Home heating / lighting cost excessive?

Zipppy

Hi
Just the two of us living in 3 bed red brick terraced home in city..both out at work all day.
We're paying airtricity €145 pm for heating and lighting.
This seems very excessive??
Thoughts?

2012paddy2012

Similar semi D ..with young lad ..45 to 50 a month...the neighbour could be connected through attic to you ....

Zipppy

2012paddy2012 wrote: »

Similar semi D ..with young lad ..45 to 50 a month...the neighbour could be connected through attic to you ....

Hmmm..yep I did think its excessive...

We've no high use of power either...

Very old fridge freezer just died and needs replacing so maybe this will help power usage
Otherwise I just dunno...

Browney7

Zipppy wrote: »

Hmmm..yep I did think its excessive...

We've no high use of power either...

Very old fridge freezer just died and needs replacing so maybe this will help power usage
Otherwise I just dunno...

Is this a level pay plan? Has the meter been read recently? Do you have storage heating or does this bill include gas too or is it solely electricity?

Idbatterim

Dealz sell led bulbs for e1.50 so do the other places like me price etc. if you have certain high wattage bulbs that run many hours a day, swap them for led ...

CiniO

Zipppy wrote: »

Hi
Just the two of us living in 3 bed red brick terraced home in city..both out at work all day.
We're paying airtricity €145 pm for heating and lighting.
This seems very excessive??
Thoughts?

What kind of heating do you have?
What temperature do you normally keep in your house?

Is this yearly average pm price or is this price youre paying only in the winter during heating season.

Doesn't sound excessive to me really.
For us 3 bedroom house family 2+2 we spend around 80 pm on electricity and around 750 per annum on heating oil.

That's 1710 per year so monthly average of 142.5

Zipppy

Browney7 wrote: »

Is this a level pay plan? Has the meter been read recently? Do you have storage heating or does this bill include gas too or is it solely electricity?

Hi
Electricity and Gas (gas heating and gas hob)
No storage heating.
We seem to have been charged €145 exactly every month over last year...Im not sure when ESB meter was last read (gas meter outside) so this could be averaged??

tobdom

Zipppy wrote: »

Hi
Electricity and Gas (gas heating and gas hob)
No storage heating.
We seem to have been charged €145 exactly every month over last year...Im not sure when ESB meter was last read (gas meter outside) so this could be averaged??

Sounds like some kind of 'level pay' plan - you could either have a lot of credit built up (which would be due back to you at some point in time or when you switch/cancel)...... or you could actually owe them more based on your ACTUAL usage - that's less likely I'd imagine, if you were underpaying on level pay they'd soon tell you - less likely to tell you if you are building up credit.

Have you an online account where you can check your actual billing/usage?
If not phone them up and ask them what the story is, although in terms of billing I've heard they can be very difficult to deal with.
Also, check your meters and compare the reading to what they last quoted on your bills....

Zipppy

tobdom wrote: »

Sounds like some kind of 'level pay' plan - you could either have a lot of credit built up (which would be due back to you at some point in time or when you switch/cancel)...... or you could actually owe them more based on your ACTUAL usage - that's less likely I'd imagine, if you were underpaying on level pay they'd soon tell you - less likely to tell you if you are building up credit.

Have you an online account where you can check your actual billing/usage?
If not phone them up and ask them what the story is, although in terms of billing I've heard they can be very difficult to deal with.
Also, check your meters and compare the reading to what they last quoted on your bills....

Excellent advice...I will do .. many thanks !

Cocobongo

Our last electricity bill came to a 680eur for two bed flat with electrical heaters... i see i really need to find where the issue i

Edit: bill was for two months

Browney7

Zipppy wrote: »

Hi
Electricity and Gas (gas heating and gas hob)
No storage heating.
We seem to have been charged €145 exactly every month over last year...Im not sure when ESB meter was last read (gas meter outside) so this could be averaged??

No too extreme then - use bonkers.ie to do comparisons and you'll see the national average figures they use. On a combined basis (coupled with it being a cold winter) I'd guess you are along the national average. Suspect your house is a bit older so you probably have the heating on a bit more?

If you are a below average user the cashback deals the electric/gas companies do can be good value (have gas with one and electricity with the other). Rinse and repeat and switch every year. If you use a bit more the percentage discounts are better - do the sums and you'll see :-)

El Weirdo

Cocobongo wrote: »

Our last electricity bill came to a 680eur for two bed flat with electrical heaters... i see i really need to find where the issue i

Edit: bill was for two months

Do you know how to use the storage heaters correctly?

Cocobongo

El Weirdo wrote: »

Do you know how to use the storage heaters correctly?

From what i understand is to leave it on to heat up the “brick” inside for the heat to be released then after? Am i wrong? It’s the first time really i am using those, so would be great to hear some advice

El Weirdo

Cocobongo wrote: »

From what i understand is to leave it on to heat up the “brick” inside for the heat to be released then after? Am i wrong? It’s the first time really i am using those, so would be great to hear some advice

There should be 2 switches. One for the storage, and one for the booster/fan heater. If the booster/fan is left on, then you will be using electricity like it's going out of fashion.

Cocobongo

El Weirdo wrote: »

There should be 2 switches. One for the storage, and one for the booster/fan heater. If the booster/fan is left on, then you will be using electricity like it's going out of fashion.

Aha... and here comes the issue

I have two switches - one doesn’t work and another does

The one that does blows the air from the bottom of the heater, not the top where the bricks are

Silly me i should if figured it out earlier...

I guess i am only using the booster fan then, no wonder the high bills coming. Feeling stupid now 😑

Del2005

Cocobongo wrote: »

Aha... and here comes the issue

I have two switches - one doesn’t work and another does

The one that does blows the air from the bottom of the heater, not the top where the bricks are

Silly me i should if figured it out earlier...

I guess i am only using the booster fan then, no wonder the high bills coming. Feeling stupid now 😑

The other switch is the storage heater. You need to turn the input up on the storage heater and output down. If it's working you'll have heat in the top of the blocks fairly soon after 11pm, midnight on Sunday with Spring Forward.

If there's no one home during the day storage heaters are not much use as most of the heat is lost during the day, so you usually need to use the fan as a booster.

Idbatterim

Op, do you rent or own?

Zipppy

Idbatterim wrote:

Op, do you rent or own?

OWN...

Idbatterim

Zipppy wrote: »

OWN...

this popped up on my Facebook earlier ...