How to reduce 2-bed apartment electricity bills?

ivorystraws

Hi,

I currently rent in a 2-bed apartment and apart from sky high electricity bills, it's near impossible to heat it. I'll go into details;

• Our last bill was 305 euro for a two month electricity bill!
• We're with Bord Gais for electricity and it's looking like our coming bill will be around 275 euro.
• We're monitoring electricity usage now on a weekly basis so for the week just gone, we will be billed for 83 day units.
• I've recently bought a halogen oven to reduce electricity usage compared to the old crappy oven that's in the apartment.
• Everything is plugged out and switched off when not in use.
• There is an immersion heater but that's probably only on about an hour and a half per day.
• The storage heating is on at night at the lower rate units.
• I've decided to trial the 19 inch LCD TV compared to the 28 inch CRT to see if that makes much of a difference.
• We don't use any dryer.
• We don't have a dishwasher.
• We do use the washing machine (probably about 5 - 7 times per week).

The only room that's heated is the main living room as the wall mounted convection heaters in the two bedrooms are never used (heat just evaporates anyway).
There's only one window which has double glazing and that's in the living room... the bedrooms are always cold - they're ice-boxes in winter.
I've recently asked the landlord for the BER cert which he didn't have so had to get it done but expects it to have a rating of 'E'!

So we're paying double the bills for electricity that other people with similar apartments seem to have and we're barely warm (if we stay in the living room and the storage heater was set to maximum).

What else can be done to reduce electricity usage and help lower our energy bills?
Is there any product service that can help monitor our energy usage? Bear in mind that the meters are in a storage room on the ground floor on the apartment block so we can't avail of some of the products that Airtricity have as we're over the required distance from the meter.
I realise the landlord has no obligation to help improve the BER rating so do we have any leverage with that once we receive it?

Thanks in advance for any helpful opinions/suggestions that you might have.

Cuddlesworth

I'd pop the main fuse on the board to your apartment at night. Then check the meter to see if it was moving. I lived in a apartment with similar electricity bills five years ago. Our day units were crazy and we tried everything, measured usage on all devices, unplugged everything and cut back on appliances. Eventually figured out the landing lights for eight apartments over four floors were running off our meter. Not impressed when we found out. Got to love newer Dublin builds....

L1011

I'd definitely also suspect usage from outside the apartment, do as Cuddlesworth suggest there.

My 2 bed house, albeit gas heated/hob, costs 45-55 a month with the ESB (back to being cheaper than Bord Gais when I last checked); without any major attempts to save power and with an insane amount of kettle usage.

I suspect the next bill will be lower as I found that the immersion timer had a faulty entry that turned it on at midnight every Tuesday morning and it didn't turn off until the 7:30 off event for its usual 7-7:30am run.

dory

Yea, it's extremely high. There must be something going on. Especially if you don't use the dryer or dishwasher. Do you have the TV on all day? I would suggest you turn off the electricity to your apt and see what's going on.

djimi

Our ESB bill for our two bedroom apartment this time last year came in at €370 or something like that. The majority of that was the storage heaters, which were about as effective as lighting a candle in the middle of the room... This winter we didnt bother with the storage heaters and instead use a plug in radiator and the ESB bill came in at €270. We also changed to a halogen oven and suspect that it has made a difference to our bill (our Oct-Nov bill was about €20 less than the previous bill).

Unfortunately from my experience if you are using electric heating your bills are going to be in the region of €300 at this time of year. Considering the price of oil/gas I guess it pretty much balances out and its just the price to pay for heat in the winter!

If the apartment is particularly cold then get onto the landlord about. We have a big window which was making the room very cold, but it improved a lot when we put up some big thick curtains.

Your landlord is obliged to provide a BER cert btw. Failing to do so/failing to have one can lead them to a fine of (I believe) a couple of grand.

franciebellew

Have you tried plugging out your appliances when not in use?

gurramok

As djimi said, its the storage heaters that's one source of causing it. It ain't your tv or your immersion heater(night time saver usage). I do have a PC on 24\7 and from past calculations of meter readings, it only adds a small cost to the bill(similar for a tv or a light bulb). You need to look at power hungry appliances.

