Updated on 04/09/23 by Ben_OVO
If you live in an electric-only property and have high bills, then the main culprit for this is often the immersion heater and/or electric heaters / storage heaters. All of this kit uses a high amount of electricity. It's important to remember not to have your immersion heater switched on the whole time - just use it as you need it. For energy advice try a quick Google search of ‘energy advice in (your local area). You should find that there are multiple organisations and charities offering great energy saving advice, and often this advice is given by local councils.
Hi @BKS You're running some heavy duty kit there, but those average usage figures generally (“generally”…there’s always a “but”!! See below) seem quite reasonable to me: I wouldn’t mess too much with your heating: if you’ve got it to a comfortable level, leave well alone.
Similarly an hour and a half or so average per day cooking on oven/hob combined seems OK to me. Anything which requires an oven cooking time greater than 30 minutes doesn’t always require the oven to be pre-heated, but for goodness sake don’t take chances you’re unsure about when cooking food; (as a mere septuagenarian I hesitate to advise two such clearly competent and self reliant octogenarians!). And of course use saucepans (with a lid) on low to medium hob when possible, you’re probably doing that already? And things like pasta can be pre-soaked in cold water for a few hours to cut down on cooking time. Actually, as an alternative, some folk turn the ring off completely as soon as the pasta water boils, to let the pasta finish cooking just with the lid on. Plus, of course, some of those hobs retain heat for a long time…your flat was built in ‘92…but hopefully your cooker may be quite modern: fan assist oven, and a more energy-conscious modern hob than the old-fashioned “rings”, or, even worse, those solid cast-iron jobbies we used to see? And after your oven has finished cooking your food, some people put cold washing up water in the oven to warm while the oven is cooling down after being switched off.
Other cooking stuff like the microwave, toaster and kettle seem perfectly reasonable to me…although your kettle is probably costing you £15 or so per month…do you fill it each time or just boil enough? Not a fortune, but it all adds up!
Your plumber could well be right, but only if your hot water cylinder is well lagged, and only if you’re careful about the quantities of hot water you draw off at a time. Hand washing is fine, provided the basin stopper is used rather than just letting the hot tap run, similarly with washing up, maybe save it for doing all in one go? But your present 90 minutes a day sounds very sensible to me…does it take that long, though, to come up to heat? Of course, once up to heat it won’t take much to keep it hot…comfortably hot rather than boiling hot.
Your shower time is also good…some people advocate buying an egg timer to cut down on shower time; but at the 40-50 or so pence per day that your present showers are costing you, shaving a few minutes off your shower time seems a bit over the top. Some people approach their water company to get a diffuser shower head, which reduces the amount of energy the electric shower needs.
Two things (here’s the “but” mentioned above!) that I would closely monitor if I were you are, firstly, the 14 hours a day that your towel rail is running…those things may well cut in and out while they’re running, but I bet it’s mostly “on” rather than resting or on standby. I guess it helps to keep the bathroom warm, of course, which is good…if it does manage to do that OK? Could it be timed to come on for an hour or so early mornings, evenings and maybe at night before bedtime? Secondly, that washer/tumbler on for 4 hours a day is a monster consumer of electricity. It’s sometimes hard in winter to avoid tumbling because of all the possible condensation, but provided your flat is kept warm condensation shouldn’t be too troubling. We dry our washing on a simple dryer frame, but I know that’s not for everyone. As far as the wash itself goes, we find one or even two in every three washloads can be on a “cool” 20 degree setting rather than 40 or even higher. Also, if you do an extra spin cycle it’ll cut down on those greedy tumble dryer hours. And of course you'll already be cleaning out any lint from your dryer filter every day or so? Lastly, if you’ve got a balcony or some outside secure space, sometimes it’s enough to “air” stuff rather than wash it…things like dressing gowns may not actually get dirty as such very quickly.
Thank you so much for taking the trouble to add up these key usages, do let us know if you manage to accomplish any noticeable change over the next few days or week or so…there are loads of tips here in the forum. By the way, having a SMETS2 meter is brilliant, make sure you use the little display (the “in home display, or IHD) to monitor your usage, as @joanx suggests: but set it to kWh rather than £, as it can get confusing to track usage in £ when the standing charge is added in at the start of every day.
Good luck to you, let us know how it goes, and all the very best (and warmest!) wishes for the New Year.
EDIT Forgot to say, but you’re probably already careful about this: as you’re on economy7, it’s cheaper to run washing machine and everything else during economy7 hours, and more expensive outside economy7 hours: in general terms, my understanding is that it’s cheaper for you to run appliances at night rather than during the day. I think I’m right on that, but others on here with economy7 will have ideas on that…
@BKS I suspect that I may know what is happening here.
Are you on Standard (not fixed) tariff?
I have a suspicion that by ‘year end balance’ they are meaning by 31st March, which is what OVO are trying to get all DD accounts (apart from fixed rate/term ones) to align with.
If my suspicion is right then the DD calculation that came up with the figure of £431 is trying to get the whole of that £812 repaid in just 3 months, your Jan, Feb, and March DD’s.
That would be £271 above your expected usage on each of those three DD’s.
And that is more than half of the £431 they are now requesting.
Is that what you mean when you say that it has ‘skyrocketed’ to double what was expected?
I would ring OVO support and talk to them about reducing the DD amount and spreading the repayment over a longer time.
(Personally I’d be a bit cheeky and ask for 15 months - point out that it would then be nicely aligned with 31st March 2025).
Another option would be to switch to a 12 month fixed tariff, that way the debit balance repayment would be spread over the 12 months fixed term.
Of course fixed tariffs aren’t everybody’s cup of tea.
PS. I wouldn’t worry too much about that “103% more than other similar properties “ , if my suspicion is correct then that’s probably just a side effect and you aren’t actually using that much more if any more at all.
If you’re worried about your bills or your usage, you can contact the Support Team for further assistance.
