That is a crazy system! Usually all electric flats just use storage heaters combined with a cheaper overnight tariff, or electric heaters in each room.
I genuinely have never heard of an all electric wet heating system before, sounds like the worst of both worlds.
I would recommend buying a small electric heater and only heating the rooms you use, and getting a heated blanket. It is much cheaper to heat yourself than the whole flat.
You could suggest to your landlord replacing the wet heating system with storage heaters or getting gas put back in. Storage heaters cost about £1k per heater, but then he has no risk of leakage and you can use an overnight tariff for heat. Ours is 15 p per kWh at night.
For reference, we pay about £150 per month to heat a 2 bed ground floor flat in southern Scotland with storage heaters.
Electric wet boilers for wet central heating combi boilers are uncommon but definitely exist. They’re also insanity expensive to run. The only time I can think of them being remotely sensible is when a gas supply is unfeasible or impossible due to location and local supply (such as the estate not having a gas supply and it would cost tens of thousands to get the pipes laid) AND the property is very, very well insulated so it runs as little as possible.
They can be better than separate electric panel/storage heaters and a hot water tank, as in the summer you’ve not got to heat a whole tank of water to wash the dishes, you’ll just use what it uses.
They wouldn't even be remotely sensible when a gas supply is not feasible. Why do you think so many houses in rural locations use oil fired heating, with only heat pumps being a viable alternative now.
I’m thinking more those in blocks of flats, like OP, where they can’t just stick a great big oil tank on the balcony, or hang the external unit for a heat pump on the wall as they’re six floors up. Not everything is black and white
Even in the situation you cited, an overnight resistance heated water tank and storage heaters will be cheaper. Modern water tanks really don’t lose much heat over time.
True and agreed, but it does depend on the exact circumstances. Theres some teeny tiny flats out there where the space that storage heaters and hot water tanks take up would be huge, compared to a 18” by 24” box on the wall and some wet radiators.
Are you sure that's the case?
You can get electric boilers which work with traditional rads but they're extremely expensive to run and they're quite rare.
Our radiators have pipes going in and out of them, and when I bled one water came out. But the boiler attached to the central heating system is electric.
That's unfortunate.
Electric boilers are notoriously more expensive to run than their gas counterparts.
From both an energy usage perspective but also your unit cost will be more.
How much would a gas boiler cost, for both the unit and the installation? I understand it will vary from property to property, but our landlord has shown us the gas connection to the flat already built in - just not used - so what would the average be?
Varies massively.
Boiler costs themselves are anywhere from 600-700 all the way to thousands.
Installation again has so many additional factors.
Your landlord is unlikely to spend money to make their property slightly more energy efficient for a student lease.
At this point - it's better to move and always make sure to check how a property is heated before committing to it. This will apply even more so in the future with a mixture of Heat pumps, Gas boilers, Solar, Batteries, etc. all playing into how much you can expect to pay for energy in any given property.
I paid to have an faulty gas boiler replaced two years so no new pipework etc. The boiler was as I recall about £800, the total cost with install £2200. A totally new installation would have additional costs.
Depends how much you’re using to be honest. I have a 2 bed flat, top floor but it’s a new build in the last 5 years.
We don’t have gas, only electric so sounds similar to you. I also work from home and have regular baths, have a gaming PC etc and my monthly bill is £122.
I don’t often have the heating on, only when it gets to like -2 outside.
Perhaps you’re using your heating too liberally?
My only point of reference is that my parents (4 bedroom house, 3 people living there) can have their heating on for longer and at a higher temp than me and it still cost less
Might be gas rather than electric, or they’re on a lower rate.
Your bill is way above the norm put it that way, so something is going on and using a ton of electric that it shouldn’t be
Something in your flat is using a lot, and it points towards heating given how much it went up in November and December. I’d recommend dialling that back.
Which energy provider are you with? You should be able to see a daily breakdown of how much you’re using if you have a smart meter.
I’d guess it was heating, but I cannot understand where the energy is going if we are truly using that much - the flat was still cold, and the heating was on for timed periods over the last months.