It looks to me also that your washing machine is if its on long enough during the day is a second factor. Using this 5-7 times a week is a tad too much?? Washing machines are power hungry along with storage heaters, you should really use it once a week perhaps 2 hrs each cycle(wash and dry). Try reducing it to once a week if possible.

The reason i say this is that I once had the washing machine on for 12hrs(crappy one) and I noticed my electric bill for a 2 mth period went sky high for that wash\dry. Cut it back big time.

maddragon

Electrical heating is a disaster. Changing the oven etc. will help but the usage is miniscule compared to the electric heaters. These type of properties are almost always within the E to F range as regards BER cert.

Do also try Cuddlesworths suggestion.

Storage heater are very unresponsive as you probably know so you may be better off disconnecting the storage heater altogether and using a gas heater or even an electric halogen heater for when you need immediate heat.

PM me if you want more advice or info.

cruizer101

Not sure if they are against apartment rules or anything but I reckon a superser is the way to go. Heating with electricity is always going to cost a bomb. Think they are about 100 new plus the gas bottle, or should be able to get a second hand one for half that. I'd say you could save that in one bill alone changing over.

Gareth2011

cruizer101 wrote: »

Not sure if they are against apartment rules or anything but I reckon a superser is the way to go. Heating with electricity is always going to cost a bomb. Think they are about 100 new plus the gas bottle, or should be able to get a second hand one for half that. I'd say you could save that in one bill alone changing over.

No good unless your sitting on top of them. Plus when the gas gets low you can really smell it and thats not good. You would want to invest in a Carbon monoxide detector.

hibby

ivorystraws wrote: »

Hi,

I currently rent in a 2-bed apartment and apart from sky high electricity bills, it's near impossible to heat it. I'll go into details;

• Our last bill was 305 euro for a two month electricity bill!
• We're with Bord Gais for electricity and it's looking like our coming bill will be around 275 euro.
• We're monitoring electricity usage now on a weekly basis so for the week just gone, we will be billed for 83 day units.
• I've recently bought a halogen oven to reduce electricity usage compared to the old crappy oven that's in the apartment.
• Everything is plugged out and switched off when not in use.
• There is an immersion heater but that's probably only on about an hour and a half per day.
• The storage heating is on at night at the lower rate units.
• I've decided to trial the 19 inch LCD TV compared to the 28 inch CRT to see if that makes much of a difference.
• We don't use any dryer.
• We don't have a dishwasher.
• We do use the washing machine (probably about 5 - 7 times per week).

The only room that's heated is the main living room as the wall mounted convection heaters in the two bedrooms are never used (heat just evaporates anyway).
There's only one window which has double glazing and that's in the living room... the bedrooms are always cold - they're ice-boxes in winter.
I've recently asked the landlord for the BER cert which he didn't have so had to get it done but expects it to have a rating of 'E'!

So we're paying double the bills for electricity that other people with similar apartments seem to have and we're barely warm (if we stay in the living room and the storage heater was set to maximum).

What else can be done to reduce electricity usage and help lower our energy bills?
Is there any product service that can help monitor our energy usage? Bear in mind that the meters are in a storage room on the ground floor on the apartment block so we can't avail of some of the products that Airtricity have as we're over the required distance from the meter.
I realise the landlord has no obligation to help improve the BER rating so do we have any leverage with that once we receive it?

Thanks in advance for any helpful opinions/suggestions that you might have.

I know it's not much consolation if you're short of cash, but when you consider that those bills include the price of space heating and hot water, your energy costs are not really excessive. If your bills during the winter months are around €300 (€150/month) and in the summer months go down to say €200 (€100/month), you're paying around €1500 per year total for electricity + heat. I know it's a lot of money but it's much less than most people.

In other words, you're already being pretty frugal in your electricity use (by not heating some rooms, not running a clothes drier, etc.) and the scope for additional savings is limited.

