watts its cheaper and quicker.


thats all I can think of at the moment but i will add more if they come to me

xpletiv

MashMash wrote: »

<SNIP>

*AN ADULT. I think its proven you're here to do nothing but troll.

These monitor things sound like they are worth the effort. Its a shared power box at the bottom of the stairs for all the apartments in the building, so how do I ensure no one takes or removes it or the EI guy does? Sorry, not familiar with this devices.

Some other things:
1. I replaced 80% of bulbs with long life low watt bulbs.
2. Didn't know that about the hob/using oven at the same time. Wouldn't have thought that would have been an issue!
3. I use a George Foreman and a steamer a LOT. A lot more than other oven anyway and much more than the microwave (which is mostly used to make popcorn!). Wonder if that is a big one?
4. I do hoover a lot as the whole apartment apart from the kitchen is carpet. So living room is hoovered every second day on average.


Heres my kicker; I work full time, and my brother, who is my housemate, is a student and also not there much during the day times. The Day readings, from my bill, read as €32+€25 (total units of 323), while night is €15+€12 (units of 318). So it seems to be day thats the issue, which is when neither of us are there. Then theres the Standing charge (what exactly is this for??) and a PSO Levy (whats this?) and vat of a further €40!!

Really appreciate the advice here from (nearly) everyone

seanhalpin

Immersion heater.

A immersion is about 3kW. You say you use it 1 hr per day, but not always. Lets say 5 days a week. At 18c a kWhr that's costing you €22 every 2 months.

If you have Triton T90 shower with 2 10min showers per day that gonna cost €30 every 2 months.

4 5min kettle boils per day will be €10

Similarly we will just say the cooker is costing another €10 /2months

So between immersion and shower and kettle and cooker you're looking at €70 every 2 months.

You really should tell us whether the shower is a heating & pumped shower or just a plain mixer valve. THat is a HUGE factor is all this as if it was just a mixer then the immersion would be using the energy to produce a hot shower - and much less efficient at it as you don't use all the water that is heated.

I know it's besides the point, but using high grade electrical energy to produce low grade heat is sheer madness imo.

xpletiv

Just on the kettle; rarely, rarely use the kettle. Id say its boiled once every week!

And shower would be one every day, or two every two days, so half that to 15.(tyo avoid being called disgusting; shower seriously plays havoc with my skin!) I can say that it is pumping the shower, but it isnt heating, Im positive of that.

Jonny Drama

I live in a 2 bed apt, me and girlfriend. 2 bedrooms, 1 en-suite, 1 bathroom, hallway, large kitchen & sitting room with about 20 spotlights. We use normal amount of electricity, nothing too mad. We don't use electricity to heat the place, that's gas. I plug out tv, upc, laptop at night, all lights off at night, kettle used about 2 times a day with required amount of water at each boil. Dishwasher at 40 degrees twice a week, washing machine at 50 degrees about 3 times per week, clothes dried on clothes horse.

So with lights, oven, fridge/freezer, plugs, kettle, tv, laptop, washing machine, dishwasher, shower etc our bill is in summer about 80 euro per 2 months, and in winter about 140 per 2 months.

I did the calculator thingy on the ESB website and I found the biggest users of my electricity was;

1) Electric Shower (robber)
2) Fridge/freezer (very surprised)
3) Oven (hobs & cooker)

Hope that helps a bit.

seanhalpin

I have made this out for you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgk9y5jcwp0u4vx/Energy%20consumption.ods


With the assumptions made you should be lookign at around the €70-80 mark for two months. You are right, bills of €160 are completely off the wall.

You are not using electric room heaters or electric heating are you??

I love the way people are always all surprised that a shower uses lots of electricity. Shure how do they think the water gets hot? Magic?

I would definitely look into checkign whther the meter is yours.

Without doubt you should get an OWL monitor and clip it you your meter tails to check that the meter is reading correctly. The EI man won't take it as they are very common and are made for that purpose for use by homeowners. THey are very easy to install.

adox

OP thats sounds about the same as oursleves(two adults in a 3 bed house). No electic shower, gas hob and heating(both water and rads).

