Massive Outstanding ESB Bill

From my experience storage heaters are very expensive and they take forever to heat the room! That bill also seems very expensive but I suppose we also have a gas bill for ~€80 every 2 months...
 
For what it's worth my ESB cost summary referred to above relates to a GoldShield home using two storage heaters and immersion all on NightSaver. I'll update it when I get a chance just to cover the last year or so.
 
I once rang in a meter reading to ESB as all our bills were estimated. Turned out we were underpaying and owed ESB about an extra €500.
As we were renting there for only a year or two and the last reading was at least a year or 2 before that we questioned whether we should pay it all. ESB could not tell you when last reading was if it was before 2002. It was in landlady's name all through that time so we had to pay it all back to ESB.

Might be worth checking was the account under estimated from the year dot when it was in another person's name and then recently they checked the meter? Therefore he might only owe a portion of the bill i.e. from when they changed a/c to his name.
 
Most of those bills seem very high!

I have gas central heating and electric for everything else in a 1700 sqft detached house with two small children at home all day with wife and my total energy bills (ie gas + esb) are €325-375 bi-monthly.

Are most of the posts in relation to esb supplying heating as well as general electricity ?
 
efm said:
Most of those bills seem very high!

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Are most of the posts in relation to esb supplying heating as well as general electricity ?
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My summary does if you are including it in the "high bills" category. However perhaps you are referring to the c. €400 per month (or two month billing period?)?
 
My bills do not include heating. As stated we've one storage heater, the rest of the house is heated by oil fueled central heating. Don't even get me started on those costs! I'm usually alone in the day and although I do use the washing machine and dishwasher, the only other electrical appliance in constant use throughout the day is a laptop.
 
First thing might be to correlate your meter reading (readings if you hae dual day and night meters) against your bills. If the readings and estimates are more or less correct and you still think that your bills are too high then it might be time to get things checked out.
 
Well I tried each individual electrical item in the house to see if they caused the meter to race...no joy! I turned off everything and meter did move, but only slightly. On checking the bills, I was surprised to find that the night time rate was almost equal to day time, despite the fact that the storage heaters are turned off for summer.


I normally put my tumble dryer on at night, plus dishwasher and perhaps washing machine. I checked out these when I had them on during the day and they didn't seem to use an inordinate amount of electricity. I was on the point of ringing ESB until....I put the tumble dryer on this evening for an hour, went out for about 2 hours and when I came home, tumble dryer was still going. It appears to be getting stuck at some point in it's cycle, so now I think this may be happening for a long time, except it was during the night so I never noticed it. It has a safety cut off if it overheats and this was probably what stops it eventually. I await the next (hopefully much smaller) bill!!!
 
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The tumble drier is probably a heavy load at the best of times. Check the machine for details about its electrical rating/wattage. Can you not dry clothes any other way? We dried clothes for years on a clothes horse mainly indoors and it worked fine. Obviously an outdoor clothes line and some fine/breezy weather helps though.

The other applicances are probably relatively heavy loads too. Can you not hand wash your delph/cutlery for example? And make sure that you only put the washing machine on for a full load unless it has a half load setting for lighter loads.

By the way - putting such heavy load appliances at night (especially when you retire to bed) or when you go out is probably not a great idea due to the risk of malfunction and fire. For example if your drier was getting stuck then it might constitute a fire hazard.
 
We have two daughters!! The amount of wet towels hanging around the house would be unbearable. We do have two clothes horses (besides the daughters) but it's just not enough for 4 adults, 2 of whom change clothes at the drop of a hat because some other eejit will wash them!

I try to just use the tumble dryer for towels and thought I was great being so organised that I use it on cheap night rate most of the time. Clubman, I take it you've small children and the washing probably feels endless.........oh for that control again, when they grow, it's not only endless, but mountainous!!
 
liteweight said:
Clubman, I take it you've small children and the washing probably feels endless.........oh for that control again, when they grow, it's not only endless, but mountainous!!
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One small child and the washing is more than it was when it was two of us but still quite manageable. We don't have the space or inclincation for a tumble drier. I'm just trying to point out possible savings/optimisations for you. But the safety issue is relevant too. Putting heavy load applicances on timers or on at night when there are potentially four people in the house is not a good idea.
 
