Electric and water

it sounds excessive to me  - 3000 units in two months and without air con.....who has taken the readings you or the landlord or the meter reader...do you check them yourself are the readings kosher  -do you see the actual bill or is it one that the landlord makes up for you by way of a spreadhseet or a typed sheet.

if the readngs are correct id check the meter sources....or ask the landlord to get arms to come out and check them.

The electrical items you mention dont use a lot of energy we have 6 fans running most of the day and half them running overnight and air con on a couple of times a day and sparingly overnight on sleep setting, the rest of out appliances are not super efficient either - we use about 22 units a day in this heat but when its cooler for the rest of the year it drops to a steady 12 units per day - we are a family of three....

is your water boiler running all day and night? washing machines and tumble dryers can use a lot of electricity for sure as do dishwashers.....

the figures you quote equate to 50 units per day ans that sounds like a lot me

ask to see the actual bill as you may be being charged a domestic rate which is higher than residential. I just did a calc based on 2months (may and june)at 3000 units residential and the bill with one consumer registered is approx 795e on single phase residential.

and the same again as 0 consumers (this equates to domestic)and its about 1000e...

one  further thought you should still get the landlord to register the correct number of consumers as this also affects your water bills and irrespective of the amount of water you use it would still be cheaper with the right number of consumers....

Hi. Had similar issues with utility bills here.

Aside from the registered number of people, a big culprit was our electric kettle. Your fridge freezers may also be a problem, depending on what state they are in and how efficient they are. Tumble dryer - not economical/ecological from any point of view.

Regarding the registration of the number of tenants, you need to be a resident, i.e. you need to have the residency permit, otherwise you won't count. But even if only one person is an official resident, it will make a big difference.

Showing that you have lived and worked or gone to school here does not make you a resident according to Enemalta. It was only when I finally got the permit(which took 2 years after application) that I counted as a resident.

Hope you get it sorted soon. Even when you get all the paperwork together, it'll probably be a few months before you see the difference.

In regards to someone tapping your meter - just switch off and unplug everything and see if the meter is still running.

good point on switching everything off....

We use an electric kettle every single day,,we tried gas and didnt like it. I do agree overall that electric appliances need to be carefully selected and used for sure.

I suspect that the OP is being billed at a domestic rate - i would say that even with one registered it does make a difference at least you would be getting the right electric tarriff even with out discounts the bill will be less. but as I said he should still register 5 user consumers as that will make a difference to the water consumption bill for sure...as each user is allowed 33cu meters of water per year (33000 litres each at the lower eco rate) and even if you exceed this you dont lose the discounts unlike the electricity side where you do lose it.

@ toon: Wow - you use an electric kettle every day? Nicking electricity from our neighbours are we?

But seriously - we drink about 5 a day each(two of us) and after ditching the electric kettle, the power consumption went down by about a third.

You need a good quality whistling kettle for the gas hob though. Had a couple of cheap ones that got rusty after a few weeks, and I've ruined two normal pots because I left them on too long. Been a while since it's happened though.

But I also refuse to pay 60 EUR for something that whistles when I boil water in it.

At the risk of hijacking this thread - I do feel the urge to ask: What is so different about the water boiled on a hob compared to you electric kettle?

I really appreciate your replies, will check the meter after turning everything off, I know a lot of our appliances aren't the new eco ones so will use more electric than some but will check everything out. Thanks a lot

in answer to the question solely speed.....ans as there is not a lot of difference in term of elec and gas price now - we prefer to sue the kettle. and can honestly say we havent noticed an appreciable increase in elec consumption, although we can say that when we used the gas one the bottle only lasted 3 months ..since we stopped using the gas kettle the bottles are lastign 6-7 months and our elec consumption is within out eco limits...so thats good ....but heaven help us when ARMs find my magnet and the neighbour finds my feed...LOL

Most of our appliances are 10 years old and are by no means energy efficient

toonarmy9752 wrote:

in answer to the question solely speed.....

I know what you mean - it was a pain at first. Now that we've sussed out which pot to use and how much water, it's just as quick though. But if it makes no difference to you cost wise, I totally agree it's more convenient.

Good luck Houston.

getting back to the original thread and getting your allowances, we had our res certs and our son used his NI number and evidence of paying tax and NI here and that was perfectly acceptable to ARMs/Enemalta - unless things have changed in the last two years....and we got the eco discounts on our very first bill....so in some respects it sometimes beneficial for us expats that ARMs arent too efficient in issuing bills......

Just recently moved house and expected problems with getting registered as a consumer at the new address. And just as expected we did have problems but we provided our residency certs id cards and our sons id card, work paylsips SSC number etc and to further justify the claim we provided evidence of a previous billing account (not in our name) where he was accepted as a registered consumer and that did the job. eventually sorted out within 5 weeks and thank god before we got our first bill.