David Blythen
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Should separate Communal areas have separate electricity meters?
Hi,
I live in an Housing association property that shares a communal area with one other tenant with it's own door entrance. The next doors property is also owned by the same Housing Ass
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Posted in: Should separate Communal areas have separate electricity meters?
@Will Nixon,
Many thanks for your comments and at present I am at stage 2 of the Northern Counties complaints procedure, where a Senior Independent Manager will review, as NCHA just simply want to repair the "not working" storage heater in my communal area shared by myself and the tenant above me. This would not solve the issue of the charges unless we decide to operate our heater at the same level as next door to equal things out. But by doing that the yearly cost of electricity usage would increase even further and by about 70% on top of the £366 charged for the last yearly bill last April, 2011. The tenants using the other communal area will then wonder why there has been such a steep increase in yearly electricity usage and only realise then the real costs of using these appliances.
I will advise them to your comments regarding apportionment and the guidance set by Ofgem.
I wil keep you posted and I do appreciate your expert imput in this andI do agree that it would be unwise to have the heaters removed (not my idea btw), but to apportion the usagecharges fairly or come to some arrangement with all five tenants in both communal areas to maybe have both appliances in use, but the one that has currently been the only one in use whilst the other hasn't, would need it's usage reduced by 50% to ofset the others coming into use and then there would be equal usage.
Hope that all makes sense.
David
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Posted in: Should separate Communal areas have separate electricity meters?
Thanks everyone for your valued advise. The Housing Association has written to all tenants suggesting that the storage heaters be removed from both communal areas. I have since worked out that 70% - 75% of the total yearly consumption of Landlord's Electricity Costs is down to the use of one storage heater in the communal area not shared by myself and the tenant above me. All five tenants are contributing about £1.40 per week to the Landlord's Electricity Costs and if there was no use of the storage heater in the other communal area, that figure would drop to around 40 pence per week! I have made it clear to the Housing Association, that it is not fair to expect tenants in a separate communal area to contribute towards anothers communal areas use of their storage heater, especially when it is consuming upto 75% of the yearly electric. Will keep you posted on the developments of the proposal to have them both removed.
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Posted in: Should separate Communal areas have separate electricity meters?
Many thanks again for your advise and imput, I will bear this in mind and hope that no-one objects to the storage heaters being removed, as it would definately reduce the cost each pay for electricity used dramatically in that case, unless something else is drawing off electricity or someone is using electricity for their flat/s, by plugging in to a communal area socket.
I'll keep you posted. :)
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Posted in: Should separate Communal areas have separate electricity meters?
Here are some calculations I have just made...
Door entry light for our communal area (two residents): Light: 15 watts per hour at 12 hours per day = 180 watts of electricity used. multiply that by 365 = 65.7 kwh per year. If the unit rate was the same as my own tariif within my own property ie 11.620p per kwh, the cost of the door entry light in itself for the whole year would equate to something like £7.63, shared between the two of us. The vacuuming would equate to: 5 mins per week at 260 mins per year or 4.3 hours, at a cost of £1.00 of electricity used, if the vacuum cleaner is say, a 2000 watt per hour appliance. So taking in all those equations, the cost of electricity used for lighting and vacuuming of just our communal area shared by two residents for the whole year would be £8.63 and then the standing charge on top (which if we say is the same as what i pay for my own flat itself ie 20.90p) = £73.
So our communal areas electricity costs would be just over £80 inc standing charge.
At the moment we are paying £73 each to pay towards electricity and satnding charge used and charged for both communal areas.
That means that if our communal are was metered separately, we would be paying and saving £30 less each year each, for own communal area!
That's of course, if the charges are the same as what i have quoted.
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Posted in: Should separate Communal areas have separate electricity meters?
Hi,
Many thanks for your imput and appreciated advise.
I have calculated that the cost of vacuuming both communal areas for the whole year equates to about 13 hrs at 15 minutes per week (5 mins for my communal area and 10 mins for the other), for 52 weeks in a year and the both communal door entrance lights, which I have been informed use energy efficent bulbs, are equal in electricity used by both communal areas. These lights come on at night and go off in the morning when it comes light again. These appliances will use very little in electricity in the whole year, so a high percentage of the Landlord's Electricity Costs are more than likely down to one communal areas use of their storage heater.
The Housing Association have written to all tenants of both communal areas to suggest that the storage heaters be removed in both, but I at the moment do not know whether there will be any objections to this. I for one am not asking for them to be removed, but that might be the better option. I just feel that when the two houses were initially made into flats, both houses should have been independently metered as they have separate communal areas.
The housing association have said exactly what you have said, that if a separate meter was to be installed, our property would have to pick up the bill, but the meter already installed for both communal areas is actually on our side, fitted to our building. Should the landlord have really initially installed two meters when the houses had been converted into flats way back, as they are really separate houses with separate communal areas?