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I've found my electricity bill has really really increased over the last year or so. I wasn't really paying very close attantion to it, but the last few have been huge (actual meter readings too). I'm with Bord Gais, and I know that there were some increases over the last while but I'm trying to figure out where I'm going wrong, either simply using too much or on the wrong price plan or with the wrong supplier.

I'd love to know what other people are paying (per bill or bi-monthly average or whatever) and who they're with & what type of price plan.

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We pay €79/month set over the course of the year, based on our usage last year. From the bills we seem to be slightly overpaying but I love the fact it's set out for my budget.

That's with Bord Gas. You know the size of our house, cooker and hob both electric.

Jesus we've gotta be doing something seriously wrong!
Our Most recent bill (for two months) was 468, the previous one was 543. I can't understand it, used to be around 300 MAX last year.

We have electric hob/oven (and despite what you might think it's not used a lot). I use the emmersion a fair bit when the heat isn't on. Dishwasher/washing machine/tumbledryer (I know this is a biggie).

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SIGN MY PETITION FOR BETTER BOYS CLOTHES BELOW....Please!!
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Oh bekky thats very high, i cant cope with mine lately.
There always over the 200 mark but yours are more than double that.
How many units do you use on average?

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That's exactly why we chose the plan for both gas and electricity set every month, I couldn't cope with a surprise bill like that!

I suppose to compare, our house is empty all daytime each weekday. We rarely use the drier, only for sheets and things really. The immersion is only ever on over the summer each evening for 20 or 30 mins for bath water for the ladies (our shower is electric).

Around €200 every two months in winter, less in summer.

im with airtricity and its about 100 per month !

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My dp sometimes has to charge up power tools I guess they may use up a lot of power (but it really isn't a very frequent thing).
The tumble dryer should be fairly low consumptioon as the energy rating is good as fair as I recall.
Dishwasher once a day usually, occasionally twice.
Washing machine once or twice a day.
Tumble dryer a fair bit, as I don't like to put things on rads due to the condensation (also ds pulls them all off & throws around the place so not practical anyway). But I do use my line when the weather is good, loads of towels etc out there today. I use the dryer to finish them off, and always use it to do all my small stuff.
Oven is new & A rated, but actually isn't used a whole lot really.
One tv, on standby rather than unplugged. Portable tv rarely used. One dvd player rarely used but is on standby I think.

The emersion is a bugger as I will forget to turn it off & I do need to use it for hot water unless the heat is on for a good few hours (gas central heating is on a low setting so only warms the water, not really hot enough if it's only on for an hour or two).

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SIGN MY PETITION FOR BETTER BOYS CLOTHES BELOW....Please!!
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Well ours used to be very big too, Jan/Feb was €450 and last month we got it down to €280.

DH did some thorough investigating into meter usage in our house by first of all turning off the electricity at the trip switch and leaving it off for 3 hours (on the advice of Bord Gais) and to keep watching the meter, if it moved even a cm we were told the meter was dodgy and they would come out and replace it. It didn't move so we had to assume the meter was fine.

We then went about checking out individual appliances in the house. DH would watch the meter and would then turn on or off the appliance and he would check to see how quick the meter was turning. The main uses of electricity in our house were (1) immersion (2) dodgy old fridge freezer (3) plasma tv (4) spot lights (5) fan oven. So we disconnected the fridge freezer as I had a second one in the utility anyway, water is now heated using the oil (probably not much of a saving in the long run with the cost of oil), we think twice about using the plasma now (DH would have had a habit of leaving it on nearly all day at the weekend and he could have been outside). We are looking into getting all the spots changed to LED but to do that we need to change the transformers and I'm conscious of using the oven more efficiently - cooking a couple of things at a time etc. I only use the dishwasher about once a week, never the tumble dryer, turn switches off so they items are not on standby, turn the computer off when I'm not using it etc.,

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DS1 is 8
DS2 is 7

OMG BekkyD, I would really freak out if I ever had bills as big as yours. We're with Bord Gais, dual fuel discount, the bills have gone since this time last year but not painfully so. We're 2 adults, 2 children in a 3 bed semi-d:
washing machine about once a day
dishwasher every 2 days
dryer once in a blue moon
hair dryer once in a blue moon too!!
immersion for hot water 20 mins in the morning and 20 mins in the evening
Electric oven every 2 days
Normal fridge freezer in the kitchen
Energy saving light bulbs everywhere, turned off when not needed

We use less energy than any of my colleagues at work so we must be doing something right. Our last 3 bi-monthly bills were (sorry you're not going to like this):

Electricity:
76
130
80

Gas:

70
130
120

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I got mine today and its €156. Its usually around this every 2 months. We are 2adults and 2 children in a 3 bed terraced house. I use the dishwasher every 2 days, electric oven everyday, kettle maybe once a day, tumble dryer about 3-4 times a week, washing machine about 4-5 times a week. We have a normal fridge/freezer in the kitchen and we also have a small deep freeze and a fridge in the shed. I have energy saver bulbs in all rooms. Laptop is always plugged in. I never, ever use the immersion (am in the house 15 years and actually have never even seen the switch for it). We heat the water with the gas.

If I saw a bill like yours come through the door I would freak.



Very interested in this. Do you just ring Bord Gais? I would love to do it especially for the gas bills.

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Ours is around €129 per month, equalised over the year with ESB. Main culprit here is long showers. Rarely use the dryer, washing machine is on every day. Three children, two adults. We have every discount the ESB offers.

Thanks for the info, I'm both shocked & delighted to see how low most of your bills are, clearly we CAN achieve this if we sort out wehatever the problems are.