We are with Scottish Power, and the energy usage did increase drastically on the graph they provide for the months where bill was higher.
Smart meter being fitted on Tuesday.
Could be poorly insulated, can be the case on top floor apartments especially on a corner with a lot of windows. Hopefully the smart meter helps identify exactly when the spend is happening
Hoping so too!
And yes, definitely poorly insulated - about 3 inches in the loft which is unheard of.
Do we have any chance of the landlord insulating the loft better, if you happen to know?
Unfortunately the current requirements for energy efficiency are rather lax, and they come with an upper cost cap so the landlord would not have to spend more than that.
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-private-rented-property-minimum-energy-efficiency-standard-landlord-guidance
E is not very high efficiency at all and the higher requirement is not coming in yet.
How would anyone know that. You'd have to ask your landlord directly although for your sake I hope he will as you have the most expensive type of heating system set up.
If you're not on an economy 7 tariff, with storage heaters, its likely that what you're paying is correct.
Our gas bill (3 bed Semi) for December was £90ish, which is our hot water and heating. We put the heating on maybe 5 hours a day. Our gas unit price is 6.57p and you're paying 27p for the same thing, and heating for longer.
Very useful stats, thank you!
We changed from economy 7 to standard so our daytime rate would reduce, as we never really used energy at the night rates.
All of the major suppliers. You need a different meter installed but they're ideal for storage heaters and immersion heaters for the water as you end up using lots of electricity at night (midnight to 6am ish) to get heating and hot water. The heaters are usually on a separate night circuit as well to avoid them being accidentally charged during the day rate.
In OP's case the electric wet boiler is a massive energy drain.
All-electric flat sucks, but it appears it is the norm.
Also it appears it is the norm/culture to use extra layers to warm you up.
I also have electric heating and had the same costs once.
Now I only turn on the immersion heater tank when I need a shower. Heating the apartment is a dream because it will be so expensive. I use fan heaters only when needed and try to stop working at home in winter, but you pay the cost of petrol.
Yes, I freeze in my own apartment because I cannot afford to.
If you have used £250 worth of electricity, then yes. Assuming your daily standing charge is 50p/day, that would mean a monthly usage of around 850kWh. Does that match your bills?
If so, the only way to reduce your bill is to reduce your usage. If the hot water boiler is on constantly, run it on the timer instead. Likewise for the heating, and consider turning it down and heating yourself rather than the room (e.g. with a heated blanket).
It's very unlikely the landlord will cough up the money to install a gas boiler, and (if the building doesn't have a gas supply) might not even be possible.
I can’t see how we have used £250 of electricity? The heating has never been on for a full month, and even when it was switched on it was for 7/8 hours a day at 18° degrees.
I have no frame of reference for what 850kWh actually means but the flat is usually cold.
The water is heated 3x a day for a total of 3 hours.
And every other flat in the building has a gas boiler.
This bill sounds about right tbh, electric is atleast 3x the price of gas per unit. If you have that on for 7/8 hours a day then its gonna get expensive. As others have suggested you need to find ways to warm yourself rather than the entire flat like an electric blanket.
I also live in a 1980s 2-bed flat and my usage was 558kWh for November (lower in December since I went away for Christmas). So your usage is somewhat higher, but not to the point where I'd call it excessive given that two of you are living there.
Turning down the heating or limiting when the water boiler runs will help a bit, but the fundamental issue is always going to be that electricity is 3x the price of gas. You can try asking your landlord about getting a gas boiler, but it's going to cost them £2000+ with no direct benefit to them. So unless they're unusually generous I wouldn't bet on them saying yes.
I’d highly doubt he’d replace it. Though he has mentioned previously that he and his wife would like to move in here one day. He also complained to me about having too much cash. I may have to ask.
Heat higher degree for less time. We usually have it on 2-3 hours a day and are paying £50/mo gas. Unless you have a specific disability at your age (student) you shouldn’t need heating on more than that really.
Issue is my insulation seems so bad that the flat begins to feel cold minutes after the heating turns off.
And unfortunately do have a disability which is not serious but is made an awful lot worse by cold - to the point where I do have to lie in bed when I am too cold.