EI: Una

Hi again Xpletiv,

There is the meter/appliance test, which involves switching off all appliances and checking the meter about five minutes after: if the disk on an older type meter is still spinning, or if the red light on a digital one is still flashing, this could mean the meter is malfunctioning.

xpletiv wrote: »

every time, since I complained about an estimate I got last year that read as 250 when it was closer to 150, and threatened if it ever happened again, Id leave EI. Since then, its always been read.

Just to advise: ESB Networks endeavour to read each meter four times per year; the remaining two bills may generate as a result of estimations. Just making readers aware of this info if they wish to submit their own readings via our website.

What benefit will me PMing you my details do?

We will check whether you have a discount applied for direct debit and can have one applied for online billing if you wish also and agree to the terms & conditions.

Regards,
Una

xpletiv

Electric Ireland: Una wrote: »

Hi again Xpletiv,

There is the meter/appliance test, which involves switching off all appliances and checking the meter about five minutes after: if the disk on an older type meter is still spinning, or if the red light on a digital one is still flashing, this could mean the meter is malfunctioning.

Just to advise: ESB Networks endeavour to read each meter four times per year; the remaining two bills may generate as a result of estimations. Just making readers aware of this info if they wish to submit their own readings via our website.

We will check whether you have a discount applied for direct debit and can have one applied for online billing if you wish also and agree to the terms & conditions.

Regards,
Una

Thanks; PM coming your way now. Just wanted to know first before handing personal info out

Sean; thanks for that, but your working out for the washing machine is the only one thats majorly different from what it said on the EI website; apparently this could be costing me about 45 per 2 months alone based on 3 washes a week!

Im going to test it tonight; Im going to be out for most of the night so Im going to switch off and plug out everything I can find except the fridge and washing machine. I'll check the numbers in the morning again then.

Thanks everyone for the advice. Very, very much appreciated; really shows why I come to boards.ie to ask these things when I get such great high quality answers.

green123

xpletiv wrote: »

Hi all,

I am having fierce trouble keeping my Electric Ireland/ESB bills down. I get it every two months and it is always over 100 euro, often up towards 120 and 140, and this is over the summer!

I have no heating on, the immersion set for 1 hour a day IF I turn it on, and then just general electronics. In the last 2 months, I had the heating on for 2 separate days, but have been continually removing plugs from walls and turning off the oven in order to save electricity. Today, I received a bill for 129 euro.

This cannot be right. What can I do, or what can I check?!

xpletiv wrote: »

Hi Una!

Thank you for the reply.

Just to address a few of your points:
1. This is a medium sized apartment; 2 bedrooms, 1 very small bathroom, hall, kitchen and sitting room. Thats all. The place is kept warm due to the fact that it is in a concrete building and we get heat from all other apartments, so heating is very rarely turned on.
2. Actual Meter readings, every time, since I complained about an estimate I got last year that read as 250 when it was closer to 150, and threatened if it ever happened again, Id leave EI. Since then, its always been read.
3. Your calculator does not appear to work in Chrome; cannot add items to list. Worked in IE.
4. I have Nightsaver but not online statements and pay by DD.
5. I just checked the bill again. It reads as 123.77 for 54 days use, no charges brought forward.
6. I unplug ALL appliances after use and turn off the oven at the mains.

So this does seem extremely high! What benefit will me PMing you my details do?

thanks.

seanhalpin wrote: »

I have made this out for you.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pgk9y5jcwp0u4vx/Energy%20consumption.ods


With the assumptions made you should be lookign at around the €70-80 mark for two months. You are right, bills of €160 are completely off the wall.

You are not using electric room heaters or electric heating are you??

I love the way people are always all surprised that a shower uses lots of electricity. Shure how do they think the water gets hot? Magic?

I would definitely look into checkign whther the meter is yours.

Without doubt you should get an OWL monitor and clip it you your meter tails to check that the meter is reading correctly. The EI man won't take it as they are very common and are made for that purpose for use by homeowners. THey are very easy to install.

he does have electric heating but he says he doesnt use it much.

i have seen lots of threads on boards where the electric heating was the cause of the problem.

