Is this right

irishgirl19

Hey guys. I live with my partner in a small ground floor 1 bed flat in a house converted into flats.
It has storage heaters.and the both of us are out during most of the day.
why I am looking for advice is that I am getting bimonthly electric bills for about 359!
I am at my wits end as money is very tight.I would like to move out to a flat with gas but I have 6 months left on my lease.
I have single glazed windows.when I enquire with esb they say this is correct and I was told it is not too bad for storage heaters. my boyfriend wants the ber cert but what use is that when were still stuck here.
If anyone has any advice I would really appreciate it.Thanks

the_syco

Make and model of the storage heaters. How you set it makes a BIG DIFFERENCE.

Also read the storage heater thread; http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055558356

djimi

Storage heaters are a nightmare on electricity (there have been several threads on the subject in here in the past couple of weeks).

If your place is small enough then invest in some decent curtains and a plug in oil radiator. Our electric bills halved from the winter before when we used the storage heater.

Victor

Are you paying the electricity bill for the entire property or a fair chunk of it?

Lawrence1895

359 quid for a 1 bedroom flat. Seems to be a bit high alright. I paid around the same for a 3 bedroom house.

But maybe it's some old models, and bad insulation, and single glazed windows.

K.Flyer

The ESB must have been wetting themselves with laughter watching storage heaters being installed around the country. They have to be the most ineffective and most expensive way to heat a home.
Switch them ALL OFF and buy a few oil filled plug in radiators together and a couple of timers (unless they are already on the heater) and use them instead, they are cheaper to run and easier to control.

Outkast_IRE

I used to be very anti-storage heaters from bad experiences in poorly insulated aparments and flats before where the heat was just wasted.

However the gf now loves in a groundfloor studio apt/converted garage, which is really well insulated with good windows and doors, and storage heaters and i find them a perfect fit for such a small space.

The heat the storage heater slowly leaves out during the day keeps the room at a constant comfortable temp with some heat left to give it an extra boost in the evening.

What im saying is, when used correctly they can be a grand form of heating, however in a poorly insualted building they are a bad choice, as the heat they leave out during the day is lost too quickly .

tara73

most people should be aware of it by now, but are you sure this bills are your correct consumption or are they estimated?
if you never handed in your actual meter reading after say 2 month of moving in they would still be estimated on the consumption from previous tenants.

did you check this?

Duckjob

Suggestion re. making your place more heat efficient...

If you have single glazed windows chances are you're losing shedloads of heat through them in the cold weather. The cold windows also create draughts out of nowhere, because warm air hits them, cools instantly and drops down - like the opposite of a convection heater.

You could try those plastic kits you fit over your windows - you tape the plastic to the frame of the window, then use a hairdryer to shrink the plastic so it forms a seal over the window and prevents the warm air from hitting the window. I've used them on 2 cold velux windows and it transformed the room. A kit costs about €15 in Woodies and you can do a good few windows with it.