Am I paying too much 4 my electric?

[Nelli]

I live in a 3 bed terraced house, we run a fridge (no freezer), the oven is used 3 times a week MAX! Our emertion heater is on for 40 mins at night. We only use 3 out of our 6 night storage heaters ( the others are switched off), my partner and I are at work during the day. The only other things we run are a kettle, microwave, TV and lightbulbs. We do not have a secret nightclub downstairs and yet I am billed for around �400 every quarter from my electricity supplier......surely this is too much! My next door neighbor was billed for �600 but her supplier admitted to a mistake and reimbursed her. But even though I have disputed this bill, the company still insist this is correct. I am not so sure. Any ideas.

[MistyLady]

Phew....where to start. 1. Get those storage heaters checked. I know of people who had old heaters which were inefficient and costing an awful lot of money, at the same time, check the wiring, they could be connected to day time energy & not Economy 7???? 2. Monitor your useage, switch everything off and then check the meter, is there anything else running? Then start switching things back on individually and see what item is making the dial whizz round quickest!! 3. Immersion heaters? well i switched mine on (eco 7) 3 years ago and havent turned if off since! Basically when u switch it on during the evening u r paying higher rate due t Eco 7 and its having to heat up a full tank of cold water from scratch? 4. Are you using Eco 7 effectively. I put my washing machine/tumble dryer/dishwasher on at night to take advantage of the low rate. 5. Get on line...plenty of web sites offering to compare your supplier with others. Try www.buy.co.uk or www.thisismoney.co.uk 6. Hassle your supplier, most of them offer advice and energy saving tips. Keep pushing them to get someone out to your home and let them tell you where you are going wrong. Good Luck

[tracymort]

that sounds bad to me!! i pay just �15 a month and my bloke sells hifi so we have all sorts of amplifiers and electrical equipment on, the pc on most of the time, and i'm at home all day with the tv on etc in fact we are going to get more plug points put in as we have run out of places to plug stuff in. we do have gas central heating though but cooker is electric. i'd change suppliers if i were you, try calling energywatch they are like an independant org. that can help with supplier probs and they can caompare prices etc can't remember their number but you'll find them if you do a search on yahoo for instance.