Jev/N

A lot of good advice already above and I've only skimmed through so here's a quick summary which may be doubling-up

Clothes Dryer - big user of power, hang outside or in ventilated area if possible
Electric Shower - already mentioned above
Oven - Depends how long used for but uses a decent amount of power
Hairdryers - depending on the brand etc., can be extremely high on power usage but wouldn't impact too much if you're only using briefly

CIARAN_BOYLE

Jev/N wrote: »

Clothes Dryer - big user of power, hang outside or in ventilated area if possible

Personally I hang in the hotpress use the water from the immersion to dry clothes

cold case

Couple of tips:

All CFL bulbs,
Take the mug to the tap to make tea - most kettles are flat-bottomed with hidden element, so only boil a mug of water as needed.
Save up the ironing, as do it all as quickly and efficiently as possible, don't dawdle.
Use the oven to the full when it's on. Put in some baking with a casserole for example.
Don't let the teenagers stay in the shower for ages.
Have a clothes horse for the clothes, and don't use the tumble dryer too much.
Fill the washing machine fully when you put on a wash.
The freezer works best full, so if you have an empty drawer, put in a pillow until you stock up again.
Use the microwave to reheat, rather than the oven.

Another thing to remember is, if you get a discount for getting an online bill, or pay by direct debit, these discounts run out after a year or so without any notice. Take note of when you signed up for the discounts, and ring up to renew them when the year is up. Electric Ireland will keep sending online bills, and taking your direct debits, but the discounts will stop regardless.

galah

another thing - make sure you defrost fridge/freezers regurlarly. If ice is allowed to build up, the appliance needs to work harder, eating up a lot more electricity.

We had bills around 180 for 2 adults and a newborn last winter (4 bed house) - with electric heating on pretty much constantly (no OFCH). It drops to around 100 in summer, and that's including running a lot of baby equipment (sterilizer, microwave, monitors, etcetc).

If you have a night rate, use it - we stick the washing machine/dryer on when we get up (granted, that is at 5 am thanks to babba...) so we wont have to run those during the day.

xpletiv

Hi all,

just a follow up.

I dont know whats going on, but my heating has been going haywire last few days.

I turned it on on Saturday night; all the signs pointed to it being on, which included the mains power switches, the wall switches on the heaters, the dials on the walls to sort the heat, etc.
However, the lights on the plugs on the walls didnt turn on, and obviously, neither did the heaters. So I thought there was an issue with the power, and thus turned them off.

Forward to Sunday morning, get up, apt is roasting! Heaters aare ON, despite switches off at the walls, dials on the heaters turned down to 0, dials on the walls to set heat down to 0, and even the mains box for the Storage option all flicked the other way; yet heat still billowing out for the majority of the day. Come 7pm, they are finally off, and havent been back on since, but this is nowhere near normal.

Just to note; this isnt what is costing me money, this has only JUST happened. Any thoughts?

Still have yet to check the meter and see what the costs are being.

EI: Una

Hi Xpletiv,

Are these night storage heaters? If so, there may be a problem with the clock. Try switching them off, turning the dial to low and switching one on. Assuming it is working correctly it will charge that night. Repeat the process for the other(s). It could be a time switch issue but try these tests first.

Regards,
Una

H3llR4iser

Two people, two bedroom apartment - around 90-100 every two months and it's pretty stable across the whole year. While we have gas heating and hot water, we have a host of electric stuff always on - two or three computers that are up 24/7/365.

An interesting thing is that my bill was around 85-90 when I was living alone and it only went up a few Euro when my girlfriend moved in - the only difference being her hairdryer/straightener use, since I already cooked daily and used the dryer.

xpletiv

Electric Ireland: Una wrote: »

Hi Xpletiv,

Are these night storage heaters? If so, there may be a problem with the clock. Try switching them off, turning the dial to low and switching one on. Assuming it is working correctly it will charge that night. Repeat the process for the other(s). It could be a time switch issue but try these tests first.

Regards,
Una

I dont know what the difference between night storage is and normal, so I assume they are normal. There is no clock anywhere that I can find about the radiators, and even so, flicking it off at the mains should deactivate it!

Also, regards to what above said; I dont cook every day, in fact Im not there often as I work 5 days a week and 4 nights a week in college, so im on the move all the time, and all other time pretty much not in the house.

More I think about it more I think ive either a dodgy meter or paying someone elses bill. I think perhaps a technician should be sent out to look into this.