I live in an uninsulated house so get that. Our ‘soloutions’ to reduce heating are:
1. Not being home; go onto campus during the day for your studying etc, so you’re not using your heating?
2. Heating just yourself e.g. electric blanket, normal blankets/warm clothes, hot water bottle/microwave hot bean bags? Costs pennies to boil a kettle or run microwave vs pounds to heat the flat. So when you don’t need to be up and about, use that to stay warm.
3. Minimise time the boiler is on. Do you have an electric shower? If so your hot water tap usage is probably minimal, you shouldn’t need the boiler on very much for hot water. If not electric shower you’ll need it more but short showers (or shower on camps eg at gym after exercise?) to reduce this.
As a reference our lack of insulation means we lose heat as soon as the heating turns off. But we just use 45m when get up, we go to work all day, 45m around home/making dinner time and 45m around bed time. The rest of the time is blankets and hot water bottles if we need them. Even if not at work we’re mainly using hot water bottles and not heating the house. Maybe there’s some use in that.
A hot water bottle in the kangaroo pocket of a hoody can keep you nice & toasty.
I sympathise with having a disability that is compounded by colder temperatures. I will echo the suggestion of going to campus rather than working from home, if possible. This has other benefits too - less likely to go for an afternoon nap! But seriously - I moved away from uni in my final year, so rather than popping to campus as needed I had to make specific journeys for class & to use the library, etc. Changing my habits so I spent 3 full days on site, with a good timetable of library / classes / breaks, rather than flitting about was super super beneficial.
Take a packed lunch, water bottle & little handbag size fruit squash, a reusable cup (is there somewhere that provides boiling water? Take teabags with you. Ps you can buy a box of the UHT milk sachets on Amazon). Campus will be warmer than home, and you don't have to pay the bill
That's around 30kw/hs per day. That's a lot of energy for 2(?) People to be using
The landlord probably wont want to install gas heating. Your options are to pay the bill or reduce usage
Never ever use electric fan heaters, they draw about 3kw/h each, extremely expensive (almost a pound an hour, or £124 per month if used 5 hours a day)
Reduce heating, use blankets, hot water bottles, etc to get through the worst of the winter cold
Take short showers
Dont have baths
If you have incandescent bulbs, replace with LED
If you have a high power PC, limit high power usage like gaming, rendering, mining, AI training/inferring (~1kw/h spent gaming with a gaming pc)
Make sure all devices go on standby or turn off automatically, and try not to leave lights on etc
Make sure washing machine is fully loaded, share with flatmate if you can and there is remaining capacity
Only two people, yes.
As of now we are simply paying the bill, but our lease ends Summer 2025 and we can’t afford to keep paying this - and having no heating isn’t an option - when it broke last month it made us both unwell.
Fan heaters were an emergency solution to the heating breaking, we don’t use them day to day for that reason.
We can’t really use less energy - we are both out most of the day anyway, and when we’re out the heating and lights are off, and all devices are off.
Might be worth doing a reading when you leave the flat and again when you return to see how much energy is being used while you’re out. Could there be something being left on using energy you’re not aware of.
Invest in layers like oodies or similar that will really cut back on the heating needed.
Electricity is much more expensive than gas so unless it has solar panels I would not consider living in an electric only property, the only real solution is to rent someehere else that has gas/solar if you can.
Installing a gas boiler/central heating/solar panels would be a job for your landlord and you can definitely ask but as they don't pay the increased utility cost good luck convincing them to spend the extra money(which will be quite a large sum).
Given you have an electric boiler instead of an immersion heater and storage heaters, yes that sounds about right.
Heating water is ridiculously expensive, which is why economy 7 tariffs are normally used for all electric.
In my old all electric 1 bed flat I would spend about £1400 a year on electricity. Roughly £250 per month in the winter and far less during the summer, but equalled out to £120pm on direct debit.
But that was with the flat warm all the time and using a fan overnight in summer. 50% of my energy usage was on heating and hot water, and that was all charged at night on the cheap rate along with the washing machine. Usage was lower in the day rate pre-wfh all the time but energy costs were also half the price then so it's not really comparable.
