Ridiculous ESB Bill

F.Galway

Just got my ESB bill this week and for the last two months it was estimated at €480! We took our own reading and submitted it and it came out at €400 even. Our apartment is quite large ( 3 dbl bed two ensuite with two sotarge heaters in living area and wall mounted heaters in rooms). All of our heaters and hot water are on timers and did majority of washing at night with little use of tumble dryer.
Did anybody else have as high a bill for the last two months?

mikom

That's almost 4 times my bill for a bungalow.
Something is off.......... or on, as the case may be.

Jesus Wept

Are you sharing? Perhaps someone/s are switching their wall mounted heaters on (over riding the timers) often.

kraggy

Maybe what happened was that your last bill was estimated as well. But undervalued your bill for the time.

So you underpaid then, and are making up for it now. So it wouldn't be a true representation for the last 2 months like.

F.Galway

The previous bill was I think €320 ,I'll try find it again but I'm pretty sure that it was a reading not an estimate.We thought that would be the last of the high bill and this came bill came, at least we knocked almost a fifth off it but still its way to high.Forgot to mention that our oven was out of action three of those weeks, element had blown so was waiting on new part. We've had the heating knocked off for about two weeks now aswell...just gotta suck it up and pay it!

Andrea B.

We've just been through a very cold period. Electricity is your only heating? Timers or not, all your heaters (water incl) were using more energy to reach their setpoints.

It is however worth checking the stat positions on all heaters. That is that they go off at a temperature you are comfortable with.

kraggy

Turn every single thing off in your apartment/house and look at the meter. If the wheel is still spinning, you're leaking electricity or else someone is bleeding off you.

F.Galway

kraggy wrote: »

Turn every single thing off in your apartment/house and look at the meter. If the wheel is still spinning, you're leaking electricity or else someone is bleeding off you.

I'll do that in the morning hopefully that there is something going wrong. We had lived in the apartment beside the one we are living in now and any of our bills were half what they are in here.

gaeilgegrinds1

Heard of this a lot lately. Firstly, could be as last one was an estimate. Also, tumble driers are notorious, as are those dry heaters. My partner used to live in an apartment with 3 double rooms and it was always around the high 200 mark. So with the recent cold snap could indeed be that. Ours is very low as we never leave anything on standby. Makes a MASSIVE difference. And I never use the tumble drier, only for towels. I find it damages clothes and puts them out of shape.

F.Galway

the washing machine is a combi unit and find that it cant tumble for s**t so just leave clothes on clothes horse to dry instead.Housemate probably has a sneaky heater under the bed cranked up full all day and night! :P

amy85

we recieved our esb bill last week. was 365 euro.. thats the highest its ever been. my mouth nearly hit the floor when i seen it. there is 3 of us living in the apt. again we dont overuse any of the applicances in the apt etc.. putting washing machine and dish washer on at night and all that. our friend who lives in same estate got there bill the same week aswell,390euro so didnt feel too bad then :-/ it was a proper reading aswell,not estimated. we are living on beans and toast for the next while. haha..

joeKel73

Mite sounds like an odd question but do you have a fridge freezer with a broken freezer door by any chance?! Our freezer door cracked before and the fridge was going on full power the whole time to keep the freezer bit cold... the bill was big!

blond45

think there is somthing wrong with the bill , we live in the country (carnmore) we got our bill , it was high as in 180e. usual 150. did you have much xmas lights on ? tree lits, outside xmas lits , window lights. they all add up. as some one said it was xtra cold this year.we have no storage heaters, we have oil on timer, we light a fire and it heats up the water so hot.

Xiney

jesus christ - and here I nearly had a hissy fit over our 200 euro bill (highest it's ever been for us too)

I'd need a few valium if I ever got a bill for 480 euro (even if it came down to 400 later)

Elevator

that's weird, we paying our 2nd bill in 2 bed east Galway and the new bill is 334, 1st was 300+ too, does seem a bit steep but them if we were buying coal and oil it would be just as bad if not worse, we not bad but we don't really like the cold, will be investigations going on tomorrow after reading these messages

martyboy48

How many times can they estimate the bill before they actually check the meter??
Maybe 2-3 underestimated bills previous??
Anyone know ???

