Amid the cost-of-living crisis, one man has fumed about his wife’s ‘£1.65-an-hour shower’.
The biggest jump in domestic energy bills in living memory, which came into effect yesterday (1 April), has left many families facing further financial struggles across the UK.
Trade body Energy UK previously warned gas and electricity bills could go up by as much as 50 percent after regulator Ofgem raised the price cap in the average home from £1,277 to £1,971.
On what was nicknamed ‘April Cruel Day’ for obvious reasons, a man named Judge Fredd provided a real life example of just how much this is going to impact UK households.
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Sharing a picture of his energy monitor, he wrote: “My wife is having a shower and it's costing £1.65 an hour. Madness.
“To give a good impression of the stonking energy price rise that came into effect today, we've used £1.20 of gas today (inc. standing charge) and it's not even 8am…”
In response, one person wrote: “This is scary stuff. The UK is a dangerous place to be on a fixed or low income at the best of times but this is going to cause untold misery.”
While Fredd’s monitor shows a significant hike in energy prices, estimates on Sust-it - an energy efficiency website for electrical appliances and products - show the cost of an electric shower could be even higher.
According to the site, 7.5kW showers will cost up to £2.10 per hour, while those with a 10.8kW power rating could reach £3 per hour.
On Friday, the websites for British Gas, EDF, E.ON, SSE Scottish Power and Bulb crashed as thousands of people rushed to submit their meter readings and secure cheaper bills ahead of the price cap.
A spokesman for Energy UK said: “We’re aware that some suppliers are experiencing issues with their websites due to the volume of customers submitting meter readings.
“Suppliers do offer alternative ways of doing this such as through automated phone lines and apps so we’d recommend customers try those.
“Customers with smart meters do not need to worry as their readings are automatically sent to their supplier.”
Beyond electric showers, the calculator on Sust-It can be used to automatically show the electrical cost of your own appliances - just don’t take it as absolute gospel as the figures may vary across the country.
Looking at kettles - which most people use more than once every day - there’s another large increase, with even a basic kettle costing £57.42 to run for a year, up from £43.06.
If you haven’t got energy saving lightbulbs into your house yet, you just might after this, as the cost of running a 40W lightbulb for the year will now be around £18.40, a 60W will cost £27.59 annually, and 100W a whopping £45.99.
The good news on this front is that energy saving lightbulbs will save you about 80 percent of that.
If you are against food waste and reheat a lot of leftovers, the new energy tariff will cost more on the microwave, too.
A standard 1000w microwave will cost 3.27p to run for five minutes. Before the tariff rise, the cost was 2.45p for five minutes.
Whilst we hope that the weather will pick up, if the recent snow is anything to go by some households might not be done with their electric heating for this year, at least.
The bad news is that these are easily the most expensive thing on the calculator to run.
Even the lowest wattage heater will cost £5.88 per week to run, with the top of the list clocking in at £5.04 per day and £35.28 per week.
Unfortunately, it seems as if this price rise is here to stay, but hopefully this list has given some context to the increase, as well as some ideas on where the damage can be mitigated at least slightly.
If you want to do some calculations of your own, you can do so here.
Daisy Phillipson