Electricity charges - Page 2

"We are leaving the water heater /emersion in constantly as per advice as its supposed to be more expensive to heat from cold"

But you're not necessarily heating from cold are you.

Obviously it depends on numbers of people and frequency of showers etc. (an 80lt tank is really only enough for two) but with just two of in 'casa Darro' I've done extensive testing with my 100lt immersion and the cost of leaving it on 24/7 as opposed to just 3 hours per day (5 am to 8am) was near double for absolutely no advantage.

We have our water heater on a timer to use in lower rate periods. The washing machine and dishwasher both use cold water so we only use hot water for showers and a little bit of dishwashing. The heaters are insulated so the temperature never seems to drop very much. We often have the discussion about leaving on 24/7 but my electrician husband thinks we might as well just heat the water in cheap ate periods. 

I changed to Siesta and my last 3 bills have been higher this year. I think it's due to global hike in energy prices as when I moved from Iberdrola to Siesta, my monthly bills were slightly lower. I save a bit by leaving my emersion heater on permanently and I put washing machine on around 10pm when unit price is lower. 

I hope this helps. 

Maybe I might try a timer so. Thanks 

I’ve been reading these post with interest.

We have purchased a new build on 20th January, my husband went out 1st -4th Feb.  We have had a bill for 184kw for the 26 day period, which seems high when no one in the property only for the for the 3 days. We had the same KW in the uk, both working from home with everything on all day ! (One of the days my husband was there the electric was off all day with a fault. ) The consumption charts from Iberdrola are identical pattern, every day, every hour- even though property was empty.  

Does this seem right ?

any thoughts / comparisons would be great, I can’t work out what tariff we are on - does plan estable mean anything to anyone? 

Thank you in advance 😊

As I understand it the water heaters in Spain automatically turn on when the water temp in the tank drops. Therefore they constantly turn on and off all day and consume electricity. That is why we have ours on a timer to control the consumption, it certainly reduced our monthly bill.

Your consumption does seem strange, you can ring and speak to Iberdrola in English  on 900 322 044 from Spain or 916 63 30 from abroad. Make sure you have your contract details and NIE numbers as they will ask for them. You can also email them through the Iberdrola app. They will reply in English. If you are in Spain you can also visit the nearest Iberdrola office but reading your post I assume you are back in UK.

If you do not feel confident doing any of the above I would suggest contacting the solicitor who set up the contract for you.

By the way, Plan estable means the price of electricity does not vary through the day. The price per KW you pay will be shown on your bill and in your contract if you have one. 

Best of luck.

Thanks so much that is really helpful …Sheryl 

Hi interested in your question because we are moving to Spain from UK in next few weeks as we use gas comby boiler here. I was an electrician so done some research in to the problem. 

For an 80 lt tank no mater what size the heating element is it will use around 3.7 Kwh to rase the water from 20 deg to 60 deg in UK prices (. 22p per Kwh) will cost around 82p to heat the water. 

The water will cool down through the day and will need around 1.4 to 2 Kwh to keep it hot. Costing 31p to 44p per day. So using 80lt of water per day and leaving the heater on will cost around £1.26.

Now if you turn off the heater when hot you will get less loss of heat but will still need around 20p to top up the heat loss so will cost around £1.02

Now if you turn off the heater straight after use when water is cold (very hard to do) there will be no loss of heat through the day and will just cost 82p

So cost on a fixed tariff between leaving on and turning off is about £0.20 per day or £73.00 per year. 

Just for comparison here in UK 3 bed house two people gas and electric £144.00 per month and going up. 

Something you will notice once you spend your first winter here is how cold it gets in Spanish properties due to the lack of insulation, single skin walls and tiled floors. Any heat produced rapidly disappears. 
In Spain you pay for your level of input, the higher it is the higher the standing charge and unit price. Many of us are on a fixed tariff which has the cheaper hours from midnight to 8 am, all weekends and National Holidays, middle rate between 8 am and 10 am and 2 pm til 6 pm so peak rates are 10 am to 2 pm and 6pm to 10 pm. This means heating up the water in cheaper hours would be the way to go I would imagine, or carefully timing showers!

In summer there will be air conditioning to add to the cost whereas in the UK you would be having lower bills and it costs more to cool than to heat.

We have gas central heating with a combi and have no air conditioning, are on the lowest input of 3 kw , have bought a gas oven and my last electric bill was €130 even though we put appliances on only in cheaper hours. My bill went up €30 from December to January due to rising rates.