Hey all,
I'm a little worried about some of the electricity bills I've been receiving. In April I got a bill for 900 CHF for a period of 6 months, and yesterday I got a bill for 380 CHF for 3 months (Apr-Jul). Bearing in mind that there are just two of us and we both work during the day.

The apartment is centrally heated (communal boiler), all the lights are energy saver bulbs and we don't have computers etc.. running 24/7.

So basically are there any other couples paying > 120 CHF a month for electricity?
Cheers

sounds high. I was paying a little over 100 francs per month in a 5 bedroomed house with 3-4 PCs running all the time, no energy-saving bulbs, 2 fridges and 2 freezers.

Your heating and water are not electrically heated, I assume?

We just received a bill for 115CHF for a 4.5 room 115 square meter
place. The bill was just for one month.

I pay 50 CHF/month here,

In my old house in Scotland, I paid 50 pounds per month for a 3 bedroom house with Gas Central heating.

Coffee Machine, Aquarium, and PC are in my experience the worst electricity consumers. I had a guy living in my house, who downloaded films etc. 24/7, and when he moved in, the electricity bill nearly doubled.

Doc.

Thanks guys, its worth noting that our apartment used to belong to the landlord of the building, where he lived with his family for several decades. There might therefore be a small possibility that our meter is also linked to the communal areas e.g. corridor lighting, washing machines etc... He only speaks Italian and German (+ he now lives in Ticino) so its always a struggle to communicate.

Might need to ask the electric company to investigate.

Hot water and heating are included in the monthly additional charge. Its a communal water boiler.

No, we pay < 200 CHF for 3 months in a five room apartment.

Sounds mighty excessive.

Hi,

when did you move in your flat? Because for the first year, they charge you a sort of 'standard' bill. Then, after a year, they come and check what you effectively used during that year, and recalculate your bill accordingly. Which means that they might give you some money back if it appears you used less electricity than they thought you would. This is what usually happens, by the way.

Now, you can also go have a look in your basement, to check if a little bugger decided to pirate your electricity and connect his flat to your wires... Wouldn't be the first time it happens!

You may have a very good point about the communal electricity usage
running off your meter. I'd get that checked out, and possibly reimbursed
to help cover those massive electricity bills.

I pay about CHF 83.- a month. Have three rooms, one of which a 80 m2
photo studio. So, the lighting, 3-4 computers, several NAS and UPS eats
most of the power. IMO, a fair price for what I draw. On the lighter side,
there is a water-turbine in the basement. This keeps the supply constant
without worrying about brown- or black-outs.

That is just almost exactly what my husband and I were paying before he moved to the UK ahead of me. We went to IWB, and they refused to do anything about it. We even obtained an electricity usage meter from them to monitor for a week - which I plugged in to the outlet which ran both of our computers (which were on 24/7). The results were normal, and the guy who read it all was baffled.

Since my husband moved (and took his computer), electric bills have gone down. I don't have lights on quite as much as I did when we were both here, or cook as much, but it isn't much of a reduction.

I had the same suspicions that we're paying for some common electricity, but nobody was willing to look into it - the building owners or IWB.

Hi!
With all apologies in advance your assumptions are probably incorrect!

A computer does not consume that much power, even old ones with big CRT screens.

An average CRT consumes 200Watts/hour, and a "Tower" probably 400W with all components (CPU, Graphic Card, etc...): its in the Power Unit. But it's never always consuming that much, so we can say 300-400w Total.


So in comparisons, some bulbs can be 100W, generally 60W or 11W for energy savings ones.

Or an Electric Heater is 2200W/Hour, which is 2.2KW.
Power Shower is 8500 W an hour (!!!) which is 8.5KW, again on average and depending on how long it uses full "consumption settings".

Electric Cooker is approx 2000W per "round stuff that heats", and inside the grill or oven is approx the same, a total of a complete cooker would be 12 KW (12 000W).


You generally pay by "unit", a unit is 1000W, or 1KW. In Scotland we were paying approx 0.15pence per unit, plus a standard fee per days of like 0.50p, then VAT.

Lets say you pay 0.20p a unit.

