Very high electricity bill.

barry181091

Hey guys,

Just want a bit of feedback here regarding expected electricity costs. I live in a 3 bed apt with two other people. Everything is electric; oven, storage heaters, immersion etc.

Now we have gotten our bill from EI for the past two months and its 401 euro! :mad: It was on estimated reading but I got our actual readings and its basically the same.

Our main energy consumption would be immersion for 4 hours a night (Night rate), we had our storage heater on at night for a few weeks, oven/hob, washer dryer (Dryer used the odd time) and the last big one would be the bedroom heaters which wouldnt be turned on all of the time.

Basically what I want to know is, would it be easy to get to 400 odd euro with just three people in an apartment!?
Barry.

foggy_lad

Yes quite easy especilly during the colder winter months when water is colder and takes more energy to heat as well as the storage heaters using more electricity. how much were your bills for the same period last year?

barry181091

Actually just looked at my 'estimated' reading on the bill and its different to the 'estimated' given on my account page, what!? How can a company be so incompetent? :mad:

dudara

Moved to Accommodation & Property

dudara

rubadub

barry181091 wrote: »

last big one would be the bedroom heaters which wouldnt be turned on all of the time.

That is what ate it where I used to live.

Your daytime use is 0.1815

Those heaters are usually 2-3kW. So say it is on for 4 hours at 3kW, that is 12kWh per day, if 66 days that would be E143.75 (if it is on constantly, most tick off)

Where I was the guy who owned the place insisted on having a towel heater on constantly, I think it was 500W, when you totted it up it was costing a fortune.

Many do not realise it and are going around unplugging TVs or mobile chargers in standby mode thinking they are being energy efficient. While the act of sticking a jumper on once in a while could save far more time, effort & electricity.

MadsL

Storage heaters are the devil. I once hit a €550 bill for a 3 bed with storage heaters. Move out and find a better place - you'll be better off spending more on rent than a €400 bill every two months.

tHE vAGGABOND

+1 on storage heaters being the devil!

I got a 500 euro bill a couple of years ago [among a series of huge bills], the winter we had snow in Dublin [2 bed apartment], for a 2 month period. It later turned out my room mate had the storage heater on 12+ hours a day for months..

I dont use the storage heaters any more full stop, and bought 3 decent medium sized electric heaters instead for good prices from DID.ie [200-250 total] and the bills were never within a few hundred euro of that ever again.

If we want heat, we plug in heater and heat the place now - not heat the place while we are out at work or asleep - fcuk that!

Sadderday

storage heaters in a ground floor 2 bed apt, got bill from airtricity for €700. work from 7-7, therfore only on in the evenings and wkends. Real fire is the saviour, storage heaters dont offer enough heat.

had to pay it but worked out a monthly payment plan.

I can relate, hope ya get sorted.

rubadub

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

I dont use the storage heaters any more full stop,

tHE vAGGABOND wrote: »

If we want heat, we plug in heater and heat the place now - not heat the place while we are out at work or asleep - fcuk that!

We had one in the place I was in too. Heating the house all day and cold by the time we got home from work -useless.

There are a lot of weird misconceptions people have about heaters. And the marketing people are awful spoofers too.

There was mention of one brand in this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80854251

I was mentioning that many people think those oil filled wheelie heaters are more efficient compared to fan heaters since they keep warm, while fan heaters loose heat right away after being turned off. But the oil one takes longer to get warm. The energy has to go somewhere, its fundamental thermodynamics.

The most a standard plug socket can take is ~3kW. I have a little 2kW fan heater which was about €20 that I use in my room. I like the fact that the moment I turn it off it is cold, so no wasted energy when I leave the room, besides the warmth I already introduced. If I woke up and put on an oil filled on I would get far less benefit from it.

The fan heater uses up energy in its motor, but it is a tiny fraction of the overall power. Being so small and portable I can move them to any room and any location, e.g. right in front of me, blowing hot air right at me.

If anybody has found some electric heater with remarkable claims please post it here, I will gladly debunk any marketing nonsense I see.

Halogen heaters are the one I am still uncertain about, as they are said to heat the person without the need to heat the air. But if nobody is in front of it it must be heating just the air and/or surrounding objects. It also gives off light, so needless energy is being wasted that way.

wobbles-grogan

rubadub wrote: »

We had one in the place I was in too. Heating the house all day and cold by the time we got home from work -useless.

There are a lot of weird misconceptions people have about heaters. And the marketing people are awful spoofers too.

There was mention of one brand in this thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80854251

I was mentioning that many people think those oil filled wheelie heaters are more efficient compared to fan heaters since they keep warm, while fan heaters loose heat right away after being turned off. But the oil one takes longer to get warm. The energy has to go somewhere, its fundamental thermodynamics.