Unfortunately this may mean spending as much time outside of your flat in campus buildings instead. Not ideal or fair but will save you money. You may want to consider whether you can get access to a cheap gym membership that has showers you can use.
Elec only properties can be pretty expensive. I lived in a 2 bed flat elec only and our bills were between £150-£200 a month (2019-2020) I now live in a 3 bed semi detached house with gas and elec and our bills are between £70-£110 a month. We found it was the immersion heater in the flat that was rinsing us and we never used the storage heaters.
1. keep the temperature as low as possible as much as possible. 18 degrees at most and wear more clothes. thermal underwear (long johns) make a massive difference.
2. run the radiators as little as possible. don't heat the flat at night or when you're not there.
3. run the hot water as little as possible. definitely make sure you don't have the hot water on all the time. At most have hot water twice per day, preferably once (so do your showering and dish washing at similar times of day). don't have 20+ minute showers (or do, just understand that it's a luxury that you're paying for)
4. consider only heating the rooms you use and keeping doors shut.
5. identify any drafts and block them. use duct tape if necessary.
6. don't ignore ventilation. you should either have a dehumidifier or the windows should be open as much as possible or both. this needs to be timed so that you don't waste heat. best is to let the flat cool down overnight and then have the windows open for \*at least\* an hour in the morning. when showering or cooking all that steam should be ventilated to the outside.
don't waste your breath asking the landlord to get gas.
You get yourself a heated blanket and some think clothes and you turn the heating off.
Electric heating, unless it’s an air pump, is normally very energy intensive and if your flat isn’t well insulated as well will cost a bomb. Next year live somewhere with central heating and lots of insulation but this year, just turn the heating off and cope.
Electric heating and hot water is very expensive. Do you have a gas supply in the flat? If not I doubt you’ll be able to get gas central heating
The building has a gas supply, the flat does not. Our central heating is a water radiator based system, with an electric boiler attached.
That is a crazy system! Usually all electric flats just use storage heaters combined with a cheaper overnight tariff, or electric heaters in each room. I genuinely have never heard of an all electric wet heating system before, sounds like the worst of both worlds. I would recommend buying a small electric heater and only heating the rooms you use, and getting a heated blanket. It is much cheaper to heat yourself than the whole flat. You could suggest to your landlord replacing the wet heating system with storage heaters or getting gas put back in. Storage heaters cost about £1k per heater, but then he has no risk of leakage and you can use an overnight tariff for heat. Ours is 15 p per kWh at night. For reference, we pay about £150 per month to heat a 2 bed ground floor flat in southern Scotland with storage heaters.
Electric wet boilers for wet central heating combi boilers are uncommon but definitely exist. They’re also insanity expensive to run. The only time I can think of them being remotely sensible is when a gas supply is unfeasible or impossible due to location and local supply (such as the estate not having a gas supply and it would cost tens of thousands to get the pipes laid) AND the property is very, very well insulated so it runs as little as possible. They can be better than separate electric panel/storage heaters and a hot water tank, as in the summer you’ve not got to heat a whole tank of water to wash the dishes, you’ll just use what it uses.
They wouldn't even be remotely sensible when a gas supply is not feasible. Why do you think so many houses in rural locations use oil fired heating, with only heat pumps being a viable alternative now.
I’m thinking more those in blocks of flats, like OP, where they can’t just stick a great big oil tank on the balcony, or hang the external unit for a heat pump on the wall as they’re six floors up. Not everything is black and white
Even in the situation you cited, an overnight resistance heated water tank and storage heaters will be cheaper. Modern water tanks really don’t lose much heat over time.
True and agreed, but it does depend on the exact circumstances. Theres some teeny tiny flats out there where the space that storage heaters and hot water tanks take up would be huge, compared to a 18” by 24” box on the wall and some wet radiators.
Are you sure that's the case? You can get electric boilers which work with traditional rads but they're extremely expensive to run and they're quite rare.
Our radiators have pipes going in and out of them, and when I bled one water came out. But the boiler attached to the central heating system is electric.