You can do "feel-good" measures like unplugging devices, chargers and so on but they will make effectively no difference to your bill.

One suggestion that may surprise you: if it's practical for you, get a dishwasher. A dishwasher will use less energy (and less water) than washing by hand.

ivorystraws

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

I'd pop the main fuse on the board to your apartment at night. Then check the meter to see if it was moving. I lived in a apartment with similar electricity bills five years ago. Our day units were crazy and we tried everything, measured usage on all devices, unplugged everything and cut back on appliances. Eventually figured out the landing lights for eight apartments over four floors were running off our meter. Not impressed when we found out. Got to love newer Dublin builds....

Good suggestion Cuddlesworth and that's exactly what I did last night. I checked meter reading before I tripped the main fuse, then left the main fuse off for about 20 minutes and rechecked the meter again but nothing had moved at all. Is that enough time to see if something else was using electricity?

ivorystraws

MYOB wrote: »

I'd definitely also suspect usage from outside the apartment, do as Cuddlesworth suggest there.

My 2 bed house, albeit gas heated/hob, costs 45-55 a month with the ESB (back to being cheaper than Bord Gais when I last checked); without any major attempts to save power and with an insane amount of kettle usage.

I suspect the next bill will be lower as I found that the immersion timer had a faulty entry that turned it on at midnight every Tuesday morning and it didn't turn off until the 7:30 off event for its usual 7-7:30am run.

Good point but our timer was also faulty so was replaced last August. The storage heater (which was also faulty) was replaced just before Christmas.

ivorystraws

dory wrote: »

Yea, it's extremely high. There must be something going on. Especially if you don't use the dryer or dishwasher. Do you have the TV on all day? I would suggest you turn off the electricity to your apt and see what's going on.

There is literally nothing on during the day apart from my laptop charging for an hour, then I let it run on battery for 3 hours. Every single other electric appliance is unplugged (apart from the fridge).

maddragon

This is an approximation but a storage heater is usually about 2kw and is on from midnight till 8am every day so 16Kwh x 60 days per billing period is 960 kwh x 0.18 cents is 173 eur for this one appliance. As I said, they are a disaster and they don't even give heat as and when you want it to boot. The best way to use them for heat is to dismantle them and use the blocks inside for doing weights.

maddragon

Also, if you are using 83 day units during the week and the only thing on during the day is a laptop then your storage heater must be using day units as well which is a bad thing.

ivorystraws

djimi wrote: »

Our ESB bill for our two bedroom apartment this time last year came in at €370 or something like that. The majority of that was the storage heaters, which were about as effective as lighting a candle in the middle of the room... This winter we didnt bother with the storage heaters and instead use a plug in radiator and the ESB bill came in at €270. We also changed to a halogen oven and suspect that it has made a difference to our bill (our Oct-Nov bill was about €20 less than the previous bill).

Unfortunately from my experience if you are using electric heating your bills are going to be in the region of €300 at this time of year. Considering the price of oil/gas I guess it pretty much balances out and its just the price to pay for heat in the winter!

If the apartment is particularly cold then get onto the landlord about. We have a big window which was making the room very cold, but it improved a lot when we put up some big thick curtains.

Your landlord is obliged to provide a BER cert btw. Failing to do so/failing to have one can lead them to a fine of (I believe) a couple of grand.

Thanks djimi but the storage heater is not the problem. I know this as the old storage heater has been replaced by a new one before Christmas and I'm now monitoring the storage heater meter (which uses the cheaper night units) on a daily basis plus it's timer is set so the only thing we can alter there is the input and output on the storage heater. It's not the issue.

You're right when you say that typically, electric heating will lead to higher bills but considering that we are literally tracking every single bit of usage and being as careful as possible, our bills shouldn't be that high due to one storage heater heating one room.

Yes, the apartment is particularly cold and we have definitely been onto the landlord about this on a continual basis which is why we've gotten the new storage heater, a chimney balloon for limiting heat escaping through the chimney and we are due to receive the BER cert soon.