The most a standard plug socket can take is ~3kW. I have a little 2kW fan heater which was about €20 that I use in my room. I like the fact that the moment I turn it off it is cold, so no wasted energy when I leave the room, besides the warmth I already introduced. If I woke up and put on an oil filled on I would get far less benefit from it.

The fan heater uses up energy in its motor, but it is a tiny fraction of the overall power. Being so small and portable I can move them to any room and any location, e.g. right in front of me, blowing hot air right at me.

If anybody has found some electric heater with remarkable claims please post it here, I will gladly debunk any marketing nonsense I see.

Halogen heaters are the one I am still uncertain about, as they are said to heat the person without the need to heat the air. But if nobody is in front of it it must be heating just the air and/or surrounding objects. It also gives off light, so needless energy is being wasted that way.

The problem is the type of heat energy.

Heat is mostly passed in two ways, conduction/convection and radiation.

That blow heater is conduction, i.e. heating the air in the room, which is then passed to you and any other objects around.

The halogens (and conventional radiators, and those oil heater yokes and the sun!!) all heat through radiation. The radiation passes through the air without it absorbing much of the heat, until it hits something solid, like you or the couch or wall. These objects then slowly release the heat energy into the room.

Apparantly, radiated heat is far more natural and healthy than conduction based heat. I think the reason is that it doesnt dry out the air in the room as its heating the place up. Presumably there is some other reasons as well but cant recall em right now.

Now, I'm no scientist, that's only what I've read. But, it makes sense I think.

rubadub

wobbles-grogan wrote: »

That blow heater is conduction, i.e. heating the air in the room, which is then passed to you and any other objects around.

The halogens (and conventional radiators, and those oil heater yokes and the sun!!) all heat through radiation.

Normal radiators & the oil filled ones do not transfer by radiation, its a common misconception because of the name "radiator", and the oil filled wheelie ones appear to be very similar to normal rads so you might presume they operate the same way.

The fan heaters heat up a thin element wire, similar to what is in a toaster or hair drier. If there was no fan there this wire would overheat and burn out. A toaster has a long enough wire and low enough power that it does not burn out, if a toaster does fail it is typically this wire though.

The fan is cooling down the really hot wire with cold air and blowing this now heated air around the room. The oil filled rads have huge surface area to dissipate the heat, compared to the thin wire. So there is no need to cool them down. The surface of the oil ones might get to say 80C, if you put a regular fan in front of them it would circulate air better throughout the room and cool down the surface from 80C to lower. You will notice a warm buffer of air around oil filled rads, I have gotten towels and waved it around them to spread it around the room. The oil filled ones are designed to have a large enough area not to get too hot, if you whacked another element in it and cutout the thermostat it would be a burn risk.

They each have their own advantage. Some sort of combination might be best. In the morning I heat the room while I am not in it, so a halogen would heat objects and not the air so much. So I think the fan is better in that case. But I might be better off coming into the room and switching over to the halogen straight after. Fan heaters are noisy too.

the_syco

barry181091 wrote: »

storage heaters

What is the make and model of them, and what settings are they set to?

tony81

That's only €45 a week, or €15 a week each, for all your cooking, heating, lighting, etc.

4 hours seems like a lot for the immersion though.

rubadub

tony81 wrote: »

4 hours seems like a lot for the immersion though.

+1, the night rates can be a false economy.

I put my immersion on for 15mins in the morning and it is enough hot water for 2 peoples showers. Only the very top of the tank is warm to the touch, the heated water has not had time to conduct to the rest of the tank of water, water does not mix as well as most imagine.

4 hours sounds like you are heating up the entire tank, and turning off and the entire thing is slowly cooling down. It might be half the price per kWh, but you might have only needed to turn it on for 1 hour at regular rate to get the same hot water usage. Maybe 2-3 intervals during the day, like morning & evening, with a timer.

Though a hot cyclinder will also contribute to heating your house too.

EI: Una

barry181091 wrote: »

Hi Barry181091,

I have been directed to this thread by Victor, moderator of Accommodation & Property. Can you private message me your Electric Ireland account number and your name/address in full as they appear on your account, as well as either your date of birth or the contact telephone number on your account?
Once I have those, I will have a look to see what has caused this.

Regards,
Una

moonandstars

I have read through these post and felt i had to write on my experience of my high ESB bill. We live in a 2 bed apartment - 3 people. In Jan we were hit with a 380 eur bill - inc. storage heaters, bedroom convection heaters, hob etc. Now some might think that it's reasonable but I don't think so at all. Only 1 storage heater was on, and yes we wore an extra jumper too instead of turning up the heat, the immersion wasn't on every night even. I screamed down the phone at customer service, of course it wasn't the poor girl's fault but I had to rant. Then we got the next bill for 25 days and we were watching every penny and had the heat down,not using convection heaters and it turned out to be 166eur!!! I had read the meter this time thinking it would make a difference!!