You uses Electric Heater a night (12 hours), it's already 2.2*12* 0.20= 5.28 pounds!!!

A computer, especially old ones, always have saving mode and even it still uses, its definitely far less, and probably does not influence the total bill (unless of course thats the only unit you are using, then it will represents 100% of the bill!!!)


Now the Electric cooker, to heat your pizza in the OVEN it needs like 2-3 units (2000-3000W) and probably uses full power as it starts from cold... Let's say you uses it 20min to preheat, 20min to cook:

40min of 2.5KW/hour= 0.40 Pence!!
That's not what consumes most, but still adds up to the bill!!

Etc,,..

To make it clear what's worse are:
Electric Water heater, Power Heater, Power Shower, etc...
Everything with a HIGH CONSUMPTION and relatively LONG USAGE.

Hope that helps!

I knew that with the computers - and that's what the electric company kept telling us was the culprit. So that's why I plugged it all into one and ran the meter off it.

No such things as power showers here, and I don't have electric heating (doesn't sound like Castro the OP does, either).

I don't think there will be a correction because the bills from IWB seem to come from live readings. They even sent me a card a few months back where I dutifully jotted down the reading from my meter and sent it back.

I think an investigation is definitely in order, although I'm not encouraged by Evilshell's experiences with the company

One thing we did was unplug all of our fuses and then go look at the meter. It wasn't spinning then...so we gave up with having anyone look into the why. But this was on a Sunday, so perhaps a washing room is hooked up to ours?

I hope you've got better luck than we did!

Thats a Great idea, This evening I'll switch off the power at the fuse box and take a before and after reading over say an hour (whilst the washing machine, hall lights etc.. are on).

I'm with EBM and my general feeling is that I am being ripped off. What irks me most is that the bills are randon (ie not every 1, 2 or 3 months) and rarely include readings or info on how much is charged per unit. Is anybody else with EBM? Do you get meter readings?

I reckon on average I pay around 150-200 chuffs per 2 months which covers only the leccy I use (heating and water covered by nebenkosten). I have a 3.5 room apt and I am quite energy conscious.

More recently I received a final demand for an amount that I had paid in January this year. When I investigated with EBM, they told me 2 identical bills for the same amount were posted end of last year and that I only paid one - trouble is I never received the 2nd. Negotiations with them were unsatisfactory and I ended giving in and paying it in the end (more fool me!). Plus the meters in my block have in the last 12 months or so been locked away now so I cannot even access it to check the readings which I think is odd. Is this normal?

You can do your own detective work. Apparently, you can read your meter. Switch off all your electricity consumption. Then go and look at the meter. Is it spinning?

Or if you are away for a weekend, read the meter before you go and after you return. It should only be the fridge.

You might be able to disconnect your flat at the meter. Switch off at night and find out whose lights go off, too.

I just got a bill and I use around CHF 65 a month. Prices have just been increased again, at least my bill hasn't thanks to careful usage. We have 4 floors, so loads of lights, a few pcs and servers with hubbie working from home, an american fridge, multi-jet power shower and 2 aircon split systems, one constantly on economy mode. 600L water tank heated off peak too.

Tchibo currently has an appliance electricity usage measuring device for CHF 15. We got one a while ago and found that pc's on standby use next to nothing. The coffee machine was the main culprit. I also stopped using the kettle and now use the microwave to heat water - no need to descale the kettle

Look at when your peak/off peak times are. Setting the washing machine and the dishwasher to wash after 10pm means you pay half price.

I've cut my bill by half since making these small changes.

The off-peak timings vary depending on where you live. In ZH, low rates from 8PM to 7AM weekdays. Also low rates from 1PM Saturday until 7AM Monday.

Hello

this is probably a daft question, but who or which company do I need to tell that I have moved into a flat (zug) so that I can pay them for the electricity I use? Or will the rental agent tell the correct company?

thanks in advance for your help

C.

Rental agency should deal with - we've moved 3 times in CH and never had to deal with this.

As an asside, you should ask to take all meter readings as you move into the house/flat to make sure you only pay for your time in the appartment. Usually not an issue, but always safer.