Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

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country boy
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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby country boy » Fri Oct 10, 2014 1:03 pm

If you want electric background heat there are some interesting choices, look at this for an eg:
http://tinyurl.com/pvmg8pr

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby Wicksey » Fri Oct 10, 2014 4:48 pm

Free at Last wrote: As far as weight goes, we use the orange Repsol ones. The deliveryman brings them to the house and puts them just inside the front door.
Oh yes the Mr Muscle delivery men. There used to be one that carried the full tanks up on his shoulder and strutt around like a macho man but I haven't seen him for ages.

It makes a difference when you have to put them in the back of the car and drive to the nearest petrol station that stocks them and heave it into the back of the car ..... then do it in reverse when we get home ..... no deliveries in the campo. That's why the Cepsa ones are so good but we still use an old Repsol for back-up when we run out and that is a pain to lift - we take a handle each to put it into and out of the car, and like you I couldn't do that on my own.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby Free at Last » Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:25 pm

Wicksey wrote: Oh yes the Mr Muscle delivery men. There used to be one that carried the full tanks up on his shoulder and strutt around like a macho man but I haven't seen him for ages.
Both of ours always carry the bottles up on their shoulders, they are both over 50 and are up here 3 times a week, I don't know how they do it. They might have to make 3 or 4 trips back and forth to different houses each time, then move on to the next nearest place they can park.

It's the same with furniture deliveries and building work, someone a bit lower down is having quite major building work done atm and the guys are backwards and forwards with wheelbarrows all day long, taking rubble down to an empty skip or bringing barrowloads of sand or cement up. Never let anybody tell me the Spanish don't work hard!

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby luckyjim » Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:29 pm

I have to disagree El Cid, possibly because our house is quite cottagy and retains the heat but we find them excellent all round background heat.

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firsttango
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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby firsttango » Sat Oct 11, 2014 9:13 pm

With regard to high bills from Endesa

I am contracted with potencia of 5.75 kw

Just looked at a bill for last year july 2013 and it reads

5.75 kw @0.059981 € /kw y dia

My current bill however reads

5.75 kw @ 0.115187 € /kw y dia

That is around 100% increase

Is this right? seems excessive that the charge for potencia has gone up so much.
Anyone got the same potencia and same charge?

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby Mowser » Sun Oct 12, 2014 12:57 pm

country boy wrote:If you want electric background heat there are some interesting choices, look at this for an eg:
http://tinyurl.com/pvmg8pr
Bought one like this in LIDLs many years ago for about €50. Still going strong.
Also got a wall mounted fire (Hyundai) from Amazon.co.uk. It was around £100.

Some examples here:-
http://tinyurl.com/l559pcd
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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby Beachcomber » Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:38 pm

firsttango wrote:... That is around 100% increase

Is this right? seems excessive that the charge for potencia has gone up so much.
Anyone got the same potencia and same charge?
Yes, that is right. The rate for potencia has been increased and the consumo decreased but not by the same ratio unfortunately.
Let's go Brandon!

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby El Cid » Sun Oct 12, 2014 2:59 pm

luckyjim wrote:I have to disagree El Cid, possibly because our house is quite cottagy and retains the heat but we find them excellent all round background heat.
You are totally missing my point.

They are perfectly good heaters but they are no more efficient than any other electric heater. If you compare them with any other electric heater of a similar output, they use exactly the same amount of energy so there is no inherent cost saving.

Heating from aircon units wins every time if you are looking to reduce your bills, which is what this thread is about.

Sid

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby mujer » Sun Oct 12, 2014 8:19 pm

firstango, just to add that I checked our bills and our potencia readings are exactly the same as yours for those dates, and we are contracted for 5.57kw too.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby mujer » Sun Oct 12, 2014 8:22 pm

Sid, I'm surprised that you say aircon wins every time for heating because everyone we've spoken to always talks about how expensive aircon is.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby firsttango » Sun Oct 12, 2014 9:31 pm

mujer wrote:firstango, just to add that I checked our bills and our potencia readings are exactly the same as yours for those dates, and we are contracted for 5.57kw too.
Thanks for the feedback....appreciated.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby El Cid » Sun Oct 12, 2014 10:13 pm

mujer wrote:Sid, I'm surprised that you say aircon wins every time for heating because everyone we've spoken to always talks about how expensive aircon is.
Aircon is expensive if used a lot, but it is still the most efficient form of electric heating.

