Electric Boiler Help!!

[mrblue]

Hi

I've just started renting a new flat with my partner and we're having some energy problems.

The boiler that we have is as I understand it, a pretty inefficient one - a Heatrae Sadia Electromax. The landlord and their engineers have been really pretty useless with helping with any of our problems, particularly this one.

We're unfortunately stuck on a really high energy tariff as our apartment works on a sub-meter as opposed to the original energy supply, so we're trying to limit our energy usage as much as possible - turning all plugs/lights off when not in use etc. but still, our energy usage is insane. We're not turning on our central heating whatsoever because of how much energy it was using, but now we're having problems with the hot water. If we leave it switched on all day, we use at least 20kWh more than the rest of our house which is about 8-10 kWh p/d, and leaving it on just for 2-3 hours (which should be enough to heat the full tank) the tank doesn't have even enough for 2 5-minute showers and 2 persons' worth of dishes.

Is this normal? On a tariff of 17.5p, to have the hot water left on would be costing us around £150 a month in electricity, and it's mad to think that we can't have hot water whenever we need it? Even with no heating and having the hot water on for 2-3 hours, we're somehow using still around 13-14 kWh a day; which is going to work out to around £70-90 in electricity bills a month. I'm thinking (or hoping...) there has to be an issue somewhere along the line.

Any help would be appreciated thanks in advance.

 

[Vortigern]

Can I suggest you install electric shower and an electric instantaneous water heater? At least then you can have hot water for washing and showering without such high Kw usage. Also what if you got some storage heaters and insisted on eco 7 heating??? would that be possible?

 

[Mike Johnson]

Horse's for courses's if you are a young couple that are at work all day, you definitely do not want an overnight economy 7 tariff for storage heaters, the majority of the heat will be given out when you are at work all day, take yourself off the economy 7 tariff, it's anything but, for a young working family, however electric shower and instantaneous water heaters are a good idea only heat up what you use.

 

[StephenRowley]

I would start saving up to move tbh, if your renting there's little you can do.

 

[MJPD29]

It is expensive I agree. Unfortunately, LL is a property management company; but the company handling the energy is a completely separate company that manages the apartment block. They decided to use e-on, which I'm aware are pretty expensive as-is. They've assured me they don't charge anything above the electricity tariff but am waiting for evidence of this. LL didn't inform me of the fact that we were on sub-meters before moving in (and therefore unable to choose our own tariff), so I'm trying to get a rent reduction to cover this.

13kWh I don't think would be entirely unreasonable if we were using the central heating, or if we had access to hot water whenever we wanted it.

Even using standard UK average; 13kWh x 0.145 = £56.55, for a household of 2 people, with limited hot water, no central heating, and being extremely vigilant with turning off lights+switches+appliances - isn't that a lot?

Yes - access to both; after extensive argument with the block manager they eventually gave us the code for the door to access our sub-meter, so I've been checking it daily to monitor our usage.

No that is not a lot at all £56 per month is considerably less than what we use at home

 

[telectrix]

our average usage for both gas and electric is £140/month.

 

[SparkySy]

We are all electric heating and hot water and our bill is about £95 a month with eon during the colder months.

 

[Mike Johnson]

To the OP, is this your first residence and therefore the bills are not being compared to a previous property, I only ask as the usage does not sound excessive IMO.

 

[James]

The OP joined on friday at 12.40 and has not been online since 4pm same day.