The tumble drier has an inbuilt timer which should count down. As far as I can see it's not doing so. Probably better to replace it rather than try to have it repaired. I wouldn't feel right about it now.

More worrying, is that if it's overheating, why didn't the trip switches in the house cut the electricity supply to it? The house was re-wired by the ESB. The sockets, lights etc. have their own trip switches. Also each section of the house e.g. kitchen, living room, bedrooms has their own supply which cuts off automatically if anything goes wrong. On top of this, each floor of the house has it's own 'box', so if there's a fault in anything the power in the room should shut down. The machines are located in a new utility area and I'm afraid the electrician didn't tie it in to the system in the same way. Normally it's nearly too sensitive, e.g. if you point the kettle anywhere near a socket, the power in the kitchen sockets turns off as they detect water.
 
liteweight said:
More worrying, is that if it's overheating, why didn't the trip switches in the house cut the electricity supply to it?
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Trip switches and RCDs only trip if they detect a suspect current leakage or a short not simply when a device overheats. It's quite possible for a faulty device to combust without the trip switches saving the day. This is why it's a bad idea to leave heavy load appliances running at night or when you're out.
which cuts off automatically if anything goes wrong.

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so if there's a fault in anything the power in the room should shut down
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Not anything - just the above. Don't depend on the switch box to protect you from electrical faults and fire hazards. It's just one line of defence but it's not failsafe.
Normally it's nearly too sensitive, e.g. if you point the kettle anywhere near a socket, the power in the kitchen sockets turns off as they detect water.
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I'm no electrician but that sounds very dodgy to me!
 
The steam from the kettle, if it's beneath a socket makes the switch trip. You make some very interesting points Clubman. We were told 'anything' going wrong would switch off electricity. The house, as I said, was re-wired by the ESB so I think I'll give them a ring just to check out some of what you said above. Thanks.
 
Tumble dryers drink electricity, the landlord here has an esb metre which you feed coins to power the tumble tryer, a euro doesnt last long, if liteweights one has being going hours on end then not suprised at all at his jumbo ESB bills!
Definately would get it fixed or replaced with a newer model which probably is more electricity efficient anyhow (than the old one when its timer worked!).

I remember a boss I had years ago telling me about his massive home bills. He had the esb out to test the meter , the whole nine yards, he couldnt understand it.
Then one day he was doing some diy in the same room as the freezer and noticed that the motor was running all day long. Turned out it had leaked most of the gas and the motor had to run constantly to keep the food frozen. When that was fixed he saved hundreds , I'm sure he exaggerated a bit to make the story seem like he was a super sleuth!, but malfunctioning ordinary goods are probably the cause of lots of these massive bills imho.
 
Might be worth buying something like http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009MDBU/102-2021623-5411338?v=glance&n=172282 (this) and then leaving it connected to each heavy load appliance in sequence for a period of time (e.g. drier for a few days, then the washer for a few days, then the fridge, then the cooker (although this may not be so simple since they are wired in rather than plugged in) etc.) in order to get a better idea of the actual electricity usage rather than trying to calculate this from the wattage rating of the appliance etc. Then you can deal with each applicance (e.g. repair or replace) in order of actual usage.
 
If there was electric storage heaters installed that are not set properly the bill could be correct. Best to talk to ESB account and come to an agreement, or contact MABS and one of the advisors can advise. But don't delay.
 
clareG said:
If there was electric storage heaters installed that are not set properly the bill could be correct. Best to talk to ESB account and come to an agreement, or contact MABS and one of the advisors can advise. But don't delay.
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What do you mean "set properly"? If you mean that they may not have been set to the correct input/output and thermostat level by the owner then that's hardly the ESB's problem or a reason to run to MABs...
 
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