All electric heating is expensive, but aircon can be up to three times more efficient than any other form of electric heating.

I know it sounds impossible, but it is true. Aircon uses the heat pump principle which is a well proven efficient method of heating.

Read about it here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby BENIDORM » Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:50 am

I have to agree with Sid about using Air con heating, we use it, sparingly , but it does heat our rooms very quickly as required.
We all use the portable convector heaters on low settings to maintain a reasonable room temperature, quite economical.
In the winter ,in the evening, we move into a smaller room which we have made into a 'snug', very cosy and one might say almost romantic... :oops:
It really does get cold in Spain during the evenings, so if anyone is really feeling cold may I suggest investing in some thermal underwear or wear more jumpers !!!

Keep Warm, Keep Safe and Keep Happy Everyone.... :wave:

Regards,
gordon.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby mujer » Tue Oct 21, 2014 7:16 pm

Thanks for the link Sid. A bit technical for me though.
I could instigate a new topic by adding, what with me being a woman and all that :wink:
I certainly agree air con is very efficient at very quickly heating up a room.

For various reasons I haven't tried the cooking with gas experiment to determine the knock-on effect with electricity usage.
However, following from Wicksey's electric kettle comment, I decided to monitor the electric used for various things.
After boiling the electric kettle, the meter increased by 1kw.
From midnight to 9 am, when the electric water heater (80 litre, 2kw) came on at 7 am for 1.5 hours, the meter increased by 4 kw!
After using the kettle, toaster and microwave briefly for breakfast, the meter increased by 2kw.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby Trackbikes » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:14 am

Can you get those electricity monitors that display your usage over here?

Seems like they would be a great help.

I am convinced that endessa use a roulette wheel to decide our bills.

we usually pay anywhere from €130 per month to €200 per month.. with the occasional €100 thrown in once or twice a year.

We use nothing excessive, no pool, we don't use aircon, just cooking 1 meal a day, 1 Tv and a couple of Apple mac's the hot water comes on for 3 hours a day

The house next door is usually empty and still gets a Steady €30 -€40 bill it was used for 3 weeks earlier in the year ( aircon was used) and the bill was €340 for those 3 weeks... that my friends is why I don't use aircon :)

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby firsttango » Tue Nov 04, 2014 11:27 am

Trackbikes those figures sound crazily high. We have 2 fridges (one a big American side by side) 1 x 46 inch tv, 1 x 42 inch, all cooking is electric, used everyday (bake 3 times a week) 2 x mac 1 x pc and our bill averages out at approx €70 per month.
We don't use aircon, however, neighbour does and he says it cost him around €30-40 a month to run in July/Aug. €340 for 3 weeks is insane.
I would seriously get this checked out ASAP.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby gus-lopez » Wed Nov 05, 2014 8:17 am

Trackbikes wrote: The house next door is usually empty and still gets a Steady €30 -€40 bill it was used for 3 weeks earlier in the year ( aircon was used) and the bill was €340 for those 3 weeks... that my friends is why I don't use aircon :)
It would be if the a/c was left on 24hrs /day. That's why rentals install a movement detector to shut it down when no one is there.
Todos somos Lorca.

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Re: Electricity Bills Seem Excessive?

Postby chrissiehope » Tue Nov 11, 2014 5:08 pm

As I've been following this thread, I've been thinking "I must check ours..." as a couple of years ago we set up a direct debit which was over €150 per month. Given that we don't live there and only have the pool pump and a couple of radiators in the colder months, comparing it to other posters bills, it seems very high !. But before I got round to it (a lot on my plate at the moment), my statement arrived from my Spanish bank - and to my surprise, there was a refund of over €700 from Iberdrola :thumbup: :D

Just need to get round to checking &/or changing the direct debit amount....... :oops:
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