Pollyana

Interesting one to which I hope someone might have some input. I can't go into too much detail as its rather a delicate situation, but any ideas are welcome.
We are trying to work out what the electricity usage for the property below should be. Having missed the worst of the energy crisis myself, and now living in a flat with heating part of the rent payment, I'm a bit at sea here

So the property is a converted stone barn, so although its single storey, it has a fairly high roof space. One room is 17'x 15'9", the other is 12'x 9' with a bathroom 5'3"x 8'10". No draughts or anything, its good solid stone walls. Granny-flat sort of thing.
We currently don't have access to the meter or the actual bills, but a figure for payment is sent through monthly. For the delicate reasons mentioned above its no good at present asking for the meter to be tested or anything, but if people think that could be necessary I will work towards it.
There are two Haverland RCCT radiators, one in each room; they have some complicated programming system; the person who set it up is no longer around so I can't ask him what the timings are, but I know they are on 24/7, at around 21 degrees we think during the day, then cooler at night. Unfortunately due to the way they are programmed (and the fact I have only just now got involved) they were on 24/7 through the summer as well. I think he would've changed the settings for the summer but sadly he was long gone by then.
The only other electrical usage is a small water heater in the cupboard under the sink; seems to hold the hot water and then heat up again when refilled (I know less than nothing about these things as you can tell!), then washing machine once a week, bit of tv and lights. usual "elderly lady" stuff.

Bills last winter were around £1000-1200 a month; by June they had gradually come down to around £600 and last month is £260.

I don't get it; has the price of electric dropped that much this year? What would any of you expect to pay for a property like that? There won't have been a change of supplier or tariff or anything. Does anyone have experience of these radiators?

All help gratefully received!

Finknottle

Some (probably useless!) thoughts...

Property is approx 700 sq feet, so pretty small but being an old barn what is the ceiling height, significantly higher than the usual 8/9 feet?

Looking up some current rates the average cost per kWh is in the region of 31p, and the "average" monthly bill round about £700 which seems to what yours averages out at over the year.

Apparently Haverland radiators have an energy consumption meter, can you read these?

As for the huge discrepancy between summer & winter, this, from my experience (we are all electric), does not surprise me as electric heating is very expensive - and it sounds like programming is keeping those radiators off in summer.

Finknottle

Currently, Haverland radiators are rated at a maximum of 1.8 KW. So, 1.8 @ 31p for say, 18 hours a day, times 2 = £ 20 per day, £600 / month plus any standing charges, VAT, etc plus of course the other appliances you mention.

So that I think that indicates your bills are about right and, bearing in mind that you asked about consumption I am guessing that your consumption is about 2000kwh per month, averaged over the 12 months.

Disclaimer: I am not an expert but did have to do a similar assessment when we moved apartments a couple of years ago and our bill (compared with the previous owner's) shot up alarmingly - because we relied on the electric heating whereas they only used the wood burner (when they were in, which wasn't often!).

Finknottle

As for the programming, you need a 9 year old!

Pollyana

No thoughts are useless, I've been going round in circles reading google so anything helps!

It is a very small building; thinking about the roof height - I guess if there was a ceiling at the normal height, instead of it all being open, there would probably be a\bout 9-10 feet above that to the peak of the roof.

I'd expect a difference summer to winter, but struggle to see how £1000 last winter comes down to £260 for the month just ended - which has been pretty chilly out there. £700 a month for electric for a 2 room bungalow is bonkers, I'll have to turn them off and tell her to wear 10 layers instead!

Didn't know about the Haverland meter - I'm going to try and kidnap a 9 year old * take them up there next month t try and reprogramme the things a bit, so maybe I'll find it then, though if its with the actual electric meter I can't get at that at present.


So if anything, the recent bills are too low, looking at those figures. Interesting.........

Thats the way to go these days isn't it!!!

Thanks for all that, given me a bit to mull over!

Finknottle

I wondered if, with the billing arrangements, there is a delay, ie last month's bill is actually for September or even August. I do know from our experience, and we were able to compare meter readings from one year to the nest, electric heating is very expensive do a huge difference between summer & winter is inevitable.

Finknottle

If I've read your post correctly, the cube of the building is double that of a "normally" ceilinged property, that'll take some heating!

Finknottle

Finally! You mention 21c (same as us) but if you could re programme it to, say, 19c that would make quite a difference.

Pollyana

Possibly. I know she gets a figure by text or phone call every month, and pays it promptly. I don't doubt that the person giving her the figure is giving her what they see on the meter. I'm just wondering i that meter is right!

The room sizes are taken from the advert for the property when it was sold as part of a larger lot in 2020. The ceiling/roof height is me imagining I'm there. There's no ceiling, it goes right to the peak of the roof, and I'm just guessing at the height from normal ceiling upwards.

I shall be having a go when I am up there next month. Not going to be easy as its at floor level and I have bad arthritis but needs must!

If the figures appear to be right, then so be it. Pretty horrific though for the equivalent of a one bed flat, makes me wonder how my landlady is making a profit on my own flat!

SanDiegogirl

..... and you don't have access to the actual bills - how do you know the person 'giving' you the amounts is not uplifting them...... !

Where is the actual meter? Why can't your relative look at it?

old.sparkles

My guess is a separate building fed from main, with single meter.

old.sparkles

General note - the Energy Price Cap (EPC) for Oct - Dec 2023 is 27p / kWhr - https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publication...-december-2023

For any devices that are powered through plugs / sockets it's possible to add inline power monitoring - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Electricity..._id=1938287031

Something like this can show how much energy is being used, and when set up with kWhr charge, how much it is costing. Looking at the radiators, it's possible they can also do this - you might be able to download a copy of user manual if you don't have.

I looked at things a slightly different way - radiators full power / 24 hrs + 10 kWhr / day for all incidentals gave 2988.4 kWhr for 31 day month. Even at 32p/kWhr, cost did not go over £957/month unless they are also paying standing charge. Is it possible whoever is being billed has been getting estimates, and the low bill is due to an actual read?

fidobsa

Wow, I knew electricity in UK was expensive but I would quickly be bankrupt with bills like that! There is something strange going on with my electric bills here in Croatia. I seem to have paid hardly anything this year, less than €300 for 6 months (1/2/23 to 31/7/23). I'm assuming I must have been paying high estimated bills last year and got ahead with payments.

Finknottle

We're all electric and paying €100 per month.

Lynn R

We are also all electric (in Spain) and the highest bill I've had during the last 12 months was €86 for mid December 2022 to mid January 2023, a month when we would have been using the airconditioning for heating in the evenings, as well as for all the cooking (we probably use more than average for that as we cook two separate main meals each day), water heating, and all the usual domestic appliances.

The bills are going to get higher from 1 January 2024, though, because we are losing the reductions in VAT and electricity tax which were introduced when inflation was very high. They will be going back up to 21% and 5% respectively.