Most of the lightbulbs are either LEDs or energy saving, but our house (3 bed semi) is very dark so we do use the lights a lot, and I like my lighting very bright so we have a LOT of bulbs throughout the house.
I forgot about the deep freezer, it's only small but it's relatively old so the energy consumption is probably high. Likewise our fridge freezer, it's at least 10 years old, probably more.

I try to go around making sure certain things are turned off, such as lights when not needed etc, but I'm not great about doing that with electronic appliances/gadgets and the emmersion is my main problem. I didn't used to use the emmersion much at all but then we changed the settings on the central heating (fairly banjaxed as it is) to a much lower heat, and as it's not heating the water sufficiently I started using the emmersion.

I'm so stressed financially as it is that this is something I have to get sorted out.

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SIGN MY PETITION FOR BETTER BOYS CLOTHES BELOW....Please!!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/153/peti ... et-outlets

I use bonkers .ie to check out if there are any better deals out there. Look very carefully at the cost per KWh that you are paying on your bill to make a correct comparison. Also, it looks like you should analyze what the consumption of those old appliances is, it may be cost effective to switch off completely or get new ones. Have a good think about the number of lights you have on, the little wattages all add up and I'm sure you'd prefer to have smaller bills in preference to a lit up house. Good luck getting those bills down.

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€50 euro per month is what I pay towards gas and 50 towards esb.

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I'll never be a good example, so I might as well be a fabulous warning

There's six of us here use washing machine once a day, dishwasher once every 2 days, rarely use emmersion, generally have one telly on the go along with oven twice a day lights and usual. Also older son uses electric shower which seemingly is really hard on bills, laptops x 3 on the go too bi
ll around 130 a month


Also have 3 mindees here so depending on time of year extra lights tv on etc

Just a little tip on the immersion, If I have to use ours (we have a stove that heats water so don't use immersion very much) - I have a little digital timer that I set for 20mins and when that goes off, it reminds me that the immersion is on and to go and turn it off.

It is so easy to forget that it is on, esp as it is in hotpress and you can't see the little light on the switch. I set the timer as soon as I turn on immersion (so I don't get sidetracked and forget) and then as soon as the timer goes off I switch the immersion off straight away.

Sometimes I use the timer too if I am just finishing off clothes in the dryer - As it is beside the back door you tend to forget it if not in ear-shot of it.

I find it helps me a lot..

I also try to pay €15 per week through online banking towards my bill so thankfully I haven't got a bill in a while - It is in credit at the minute. Our last bill would have been €148, the previous one would have been €178. 4 bed bungalow, empty during the day for 3 days of the week, stove to heat water but have a pump on the shower. We have night rate electricity so I try to run washing machine & dishwasher when the night rate is active.

This is the timer I got - I have it about 3yrs at this stage... To be honest It was so cheap that I expected it to last about 6 weeks but It is indestructible (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Large-Scr ... 41615e74b5)

Ours is around €80 for 2 months. We live in a 4 bed semi detached.

We don't have electric shower, dishwasher or dryer.

We rarely use the immersion - we have used it 1 or 2 times in the last week though because we haven't been putting the heating/fire on every day.

Ours is 77e per month with ESB.

Joke we signed up to it over the phone. Our monthly Gas is €39. They also have a system to prevent you owing them a huge amount if they underestimate your repayments. I cant remember the details, but I was happy enough at the time, and we are delighted to be able to budget accurately each month.

Hi, our electricity bill is about E100 per month. I have worked hard over the past few years at reducing it but whilst unit usage has gone down, with price increases the bill has remained the same Am very vigilent about lights and appliances left on or on standby. Washing machine is on at least once a day, no tumble dryer, iron couple of times a week (apparently the main surge of electricity is when its plugged in first, so its not good to iron daily ). Have marked out on kettle for dh and ds , one cup, two cup etc. Dh would happily fill the kettle to the top for one cup of coffee. The oven is probably my main culprit but my shopping bill is reduced because I dont buy biscuits, processed foods etc.

What amount per kWh (Killowatt per hour, = "units", as far as I know) are you paying? Mine is 15.79Cent per unit.
There is also a standing charge of 28.2Cent per day = 17.77 for the two months (63 days, will vary slightly per bill I expect).
The PSO levy is just 1.61 per month & I'm sure thqat's the same for everyone.

I'm goint to unplug/turn off every single thing today, to make sure my meter is working properly. Then I am going to plug in certain things one at a time & monitor the usage at the meter. I did a bit of checking yesterday & watched the wheel spinning around & timed it on a timer - was surprised that certain appliances didn't seem to affect it much but the kettle certainly sped it up by a huge amount.

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SIGN MY PETITION FOR BETTER BOYS CLOTHES BELOW....Please!!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/153/peti ... et-outlets

At the moment it's € 70 per month 3 bed semi.
NEVER use immersion, last time we used it was about 8 years ago. Don' t have an electric shower or dryer. I use the gas to heat the water - much cheaper.

Last month I bought a whistle kettle for the gas cooker as we were constantly boiling for tea and babs so looking forward to see if this reduces it further.

Edited, the comparison site is giving me the rates for gas even though I did thye comparison test thingy for electricity, explains the crazy difference in prices as I was reading it. D'oh!


Hmmmm....

On looking at that Bonkers.ie site the rates per Unit seem to be significantly different to what I'm paying, even on the Bord Gais prices listed! Their rates sseem to go from 5.432 to 8.321 depending on which plan you are on. Lowest per KWh rate is 4.617 with Flogas.
So why the hell am I paying 15.79? I think I need to get back onto Bord Gais & see why

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SIGN MY PETITION FOR BETTER BOYS CLOTHES BELOW....Please!!
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/153/peti ... et-outlets