Electric Bill

Vaioer

Folks,

Feel free to move if inappropriate here

We are living in a two bed room apartment in the Gasworks and the electric bills seem to be crazy high. For example, our last two months bill is 200e and the one before that was 250e:eek:

We have electric with Electric Ireland and Heat/Gas with Bord Gais

I share it with another lad and my name is on the bills. I travel quite a bit, for example for the last bill I was away 20/2-6/3, 14/3-19/3 and 3/4-20/4.

We have two TVs, playstation, the normal four way adapters charging phones etc.

Fridge isn't on that high, we both probably do 2/3 washes a week. Clothes are air dried.

However I have lived in apartments before and the bills have NEVER been like this. There I would like to get to the bottom of it!

I am just back and noticed yer man(randomer) who I share with sticks on the immersion, switch beside the boiler when he has a shower in the evening.

We have a timer on the boiler and I stick that on in the morning to give me warm water for a shower.

Any ideas? I can stick up pictures of the boiler settings and timer settings as well if that helps.

soc

Immersion sucks up electricity. I'm betting your issue is there - plus if the 'boost' switch is turned on, on storage heaters (which I assume you also have in the apartment), they too suck up electricity. Yer man probably has his room heater on too alot (assuming you don't). Basically to heat anything in an apartment, it uses electricity... and that costs a lot more than gas or oil (we noticed significant savings when we moved from apartment to a house with gas heating).

Tell yer man to use the timer on the boiler... he knows what time he roughly has a shower - so get him to put it onto the timer so that when we gets up there is hot water ready for him.

Vaioer

Yeah,

That's my thoughts - he must have the immersion on flat out and that is where these massive bills are coming from. It's going to be an awkward conversation as I'm not paying half a massive bill if I wasn't here for most of it. Therefore I want to have my facts right!

We have "normal" radiators, no storage heaters(have had them before and know all about the "boost"), so I am not sure that is the issue. To be fair the lad isn't here most weekends, so the bill is even more crazy.

We have a timer which I assumed was to heat water/radiators but the bills are so great I wonder what else it could be.

Sleeper12

If the immersion thermostat is working then it won't be the immersion causing the problem. You can leave the immersion on all day & unless you are running hot water all day it won't cost much to have it on. Once the water gets hot it's hot. It doesn't keep heating.

EI: Una

Hi Vaioer,

The Electrical forum moderators have given us permission to assist here in relation to your Electric Ireland bill, if you wish.

Are your bills based on meter-readings or estimates? If you would like us to check your account, do private message us your Electric Ireland account number, name, address in full and telephone number.

Kind regards,
Una

Sleeper12

Electric Ireland: Una wrote: »

Hi Vaioer,

The Electrical forum moderators have given us permission to assist here in relation to your Electric Ireland bill, if you wish.

Are your bills based on meter-readings or estimates? If you would like us to check your account, do private message us your Electric Ireland account number, name, address in full and telephone number.

Kind regards,
Una

You are on the ball there! Well done electric Ireland!

coylemj

Sleeper12 wrote: »

If the immersion thermostat is working then it won't be the immersion causing the problem. You can leave the immersion on all day & unless you are running hot water all day it won't cost much to have it on. Once the water gets hot it's hot. It doesn't keep heating.

It does if the heat is wafting away into the air cause the tank isn't properly lagged, I suspect that's the source of the OP's problem. The pipe coming out of the top of the tank also drains away a fair amount of heat and would be the main source of heat loss if the rest of the tank has been sprayed with thick foam insulation. I have a couple of feet of the top pipe insulated and it preserves a lot of heat.