Yes, the landlord is obliged to provide a BER cert but not obliged to improve it (from what I've read online).

ivorystraws

maddragon wrote: »

Electrical heating is a disaster. Changing the oven etc. will help but the usage is miniscule compared to the electric heaters. These type of properties are almost always within the E to F range as regards BER cert.

Do also try Cuddlesworths suggestion.

Storage heater are very unresponsive as you probably know so you may be better off disconnecting the storage heater altogether and using a gas heater or even an electric halogen heater for when you need immediate heat.

PM me if you want more advice or info.

Well it doesn't seem to be the electric storage heater that's a major problem. The problem is what's using the majority of the electricity units?

I've tried Cuddleworths suggestion with results as previously mentioned.

I rent this apartment so I would think that the landlord will be very unresponsive to disconnecting the new storage heater with the proposal to use a gas or electric halogen heater.

As far as I can see from tracking the meter and monitoring usage of various appliances, it would seem to be either the immersion or fridge that's using the bulk of the units. The reason for this is that approximately 5 (day) units were used between 11pm last night and 9:30am this morning. The only electrical appliances on were the immersion (for 50 minutes on 'sink' in the morning), lights this morning and the fridge all night.

ivorystraws

franciebellew wrote: »

Have you tried plugging out your appliances when not in use?

Yes, I already mentioned that in my initial post.

marvsins

That bill is crazy. I live in handy size self build with`wife and baby. Washing machine doing 8/week, dishwasher 5/week, tumble dryer maybe 1 hour/week, oven on alot, downlights everywhere and plasma tv, PS3, amp, tuner, cd player all in use every day. Just got my bill for Dec/Jan €168, i think i'd have a banger if it was over €200. Also why is the immersion on for 1.5 hr a day. 30 minutes would be enough for 2 people to shower plus water for the dishes.

Cuddlesworth

Head to Maplins and pick up a power usage meter. Check it out on your appliances like your fridge, washing machine, TV etc and work out the KW per hour of using them. Find out if there is one particular appliance hoovering the power.

You could also use your switchboard and meter to cut power to certain rooms. Just to see if you can identify if there is one particular spot where it is going.

I'm assuming you only run your immersion once a day during the nightime rates?

ivorystraws

gurramok wrote: »

As djimi said, its the storage heaters that's one source of causing it. It ain't your tv or your immersion heater(night time saver usage). I do have a PC on 24\7 and from past calculations of meter readings, it only adds a small cost to the bill(similar for a tv or a light bulb). You need to look at power hungry appliances.

It looks to me also that your washing machine is if its on long enough during the day is a second factor. Using this 5-7 times a week is a tad too much?? Washing machines are power hungry along with storage heaters, you should really use it once a week perhaps 2 hrs each cycle(wash and dry). Try reducing it to once a week if possible.

The reason i say this is that I once had the washing machine on for 12hrs(crappy one) and I noticed my electric bill for a 2 mth period went sky high for that wash\dry. Cut it back big time.

Thanks Gurramok but as I've mentioned already, its not the storage heater (we only have and use one) that's one source of this problem.
The TV isn't on until after 7 in the evening and even then it's now a 19 inch LCD TV
It maybe the immersion heater as it's not on night time saver usage.
It's not my laptop as it's plugged out most of the time and is only polugged in to charge.
It's not the lights as they're not on during the day.
I definitely am looking at all/any power hungry appliances which is why I'm thinking that it maybe the immersion, fridge and/or washing machine.

The washing machine is only on in the evenings and at the weekend.
I agree that 5-7 times a week could be too much but it's difficult to cut down on that amount by more than two washes per week. There is no dry cycle on our washing machine or do you mean a spin cycle?

