stampy jim,

A bill for £533 in the latest quarter (i.e. Nov - Feb) isn't surprising. The average UK energy bill (before recent reductions) stood at £1,300 with approx. 40% of that annual bill being spent in the Winter quarter = £520.

It is for this reason we've been encouraging all customers, where possible, to move to a monthly direct debit arrangement on their energy supply. By doing so, you spread the costs evenly across the year whilst also benefiting from greater discounts due to the reduced admin costs to the supplier.

My biggest concern is that many customers will pay for these bills using a credit card and therefore end up paying interest on their recent energy bills. Again, strengthening the case to pay by MDD.

In terms of using your E7 meter, you need to ensure you are using atleast 20% of your overall energy during the E7 hours i.e. 1am - 8am.

Hope this helps.

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Regards,

Scott Byrom
Utilities Manager
moneysupermarket.com

Storage heaters do have excessive running costs. I have them in my flat despite there being gas available. I'm in a housing association property incidentally. I would never have accepted the move to this property had the housing association been honest about the running costs. My utility bills more than doubled in price after the move.

I personally don't see the value of storage heaters compared to other electrical forms of heating. Yes they use the cheaper rate of electricity, but they have high wattages, I think the highest wattage I have is 3kw. I'm on something called 'Superdeal' with Southern Electricity, which prevents me from switching supplier as no other company supports my meter. I don't know if it can be changed to economy 7 for free so that I can shop around or not.

Anyway to get back to my point. On this 3 tier system, I pay 16.09p per unit before VAT for my day rate. 7.52p for my night rate and 5.54p for stored heat. Now it sounds good when you look at it. 5.54p doesn't sound a lot at all. But being single and on a low income it does add up to quite a bit. I only run 4 out of 5 heaters at any one time, with the input setting on number 6 and the boost on number 1, the lowest setting. My electricity bill for the last quarter is £387.66 inc VAT.

As my stored heat is put seperately on the bill, I can see exactly how much of the bill applies to heating. My stored heating for the last 3 months was £241.63. so that's about £80 per month. Thankfully I prepay, not by meter, using internet banking. So I take meter readings fortnightly as I am paid, and pay as I go so to speak.

So my thought is, even if I were to use for example a 1kw quartz heater during the day, it would not cost me any more than the storage heaters.

The main disadvantage of storage heaters being if you have a sudden change in the weather, you either end up freezing waiting for the night rate to start, or stiffling hot because there's suddenly a warm day.

I'm certainly considering changing to radial heaters for that reason. That way I can just have the heating on when it's cold, opposed to having to keep an eye on the weather reports!

To the person who near the end, who mentioned switching to direct debit, I doubt there are any savings to be had, given the energy companies seem to over estimate what a person's energy needs are. I had a letter of complaint from Southern Electric because I wasn't sticking to my budget plan they had set out for me. I made it clear to them I was only prepared to pay for what I used, took fornightly meter readings and used a spreadsheet to calculate my usage and was never in arrears. I never heard anything from them after that. There are other considerations I save for in the summer, such as christmas, next years redecoration costs etc.

The only reason electricity is so expensive is because of the greed of energy suppliers, poor regulation and a weak government. Perhaps it's time we took a leaf out of the bolivians governments book and renationalized the energy companies, so that there is proper accountability.

Hi, like Stampy Jim, im also having severe issues with my electricity bills. I currently live in a 1 bedroom flat which has only electricity as a from of power, there are only 2 of us in the flat and we are at work all day and have everything switched off with the exception of the kitchen white goods, we also have 2 storage heaters on full time, 1 in the hall and 1 in the living room. Our bill for the last quarter was £650, YES £650!! For the month of December, we had everything switched off, even the heaters as we where in South Africa. We have been in the flat for over 2 years and every quarter the bill goes up, we even stopped having baths every night (not using the booster button for the hot water) and having electric showers most nights, How can this be, every time my girlfriend tries to call the energy company for some sort of explanation they just dont seem to be listening or caring as we are paying them every month, someone please help, £150 a month for electricity for a 1 bedroom flat is ridiculous!!!

Thanks

kingsofloen

Don't like to be harsh when people are presented with worrying bills but you didn't mention your meter reading(s) once. Its impossible to give advice without your meter readings.

Also to get a handle on your consumption, read your meters every day for a week. Unfortunately as the winter is over this won't show up the worst of the storage heater readings.

Hi Jalexa,

Thanks for the reply, we are now taking down the meter readings last thing at night and first thing in the morning, our night time reading has gone up by 29k/w and our day reading by 2k/w, god these bills are just getting ridiculous, it is possible that we are not using the storage heaters to our benefit however surely not that bad?!

kingsofloen:

it is possible that we are not using the storage heaters to our benefit however surely not that bad?!

Unfortunately I think you are suffering the expense of electric heating especially for a house which is unoccupied during the day. A house needs to be really well insulated for storage heating to even half work as a system.

What to do? Check you are on the most competive tariff, including the best payment terms, normally fixed monthly direct debits. Probably you are not getting good value from the hall storage heater, consider leaving it off as much as possible. Is the tank well insulated, normally the most cost effective thing to improve. Are you familiar with the controls on the storage heaters to reduce the charge in warmer weather and to (slightly) delay the heat output?

Sorry there are no easy answers here.

Again, thanks for the reply.

My girlfriend has just called npower again and it looks like they have been taking the meter readings down incorrectly ie, day readings and puting them as night time and vice versa, they are sending out someone at the end of the month to take readings as we normally provide them with them over the phone. They have been shocking to deal with, heres hoping we get something sorted, i will post what happens incase anyone is interested in the outcome.

Thanks

E7 rates from Standing charge ppd 14.10 Day Rate 14.25 Night Rate 4.72

if I place my contact details the post will be deleted

In defence of storage heaters: With ours our total electricity costs for a 2005 build 2 bed flat (without gas) are £55pcm by direct debit and we're racking up credit with Scottish Power. As other posters have mentioned a combination of usage, age, insulation and correct supplier plan all help.