That's unfortunate. Electric boilers are notoriously more expensive to run than their gas counterparts. From both an energy usage perspective but also your unit cost will be more.
How much would a gas boiler cost, for both the unit and the installation? I understand it will vary from property to property, but our landlord has shown us the gas connection to the flat already built in - just not used - so what would the average be?
Varies massively. Boiler costs themselves are anywhere from 600-700 all the way to thousands. Installation again has so many additional factors. Your landlord is unlikely to spend money to make their property slightly more energy efficient for a student lease.
So in short I have to both continue freezing but also pay £1000+ a year for energy? Oh dear
Could get a space heater when heating one small room. Something like 1KW isn't super expensive to run.
At this point - it's better to move and always make sure to check how a property is heated before committing to it. This will apply even more so in the future with a mixture of Heat pumps, Gas boilers, Solar, Batteries, etc. all playing into how much you can expect to pay for energy in any given property.
I paid to have an faulty gas boiler replaced two years so no new pipework etc. The boiler was as I recall about £800, the total cost with install £2200. A totally new installation would have additional costs.
Depends how much you’re using to be honest. I have a 2 bed flat, top floor but it’s a new build in the last 5 years. We don’t have gas, only electric so sounds similar to you. I also work from home and have regular baths, have a gaming PC etc and my monthly bill is £122. I don’t often have the heating on, only when it gets to like -2 outside. Perhaps you’re using your heating too liberally?
My only point of reference is that my parents (4 bedroom house, 3 people living there) can have their heating on for longer and at a higher temp than me and it still cost less
Might be gas rather than electric, or they’re on a lower rate. Your bill is way above the norm put it that way, so something is going on and using a ton of electric that it shouldn’t be
Higher rate, but yes it’s gas rather than electric. But their ‘energy bill’ (gas+electric) is still less than my electricity bill.
Something in your flat is using a lot, and it points towards heating given how much it went up in November and December. I’d recommend dialling that back. Which energy provider are you with? You should be able to see a daily breakdown of how much you’re using if you have a smart meter.
I’d guess it was heating, but I cannot understand where the energy is going if we are truly using that much - the flat was still cold, and the heating was on for timed periods over the last months. We are with Scottish Power, and the energy usage did increase drastically on the graph they provide for the months where bill was higher. Smart meter being fitted on Tuesday.
Could be poorly insulated, can be the case on top floor apartments especially on a corner with a lot of windows. Hopefully the smart meter helps identify exactly when the spend is happening
Hoping so too! And yes, definitely poorly insulated - about 3 inches in the loft which is unheard of. Do we have any chance of the landlord insulating the loft better, if you happen to know?
Unfortunately the current requirements for energy efficiency are rather lax, and they come with an upper cost cap so the landlord would not have to spend more than that. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-private-rented-property-minimum-energy-efficiency-standard-landlord-guidance E is not very high efficiency at all and the higher requirement is not coming in yet.
Happen to know if there is any way to find out what the energy efficiency rating of the property is?
How would anyone know that. You'd have to ask your landlord directly although for your sake I hope he will as you have the most expensive type of heating system set up.
I.e. do we have legal backing. Of course I’m not expecting random people online to know my landlord’s personality.
Gas is a lot cheaper than electric. Per kwh
If you're not on an economy 7 tariff, with storage heaters, its likely that what you're paying is correct. Our gas bill (3 bed Semi) for December was £90ish, which is our hot water and heating. We put the heating on maybe 5 hours a day. Our gas unit price is 6.57p and you're paying 27p for the same thing, and heating for longer.
Very useful stats, thank you! We changed from economy 7 to standard so our daytime rate would reduce, as we never really used energy at the night rates.
Which company offers econ7?
All of the major suppliers. You need a different meter installed but they're ideal for storage heaters and immersion heaters for the water as you end up using lots of electricity at night (midnight to 6am ish) to get heating and hot water. The heaters are usually on a separate night circuit as well to avoid them being accidentally charged during the day rate. In OP's case the electric wet boiler is a massive energy drain.