The washing machine is plugged into the socket all the time but since that socket is behind the washing machine, underneath the washtop, it involves pulling the washing machine out each time it needs to be plugged out - is this what you are suggesting?

ivorystraws

hibby wrote: »

I know it's not much consolation if you're short of cash, but when you consider that those bills include the price of space heating and hot water, your energy costs are not really excessive. If your bills during the winter months are around €300 (€150/month) and in the summer months go down to say €200 (€100/month), you're paying around €1500 per year total for electricity + heat. I know it's a lot of money but it's much less than most people.

In other words, you're already being pretty frugal in your electricity use (by not heating some rooms, not running a clothes drier, etc.) and the scope for additional savings is limited.

You can do "feel-good" measures like unplugging devices, chargers and so on but they will make effectively no difference to your bill.

One suggestion that may surprise you: if it's practical for you, get a dishwasher. A dishwasher will use less energy (and less water) than washing by hand.

I don't see your point hibby as regardless of whether I'm flush or short of cash, I don't want to be paying for bills that are extortionate due to the fact that the appliances in the apartment are old and in need of change and the apartment itself has a disasterous BER. I definitely expect more and am certainly entitled to more (with the rent we're paying) so whether it's new appliances, improved energy rating etc.. that's what I'll be suggesting to the landlord. We're paying much more than €1500 per year total for electricity + crap heat and that's a lot more than most people (we've already compared to others).

It's not by choice that we don't have heating in the bedrooms, it's due to the crap BER of this apartment... we can try to heat the rooms up but the heat disappears within an hour so pointless! We don't have a clothes dryer so how is that being frugal?

The "feel-good" measures you mention and that others have suggested like unplugging devices, chargers definitely do make a difference to our bill (although not a major difference) but we're trying to isolate the main cause of electricity usage.

I can suggest getting a dishwasher to the landlord but I'm not sure that there's room for one. You could be right in that a dishwasher may use less energy (and less water) than washing by hand.

ivorystraws

maddragon wrote: »

This is an approximation but a storage heater is usually about 2kw and is on from midnight till 8am every day so 16Kwh x 60 days per billing period is 960 kwh x 0.18 cents is 173 eur for this one appliance. As I said, they are a disaster and they don't even give heat as and when you want it to boot. The best way to use them for heat is to dismantle them and use the blocks inside for doing weights.

We get billed for the night storage units that the one storage heater in the living room uses and it's nowhere near 173 euro for a two month billing period (for the new storage heater just installed). Our storage heater used 20 units (according to the meter) last night and they're billed at the lower night storage rate plus have a seperate meter.

I agree with your point though that they are a disaster but that's all the heating that's currently in the apartment (apart from the bedroom convection heaters).

ivorystraws

maddragon wrote: »

Also, if you are using 83 day units during the week and the only thing on during the day is a laptop then your storage heater must be using day units as well which is a bad thing.

Maybe but I'll find that out as I now monitor both meters at least twice a day. Breakfast and lunch is made in the apartment as I work from home so the kettle, microwave will also be used for breakfast lunch so I'll see if they take much usage during this week. My laptop is only on to charge when it's battery is low so not even that is on all the time.

djimi

ivorystraws wrote: »

Thanks djimi but the storage heater is not the problem. I know this as the old storage heater has been replaced by a new one before Christmas and I'm now monitoring the storage heater meter (which uses the cheaper night units) on a daily basis plus it's timer is set so the only thing we can alter there is the input and output on the storage heater. It's not the issue.

You're right when you say that typically, electric heating will lead to higher bills but considering that we are literally tracking every single bit of usage and being as careful as possible, our bills shouldn't be that high due to one storage heater heating one room.

Take it from me; cheap nightly rates or not the storage heater will be the biggest drain on your electricity and unless youre doing something youre not telling us about like running the dryer for 4 hours every day then the storage heater is the reason why your bill is so high. Ours isnt faulty, it only runs off the night rate same as yours, and last year it added over €150 to our bill for the first two months we turned it on having had one heater on in one room running every night.

ivorystraws

marvsins wrote: »

That bill is crazy. I live in handy size self build with`wife and baby. Washing machine doing 8/week, dishwasher 5/week, tumble dryer maybe 1 hour/week, oven on alot, downlights everywhere and plasma tv, PS3, amp, tuner, cd player all in use every day. Just got my bill for Dec/Jan €168, i think i'd have a banger if it was over €200. Also why is the immersion on for 1.5 hr a day. 30 minutes would be enough for 2 people to shower plus water for the dishes.

