Gas & Electricity Costs

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Is anyone else in the Lancashire (Preston) area, experiencing what appear to be very high gas and electricity bills? There are just two of us in a bungalow, and we don't seem to have it on all that much. The whole lot is turned off at night as well, but the bills are running at between £12 and £18 a day for gas & electricity combined. We are on Octopus with a smart meter., and pay the bill in full every month!

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Bob,

We are with Octopus too.. If you have a smart meter then you should be able to go on their website and look at your energy consumption on a day by day basis.

Obviously the cost depends on what tariff you are on.

We took out a two year fix in September 2021 and are presently protected from the large increases paid by those on variable tariffs. Just hope that by the time the agreement runs out things will have calmed down a bit.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Hi Colin,

Thanks. Our bill does agree with what the meter says, but it seems very high.. Today is £16.87 so far!

Bob

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Bob,

We have a 3 bed house and the total this week for gas and electricity has been around £35. About £6 per day and I have had my workshop heater on for several hours.

Over the last 6 days we have used 57KWh Electricity and 29.4m3 of Gas

We have a fixed tariff taken out last year so have avoided the recent increases:

Electricity 19.7p per KWh 22.89p per day standing charge

Gas 4.49p per KWh 25.34p per day standing charge

You need to check your own tariff and also get a split between electricity and gas to try and identify where the high costs are coming from.

Hope this helps

Colin

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi Bob,

That sounds about the same as our combined Gas & Electric bill via Utilities Warehouse our supplier, the monthly bill went down from £400 a month to £330 in the last month I think because of the government subsidy . I know the Gas tankers are coming from much further away these days like the USA as the cheap stuff from Russia is now off limits due to Putin's war

Regards Ray

[Colin BishopModerator @colinbishop34627]

Having done a bit more digging it appears that the average electricity price is now 34p per KWh and Gas 10.3p per KWh. That means that with our two year fix taken out last year we are paying only 60% of the current electricity rate and 40% of the current gas rate.

At the time, the advice of the experts was to revert to the standard tariff but I just had a feeling that wouldn't be a good idea and it seems to have paid off in spades! Plus we also get the government rebate which doesn't seem to take account of what you are actually paying.

We also replaced our warm air heating/hotwater boiler 18 months ago and the new one is far mor efficient as a result of which we have built up quite a big credit with Octupus which will cushion the blow when our fix expires if prices haven't come down a bit since then.

Colin

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

Colin & Ray – Thanks for replies. Last month's bill was about £250, but it has really shot up since then. Our smart meter shows gas and electricity separate, and they are both about the same, hovering round about £6 to £7 a day for each. We will just have to put up with it, and I wonder if the prices will ever fall!

Bob

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

One thing worth investigating, some suppliers have a cheap tarrif at night. I am with Octopus and pay around 39p per unit during the day but 15p at night (Something like between 12.00 and 07.00). Consequently we now use the timer on the dishwasher so it runs though the night and I set the under floor heating in the workshop to warm the place during the night to 16 deg, which maintains at around 14-15 deg throughout the day. This is much more efficient that heating during the day at the high rate and then letting the cold night drag the temperature right back down again.

Check whether you have a cheap rate available at night and, if not, whether you can get it.

[Bob WilsonParticipant @bobwilson59101]

We don't have a dishwasher or anything like that, and our heating is off al night anyway. They say we are on the cheapest tariff. It looks like the charges are correct, so we will probably just leave it at that. It isn't causing us any financial hardship,

[Richard SimpsonParticipant @richardsimpson88330]

They were just examples.

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