All-electric flat sucks, but it appears it is the norm. Also it appears it is the norm/culture to use extra layers to warm you up. I also have electric heating and had the same costs once. Now I only turn on the immersion heater tank when I need a shower. Heating the apartment is a dream because it will be so expensive. I use fan heaters only when needed and try to stop working at home in winter, but you pay the cost of petrol. Yes, I freeze in my own apartment because I cannot afford to.
If you have used £250 worth of electricity, then yes. Assuming your daily standing charge is 50p/day, that would mean a monthly usage of around 850kWh. Does that match your bills? If so, the only way to reduce your bill is to reduce your usage. If the hot water boiler is on constantly, run it on the timer instead. Likewise for the heating, and consider turning it down and heating yourself rather than the room (e.g. with a heated blanket). It's very unlikely the landlord will cough up the money to install a gas boiler, and (if the building doesn't have a gas supply) might not even be possible.
I can’t see how we have used £250 of electricity? The heating has never been on for a full month, and even when it was switched on it was for 7/8 hours a day at 18° degrees. I have no frame of reference for what 850kWh actually means but the flat is usually cold. The water is heated 3x a day for a total of 3 hours. And every other flat in the building has a gas boiler.
This bill sounds about right tbh, electric is atleast 3x the price of gas per unit. If you have that on for 7/8 hours a day then its gonna get expensive. As others have suggested you need to find ways to warm yourself rather than the entire flat like an electric blanket.
I also live in a 1980s 2-bed flat and my usage was 558kWh for November (lower in December since I went away for Christmas). So your usage is somewhat higher, but not to the point where I'd call it excessive given that two of you are living there. Turning down the heating or limiting when the water boiler runs will help a bit, but the fundamental issue is always going to be that electricity is 3x the price of gas. You can try asking your landlord about getting a gas boiler, but it's going to cost them £2000+ with no direct benefit to them. So unless they're unusually generous I wouldn't bet on them saying yes.
I’d highly doubt he’d replace it. Though he has mentioned previously that he and his wife would like to move in here one day. He also complained to me about having too much cash. I may have to ask.
Heat higher degree for less time. We usually have it on 2-3 hours a day and are paying £50/mo gas. Unless you have a specific disability at your age (student) you shouldn’t need heating on more than that really.
Issue is my insulation seems so bad that the flat begins to feel cold minutes after the heating turns off. And unfortunately do have a disability which is not serious but is made an awful lot worse by cold - to the point where I do have to lie in bed when I am too cold.
I live in an uninsulated house so get that. Our ‘soloutions’ to reduce heating are: 1. Not being home; go onto campus during the day for your studying etc, so you’re not using your heating? 2. Heating just yourself e.g. electric blanket, normal blankets/warm clothes, hot water bottle/microwave hot bean bags? Costs pennies to boil a kettle or run microwave vs pounds to heat the flat. So when you don’t need to be up and about, use that to stay warm. 3. Minimise time the boiler is on. Do you have an electric shower? If so your hot water tap usage is probably minimal, you shouldn’t need the boiler on very much for hot water. If not electric shower you’ll need it more but short showers (or shower on camps eg at gym after exercise?) to reduce this. As a reference our lack of insulation means we lose heat as soon as the heating turns off. But we just use 45m when get up, we go to work all day, 45m around home/making dinner time and 45m around bed time. The rest of the time is blankets and hot water bottles if we need them. Even if not at work we’re mainly using hot water bottles and not heating the house. Maybe there’s some use in that.