Yea, it is crazy especially compared to other people living in similar two bed apartments that we know of.
The immersion was put on for about 50 minutes this morning (on 'sink') and there was enough hot water for a shower but barely enough left over to wash dishes. Fo that reason it'll have to be put on again this evening for shower (after gym) and for hot water for washing. 30 minutes is definitely not enough for 2 people to shower and have hot water to wash dishes.

djimi

ivorystraws wrote: »

I don't see your point hibby as regardless of whether I'm flush or short of cash, I don't want to be paying for bills that are extortionate due to the fact that the appliances in the apartment are old and in need of change and the apartment itself has a disasterous BER. I definitely expect more and am certainly entitled to more (with the rent we're paying) so whether it's new appliances, improved energy rating etc.. that's what I'll be suggesting to the landlord. We're paying much more than €1500 per year total for electricity + crap heat and that's a lot more than most people (we've already compared to others).

How much are you expecting to pay for your electricity? I think you need to adjust your expectations a bit and understand that your electricity bill includes the cost of heating your house in winter; if you were using oil or gas you would probably end up paying a couple of hundred quid every two months on top of an ESB bill for €100-€150, so youre not really that much out of pocket, if any at all.

How much was your electricity bill during the summer when presumably you had no heating turned on?

djimi

marvsins wrote: »

That bill is crazy. I live in handy size self build with`wife and baby. Washing machine doing 8/week, dishwasher 5/week, tumble dryer maybe 1 hour/week, oven on alot, downlights everywhere and plasma tv, PS3, amp, tuner, cd player all in use every day. Just got my bill for Dec/Jan €168, i think i'd have a banger if it was over €200. Also why is the immersion on for 1.5 hr a day. 30 minutes would be enough for 2 people to shower plus water for the dishes.

How are you heating your house? Is it using electic heating or do you use oil/gas? If its electric then what type of electric heaters are you using?

ivorystraws

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

Head to Maplins and pick up a power usage meter. Check it out on your appliances like your fridge, washing machine, TV etc and work out the KW per hour of using them. Find out if there is one particular appliance hoovering the power.

You could also use your switchboard and meter to cut power to certain rooms. Just to see if you can identify if there is one particular spot where it is going.

I'm assuming you only run your immersion once a day during the nightime rates?

Thanks Cuddlesworth, I was wondering about something like that and where I could get it. Is it fairly self-explanatory on how to work out the KW per hour for using various appliances? That would help identify the culprit except how would I use it to measure the immersion heater?

The fuse board is old enough so still has some of the old fuses and not all are labelled so I guess it's trial and error to see whether we can narrow down the single point of major power usage.

We've night storage unit rates for the storage heater but everything else is billed at the day rate, regardless of the time it's used (according to our Bord Gais bill).

ivorystraws

djimi wrote: »

Take it from me; cheap nightly rates or not the storage heater will be the biggest drain on your electricity and unless youre doing something youre not telling us about like running the dryer for 4 hours every day then the storage heater is the reason why your bill is so high. Ours isnt faulty, it only runs off the night rate same as yours, and last year it added over €150 to our bill for the first two months we turned it on having had one heater on in one room running every night.

As I've already mentioned, we don't have a dryer and there's practically nothing on during the day i.e. no TV, radio, Sky box etc apart from laptop charging and microwave, kettle etc to make breakfast and lunch. The storage heater is used to dry clothes and heat the room - what's the alternative for an apartment with a BER rating of 'E' that our landlord will agree to purchase after finally replacing the faulty one before Christmas. It probably adds about €120 including VAT (as calculated using current unit usage) to our two monthly bills.

I'm simply trying to identify the source of major electricity usage and possible solutions to that.