Average Electricity Bill

J

jmcc99_98

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Hi, I hope you can all help me. I was wondering what the average MONTHLY electricty bill should be for a 3 bedroom semi detached house. 2 Adults and 1 Toddler.

My average bills are about €120 per month (I pat monthly with airtricity) is this about average. There is no-one in the house during the day until about 6 oc. We are not running any huge amount of appliances, the immersion is on a timer and the washing machine, dishwasher and tumble dryer get normal use for 2 adults and a child.

I have looked on the forum for other threads but they are a bit outdated.

Any body any ideas?
 
Seems a bit high. Our bill averages €90 every 2 months for 2 people in a 3-bed terrace.
 
Tumble driers are a menace for running up bills, as is an immersion. Can you out the clothes out to dry for a while to see come your next bill if it has made a difference. Also, do you have downlighters?, they may look small but they eat electricity. As for the immersion, how long do you have it timed for to stay on?
 
The Immersion is only on for possibly 2 hours a day.

We have spotlights in the kitchen, about 8 of them, are these what you mean by downlighters?

Geez Maggs bill above is only about 45 per month. Mine is about 3 times that, surely I cant be using that much electricty? By the way I am submitting meter readings so they are not estimates that I am getting billed for.

This might sound odd but could my meter be clocking up units too fast? Is this possible?

Wife and I really trying to get a budget up and running as things are getting tight. Electricty was one of the first things we tackled but cant seem to get it below €110/€120 per month
 
Lucky you.
Mine averages about 170e bimonthly with ESB. 2 Adults 2 kids. No emersion. 4 bed & only few rooms used.
 
Don't think the meter could be the problem but you never know. Yes the spotlights, you have 8 of them at 50watts each. thats 400watts you've on for the best part of the evening and they will only be on for longer with the winter closing in. Hop them out and replace with LED's, they may cost you a few quid to buy them at the start but they'll pay themselves off very quick. I have 5 watt LED's at home that i use, so if you had 8 5 watts your only using 40 watts instead of 400. Quite a difference there for you.
 
Apologies JMCC didn't read it correctly. 240 is crazy. Have you asked your neighbour about their one?
 
packard said:
Don't think the meter could be the problem but you never know. Yes the spotlights, you have 8 of them at 50watts each. thats 400watts you've on for the best part of the evening and they will only be on for longer with the winter closing in. Hop them out and replace with LED's, they may cost you a few quid to buy them at the start but they'll pay themselves off very quick. I have 5 watt LED's at home that i use, so if you had 8 5 watts your only using 40 watts instead of 400. Quite a difference there for you.
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Thanks for that info, very useful. I still seem to be using a hell of a lot of electricty. Need to find out where.
 
I would think your bill look a bit high but is almost definetly correct. Ours is about 350 euro for two months but i know we are heavy users with tvs and computers on constantly plus lots of lights. Add in Washing and drying and it all adds up. And blow heaters are deadly.
We have just changed to Bord Gais to cut down on the bill and we are also been more careful about wasting eletricity.
Some people are thrifty and others are not. You have to live a bit as well.
 
Our average bill every 2 months is approx €90, 3 bed-semi, 3 adults, no tumbledrier but plenty of use of tv, laptop, oven etc. Don't use the immersion to much. Just changed to Airtricity the other day so I'll see if it drops any.
 
jmcc99_98 said:
Thanks TLC, I must be using too much somewhere.
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The only way to find out is to monitor the usage using the meter. The immersion and tumble dryer are prime suspects so take a meter reading before and after use (with nothing else on bar light). Multiply by 0.16 (cost of 1 unit) then by number of uses per month to estimate cost.
 
Have you tried using the ESB Appliance Calculator:

[broken link removed]

Simply put in all the appliances that you use and how often. I've found it extremely accurate for my bills.

HTH
 
You might not think it, but the Imersion on 2 hours can hit you hard, try your best to cut down there and see how the bills reflect :)
 
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