High energy efficent house, High energy bills

daithicarr

I moved in to a energy efficient house at the beginning of the year which looks and feels a lot better than my old apartment, but my energy bills are 240% of what they used to be. Is there any obvious thing which would use energy a lot more than where i lived before.

My old place,
1.2 bed, Ground floor apartment, half below ground level so very dark.
2.Drafts around doors and windows
3.unsealable vent in each room taped up but still leaking heat.
4. Gas heating and cooker
5. no where to hang clothes so dryer used a lot.
6. large computer on most of the day
7. dark so lights used regularly.
8. all power on day rate.

New house.
1.Mid terrace house, 3 bed, but smaller floor size than apartment , so some heat would be recycled when rising
2. Solar panels to heat water tank.
3. great insulation and sealing around doors and windows. not even the slightest hint of a draft even if you run your hand around the seems of the doors.
4. Energy recovery system, which takes the heat out of the stale air and recirculates with fresh air.
5. lots of sunlight, which sometimes makes the house too warm on sunny days.
6. rarely use heating due to increase in bills.
7. night rate electricity which we use for storage heaters and underfloor heating during winter, putting on dish washer late, putting on clothes late.

Apart from the Electric cooker, most of the appliances we have are the same and we have been using them less and the heating rarely and at a low setting, but our bills keep increasing, they are as expensive now as they were during the winter.

The only thing i can think of is the heat recovery system, are they heavy on energy usage? but then if so whats the point of them .

Cuddlesworth

daithicarr wrote: »

7. night rate electricity which we use for storage heaters and underfloor heating during winter, putting on dish washer late, putting on clothes late.

Storage Heaters and underfloor heating? So electric underfloor heating. That's not a energy efficient house.

OMD

daithicarr wrote: »

I moved in to a energy efficient house at the beginning of the year which looks and feels a lot better than my old apartment, but my energy bills are 240% of what they used to be. Is there any obvious thing which would use energy a lot more than where i lived before.

My old place,
1.2 bed, Ground floor apartment, half below ground level so very dark.
2.Drafts around doors and windows
3.unsealable vent in each room taped up but still leaking heat.
4. Gas heating and cooker
5. no where to hang clothes so dryer used a lot.
6. large computer on most of the day
7. dark so lights used regularly.
8. all power on day rate.

New house.
1.Mid terrace house, 3 bed, but smaller floor size than apartment , so some heat would be recycled when rising
2. Solar panels to heat water tank.
3. great insulation and sealing around doors and windows. not even the slightest hint of a draft even if you run your hand around the seems of the doors.
4. Energy recovery system, which takes the heat out of the stale air and recirculates with fresh air.
5. lots of sunlight, which sometimes makes the house too warm on sunny days.
6. rarely use heating due to increase in bills.
7. night rate electricity which we use for storage heaters and underfloor heating during winter, putting on dish washer late, putting on clothes late.

Apart from the Electric cooker, most of the appliances we have are the same and we have been using them less and the heating rarely and at a low setting, but our bills keep increasing, they are as expensive now as they were during the winter.

The only thing i can think of is the heat recovery system, are they heavy on energy usage? but then if so whats the point of them .

I don't have electric underfloor heating but I have gas version. 2 points to remember. If house was empty before it costs a lot to heat up floor slab initially. Then you must leave the heat turned on but on thermostat continuously 24 hours a day. The cost is heating the slab, once it is heated it is cheap to keep heated.

daithicarr

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Storage Heaters and underfloor heating? So electric underfloor heating. That's not a energy efficient house.

So the B rating would just apply to its insulation value ?

Haven t been using either forms of heating much after January and February and the bills still the same price.

quietsailor

daithicarr wrote: »

So the B rating would just apply to its insulation value ?

Haven t been using either forms of heating much after January and February and the bills still the same price.

The BER rating is supposed to be an overall energy rating on the house, light bulbs, type/rating of insulation, type of heat source, energy reclamation etc are all entered into a set of calculations to get the overall energy rating.

You said: the bill is the same price are you just looking at the bills as they come in and not checking them against the actual meter reading?

If you initially had to heat the slab as a previous poster said your energy consumption would have been huge and the automated sequence the energy supplier's computers uses would have calculated your average daily consumption back then and is now still using that figure to estimate your consumption now even though you're not using so much at the present time. Check your meters and see how they compare to the bill readings.

Is there a letter next to the meter reading on the last few bills, there should be something like;
(E) = Estimate - the computer calculated it
(C) = Customer - a meter reading you called in/entered on-line
(R)* = Read - a ESB networks employee came out and read your meter.

* = this might be some other letter, I'm working off my memory of my last bill here