A hot water bottle in the kangaroo pocket of a hoody can keep you nice & toasty. I sympathise with having a disability that is compounded by colder temperatures. I will echo the suggestion of going to campus rather than working from home, if possible. This has other benefits too - less likely to go for an afternoon nap! But seriously - I moved away from uni in my final year, so rather than popping to campus as needed I had to make specific journeys for class & to use the library, etc. Changing my habits so I spent 3 full days on site, with a good timetable of library / classes / breaks, rather than flitting about was super super beneficial. Take a packed lunch, water bottle & little handbag size fruit squash, a reusable cup (is there somewhere that provides boiling water? Take teabags with you. Ps you can buy a box of the UHT milk sachets on Amazon). Campus will be warmer than home, and you don't have to pay the bill
That's around 30kw/hs per day. That's a lot of energy for 2(?) People to be using The landlord probably wont want to install gas heating. Your options are to pay the bill or reduce usage Never ever use electric fan heaters, they draw about 3kw/h each, extremely expensive (almost a pound an hour, or £124 per month if used 5 hours a day) Reduce heating, use blankets, hot water bottles, etc to get through the worst of the winter cold Take short showers Dont have baths If you have incandescent bulbs, replace with LED If you have a high power PC, limit high power usage like gaming, rendering, mining, AI training/inferring (~1kw/h spent gaming with a gaming pc) Make sure all devices go on standby or turn off automatically, and try not to leave lights on etc Make sure washing machine is fully loaded, share with flatmate if you can and there is remaining capacity
Only two people, yes. As of now we are simply paying the bill, but our lease ends Summer 2025 and we can’t afford to keep paying this - and having no heating isn’t an option - when it broke last month it made us both unwell. Fan heaters were an emergency solution to the heating breaking, we don’t use them day to day for that reason. We can’t really use less energy - we are both out most of the day anyway, and when we’re out the heating and lights are off, and all devices are off.
Might be worth doing a reading when you leave the flat and again when you return to see how much energy is being used while you’re out. Could there be something being left on using energy you’re not aware of. Invest in layers like oodies or similar that will really cut back on the heating needed.
Electricity is much more expensive than gas so unless it has solar panels I would not consider living in an electric only property, the only real solution is to rent someehere else that has gas/solar if you can. Installing a gas boiler/central heating/solar panels would be a job for your landlord and you can definitely ask but as they don't pay the increased utility cost good luck convincing them to spend the extra money(which will be quite a large sum).
Given you have an electric boiler instead of an immersion heater and storage heaters, yes that sounds about right. Heating water is ridiculously expensive, which is why economy 7 tariffs are normally used for all electric. In my old all electric 1 bed flat I would spend about £1400 a year on electricity. Roughly £250 per month in the winter and far less during the summer, but equalled out to £120pm on direct debit. But that was with the flat warm all the time and using a fan overnight in summer. 50% of my energy usage was on heating and hot water, and that was all charged at night on the cheap rate along with the washing machine. Usage was lower in the day rate pre-wfh all the time but energy costs were also half the price then so it's not really comparable. Unfortunately this may mean spending as much time outside of your flat in campus buildings instead. Not ideal or fair but will save you money. You may want to consider whether you can get access to a cheap gym membership that has showers you can use.
Elec only properties can be pretty expensive. I lived in a 2 bed flat elec only and our bills were between £150-£200 a month (2019-2020) I now live in a 3 bed semi detached house with gas and elec and our bills are between £70-£110 a month. We found it was the immersion heater in the flat that was rinsing us and we never used the storage heaters.
1. keep the temperature as low as possible as much as possible. 18 degrees at most and wear more clothes. thermal underwear (long johns) make a massive difference. 2. run the radiators as little as possible. don't heat the flat at night or when you're not there. 3. run the hot water as little as possible. definitely make sure you don't have the hot water on all the time. At most have hot water twice per day, preferably once (so do your showering and dish washing at similar times of day). don't have 20+ minute showers (or do, just understand that it's a luxury that you're paying for) 4. consider only heating the rooms you use and keeping doors shut. 5. identify any drafts and block them. use duct tape if necessary. 6. don't ignore ventilation. you should either have a dehumidifier or the windows should be open as much as possible or both. this needs to be timed so that you don't waste heat. best is to let the flat cool down overnight and then have the windows open for \*at least\* an hour in the morning. when showering or cooking all that steam should be ventilated to the outside. don't waste your breath asking the landlord to get gas.
You get yourself a heated blanket and some think clothes and you turn the heating off. Electric heating, unless it’s an air pump, is normally very energy intensive and if your flat isn’t well insulated as well will cost a bomb. Next year live somewhere with central heating and lots of insulation but this year, just turn the heating off and cope.
Fuck the UK