F.Galway

Elevator wrote: »

that's weird, we paying our 2nd bill in 2 bed east Galway and the new bill is 334, 1st was 300+ too, does seem a bit steep but them if we were buying coal and oil it would be just as bad if not worse, we not bad but we don't really like the cold, will be investigations going on tomorrow after reading these messages

I only wish I could have oil or coal at least then you could regulate the heat a bit better and amount you spend on it.Storage heaters are a pain at the best of times!:mad:

sam34

when i lived in an apt (2 bed) with storage heating, the bills were always 3 to 400, and i lived alone!

storage heating is v costly

amy85

foto joe wrote: »

Mite sounds like an odd question but do you have a fridge freezer with a broken freezer door by any chance?! Our freezer door cracked before and the fridge was going on full power the whole time to keep the freezer bit cold... the bill was big!

now that you say that,our freezer door is broken in the fridge. it broke while we were defrosting fridge. alot of ice had built up around it and we broke it trying to break ice away. woops! everytime we open fridge door,the little flap for the freezer falls open. its soo annoying. but i never thought that would have anything to do with it(thats if it does). thats interesting though,must look into it. cheers!

Cookie_Monster

use the tumble dryer much? these eat power.

pwd

Did ya try turning everything off, and checking the meter like suggested?
People bleeding off your meter - That does happen!
We found out our neighbour was connected to the same meter as us.
She had been told by the landlord that she had free electricity.
We also found out the reason he did this was because he only had planning permission to have 4 flats in the building, but he put in 5, with two running off the same meter.
He also hadn't registered the flat, and hadn't been paying tax on many years of dublin 4 rents.
Of course he constantly denied doing anything wrong, while we caught him out again and again, and he pretended to be a solicitor, tried to bully us etc etc.
Reported the thieving bastard to the council and also for not registering flat.
Have a feeling nothing was followed up on anyway - I know he got off with the planning permission violation anyway because it was there more than 7 years.
Should have gone to the guards about the thieving bastard as well. Extremely rich man owning hotels and property in d4 and he thieves from people with far less.

astrofool

Sounds about right if you've been using storage heating during the cold snap. It's v. pricey to use.

unknownlegend

Does anyone know at what time the cheaper nightly electricity rate comes on at? Makes sense to set the washing machine to come on when the power is cheaper, i'm with airtricity

james finn

unknownlegend wrote: »

Does anyone know at what time the cheaper nightly electricity rate comes on at? Makes sense to set the washing machine to come on when the power is cheaper, i'm with airtricity

I had a bill of 636euro with esb and i changed to airtricity online and the esb can only sign off if your bill is paid up, they made the mistake and signed off, now they cant turn me off and call me to pay and i say no you shouldnt have signed me off if i didnt pay.

emanresu

martyboy48 wrote: »

How many times can they estimate the bill before they actually check the meter??
Maybe 2-3 underestimated bills previous??
Anyone know ???

It could be 5 years according to this thread:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055828501
where the problem was not discovered until the person was moving out of the property.

But this poster didn't regularly phone in with customers readings.
(He did do so once in 2006 or 2007 but it was mistakenly assumed to be incorrect by the ESB and disregarded.)

dearg lady

That actually sounds about right, same as us, 3 double bed apt, storage heaters, we get bills around 450 in winter, but less now we've switched to Bord Gais.
ring in a reading if you think it's wrong.

F.Galway

I went down and checked the meter after turning everything off.The meter wasn't moving at all and then got a housemate to turn on the main appliances one by one to see what sped up the meter the most.The tv(along with ntl box, broadband, avr are all together) are heavy enough on the meter but after turning on the washing machine just to see what it was like and it was very bad, got to make sure we only use it at night.
So it looks like the bill is just going have to be paid and try cut down on the electricity.Woolie jumpers and tea-cosies instead of storage heaters.Hopefully the next bill will be considerably less.

loyatemu

I use gas for the heating and just got the highest bill I have ever had, despite the price of gas dropping during the period of the bill. We've just had the coldest winter in 30 years, not much you can do about it.

testicle

F.Galway wrote: »

The tv(along with ntl box, broadband, avr are all together) are heavy enough on the meter but after turning on the washing machine just to see what it was like and it was very bad, got to make sure we only use it at night.

Unless you have night-saver electricity (i.e. a second meter) running it at night won't matter! What energy rating is the washing machine and how old is it?

shoegirl

F.Galway wrote: »

two storage heaters in living area and wall mounted heaters in rooms). All of our heaters and hot water are on timers and did majority of washing at night with little use of tumble dryer.

I've got 2 storage heaters in my 1 room flat, and on average it works out as about 80 for 2 months per heater but mine have no thermostat except for whatever one stops the nighttime charge from overheating. The wall heaters may be a problem also given the exceptional cold snap.

Xiney

testicle wrote: »

Unless you have night-saver electricity (i.e. a second meter) running it at night won't matter! What energy rating is the washing machine and how old is it?

vast majority of apartments with storage heaters have the night meter. Otherwise, it defeats the purpose of storage heaters, which use electricity at night, store the heat, and release it during the day.