ESB Bills & Estimates

G

Gabriel

Registered User
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504
Lads & lassies,

Have ESB storage heaters in my home. They're grand and all but I know they're exspensive.

The first three bills were like €140, €180 and €180 again respectively. No problems and I began to think all was well...but I didn't realise they were estimates.
So our fourth bill was a reading which amounted to over €500!!!!
This was made up of the two months since last bill and previous shortfalls in bills!

Needless to say I nearly fainted.
So my last bill (which I just got) was €185, again another estimate.

The problem is most bills you can budget for...I haven't got a clue with this lark.
Obviously I'm not even using the heating right now so it may be actually be that their estimate is an over-estimate...or bang on the nose.

Anyway, there's one more reading this year but we don't know when.

How do other people cope with this? I'm curious.

I suppose I could do a reading myself and then ring them...so maybe I'm answering my own problem here but I'm keen to get other people's experiences on this.
 
If there is going to be such a difference between your estimate and actual bill maybe you would be better off on sending the ESB your meter reading so you can budget accordingly. You can do this over the phone or via the web [broken link removed]
 
And you ca also pay by monthly direct debit, where they estimate your bill over the year and bill you 1/12 this each month. If there is any significant change in your usage they will re-evalute and re- estimate your bill and notify you what your new monthly amount will be. So no nasty surprises, ever!
 
Thanks for the advice guys...will try the meter reading I think.

Not much of an issue this time of the year but as soon as I start using those damned storage heaters again it becomes one.

On a side note...my little rant about them. Who was the smart This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language who made those things? You should be able to turn output down to zero so that its not leaking heat on days when you don't actually want heat in the room!!! We have to be friggin weather forecasters in this country and predict the night before whether we want heat the next day or not!!! Sheesh!!
 
You're probably best off reading the meter and have them give you the actual amount due.

You're lucky if your storage heaters actually make much difference during the day. I found the residual heat from ours had gone by midday. In the end, we just turned off the storage part completely as we were getting no benefit from it at all. By the time we got home in the evening, the apartment was cold again. We had two controls in the apartment we were renting. There was a thermostat specific to the storage heaters. There were also two dials on the heater itself - one for the amount of heat to give out while it was on, and one for the degree of storage to do. We just turned them off at the wall through summer.
 

Yeah...our problem is the residual heat is too good! On days where you don't really want the room heated it's like a furnace. Seriously stupid things...even when you turn them off at the wall they're still giving out their stored heat.
 
As soon as you get your ESB bill check the meter reading and ring them to give it. They'll issue you with a new bill. You have to do this within about a day of receiving the bill though, otherwise they never seem to manage to send the new one out. They consistently underestimate our bill to the tune of about 50 or 60 euro - actually last month was the first time it was almost accurate in the four years I've been in that house and I suspect that's because there were only two on us living there for the last couple of months and our usage has been a bit less than normal.

This also happens all the time with the gas. They told me once that the estimates are based not only on your previous use patterns but also on the average usage in the area. Makes no sense to me whatsoever but there you have it.
 
These are been used as when apartments and houses are been built it saves the builder a load of money as there is no plumber neede as pipes are not needed all they have to do is just stick them on the wall. They really do seem expensive as during the summer months all you need it on for is to have hot water. My last bord gais bill was 42 euro.
 
I had storage heaters for a year, now ripped out and replaced by gas - the ripping out is also a problem, average bill in winter was €280 with no dishwasher or tumble dryer and nobody in the house all day. As the meter is outdoors it was always read. The bill has now dropped to about €80 so the storage heaters are very expensive for poor heating.
 


How expensive was ripping out the storage heaters mts and replacing with gas ones?
 
Hi Gabriel,

You may find the key post on Storage Heaters of some use and in particular the explanation of their optimum use.

With regard to the ESB bill issue I have registered our units on-line in the past and have still received an estimated bill. I have found their call and register your units system to be more efficient but have just resorted to calculating the approx. units myself from the meter and making a payment based on this. This normally corrects the problem without having to contact them.
 
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