The next bill for 38 days was 212 eur!! So much for estimated readings. Our most recent bill last week was for 304 eur... we haven't used the convection heaters in the rooms at all and have had the 1 storage heater turned down to half for the 2 months. Every light in the few rooms is off till night when we need one in the living room. I don't think this is normal but I feel there's nothing I can do about it. We use night saver and we don't boil the water ever night even and have the very odd electric shower. I can't wait to move into a house because I know it will be so much cheaper.. I don't know why! But we can't even move because there's about 3 apartments for rent in Galway so we're stuck here.

bee06

I had a bill for 734 euro in January ... our previous bill was estimated so we used about 850 euro of electricity in 4 months.

Moonandstars, Electric Ireland have an appliance calculator on their website and there's an app which will show you the cost of each appliance is you input how often you use it ... might help you figure out what's using the most electricity.

moonandstars

bee06 wrote: »

I had a bill for 734 euro in January ... our previous bill was estimated so we used about 850 euro of electricity in 4 months.

Moonandstars, Electric Ireland have an appliance calculator on their website and there's an app which will show you the cost of each appliance is you input how often you use it ... might help you figure out what's using the most electricity.

Thanks, I'll check that out .. sorry to hear you've been hit hard too!

Bowlardo

Storage heaters are the devil. lived in an apartment that had them and never again.

moonandstars

Bowlardo wrote: »

Storage heaters are the devil. lived in an apartment that had them and never again.

I didn't realise they were so bad, but the problem I have with my electricity bills is that they go up and down like mad and don't make sense!! We watched every light switch and every kettle boiled and immersion for the past 2 months, had the 1 storage heater on half and the bill was nearly as high as bills we got in the Winter - whilst using convection heaters in the rooms - and the girl we shared with had it on ALL evening for about 2 months .. someone's never had a draught in their little princess bedroom...

digzy

could the imersion be on. imade that mistake thinking if i'd it off at the switch it was off.i'd a timer beside it that was overiding it:mad: felt like some ape

moonandstars

digzy wrote: »

could the imersion be on. imade that mistake thinking if i'd it off at the switch it was off.i'd a timer beside it that was overiding it:mad: felt like some ape

I don't really understand, but when we switch on the immersion the water goes hot so it's hardly that problem. We wash no more than 2 loads of washing a week, mostly 1 load though .. for 2 people! And always after 11, dishwasher no more than 3 times a week, after 11 ..it's infuriating.

miezekatze

Do you have really old appliances in your place, like fridge, freezer, washing machine, oven, etc.? I'm no expert, but newer models seem to use a lot less electricity than older ones.

moonandstars, I think what digzy said about the immersion is that there could be a timer next to it that automatically comes on at night and heats up your water. That would be a massive waste of electricity so I'd switch off the timer if that's the case, and only turn it on when you actually need hot water.

rubadub

moonandstars wrote: »

the immersion the water goes hot so it's hardly that problem.

If the temp is OK then you still might be heating too much water. Many people feel the tank side to gauge if it is hot enough. If my tank is totally at room temp I only need to put the immersion on for about 5-10mins before you can get 1-2 showers out of it. At this time the tank side still feels at room temp, only the very top is hot/warm. The water in most will be coming out of this localised hot region.

Do you have really old appliances in your place, like fridge, freezer, washing machine, oven, etc.? I'm no expert, but newer models seem to use a lot less electricity than older ones.

Most will give off excess power in the form of heat. So if you do switch all your applicances expect your heating bill to increase to attain the same heat. In the summer time if you have no heating on this is an advantage. In winter if you use electricity to heat then you are robbing peter to pay paul.

moonandstars

miezekatze wrote: »

Do you have really old appliances in your place, like fridge, freezer, washing machine, oven, etc.? I'm no expert, but newer models seem to use a lot less electricity than older ones.

moonandstars, I think what digzy said about the immersion is that there could be a timer next to it that automatically comes on at night and heats up your water. That would be a massive waste of electricity so I'd switch off the timer if that's the case, and only turn it on when you actually need hot water.

No new appliances, but like I said I turn on the switch to heat the water and the switch fgoes off then cos when its on the water gets hot, if it was always on it would always be hot.

wench

moonandstars wrote: »

We wash no more than 2 loads of washing a week, mostly 1 load though .. for 2 people! And always after 11, dishwasher no more than 3 times a week, after 11 ..it's infuriating.

The nightsaver hours are 11pm - 8am in winter, but change when the clocks go forward. It is midnight to 9am for the summer months.