electricity & water bills

[fordie]

can someone give me a ball park figure for yearly water and electricity bills (for my business plan)? i know this is a difficult task, but if i give some information, maybe someone with a similar premises can help me.
I'm looking at a very small retail unit somewhere in the region of 35sqm in total. There will be 1 toilet and a sink. The only electricity use would be lighting, heating, running a small fridge and boiling a kettle (once a day!). Use of retail unit would be as a gift shop, open approx 7.5 hours a day, 6 days a week. Only myself working there. Hope this might help someone give me a ball park figure? thanks.

 

[internetspaceships]

£300 per month should cover it if you want to be reasonable about it.

 

[rockone]

Yeah, £300 will be enough for it if you be careful in to put things off when you are not using it to avoid wastage.

 

[josor]

Also factor in that they may need a deposit as well, to supply Gas and Electric

 

[warnie]

£300

My shop is around 1000sqft. I have 1 double freezer, 1 coke fridge, a water heater, kettle cctv, 2 computers, tills, scales,blenders and fluorescent lighting, plus in the winter we have 3 electric heaters on 7 days a week.

Our water is the same all year round at around £30 a month, electric in the summer is on average £60 and in the winter nearer £100 a month.

Oh and there's 4 people that work here, and we never paid any sort of deposit either.

Hope this helps

edited to say that I expect our winter bills this year to be 20% higher due to the price rises.

 

[fordie]

thanks for your help. i wasn't expecting it to be around 300 a month, that seems like alot more than i thought. Oh well!! If anyone else has any ideas that would also be good. thanks

 

[mhall]

Just remember that they will all try and rip you off and sign you up for long periods.

Do your homework and get quotes in writing. Electricity especially is dogged by companies calling themselves all sorts of things, usually with "meter resigistration" in their title, trying to get you to sign up for them. They will tell you anything to get the business and then start recording the conversation when they will conveniently NOT repeat the offers they gave you. Ask them to put the offer in writing and they will usually just hang up and try again tomorrow.

If the electricity is cheap by the unit, check the daily charge and any monthly account fee - and vice versa.

 

[Philip Hoyle]

I pay £1,000 p.a. heat & light for a similar sized space, but mine is an office, so is easier to heat as I don't have the door opening/closing all day. I also use overnight storage heaters which are OK for an office as we don't lose much heat in the day, but wouldn't work for a shop. Looking at the accounts of a few small shops I have as clients, I'd say you could easily be looking at £2k-£3k p.a. for power, and another £250-£500 for water rates, so could easily average out at between £175 and £300 per month, peaking in winter months. You need to be looking at some energy efficient heating systems!

 

[internetspaceships]

tbh the guy wanted an allowance to put down for the plan so I went high to make sure he wasn't underestimating.

Heck the electricity in winter in my place is £450 per week :-(

 

[KateCB]

tbh the guy wanted an allowance to put down for the plan so I went high to make sure he wasn't underestimating.

Heck the electricity in winter in my place is £450 per week :-(

Wow - thats a BIG bill - tropical heat by any chance?

I have 3000sqft, 2400sqft has lighting, but no heating, 600sqft office - lighting, (24 x 3 in ceiling strips) kettle on several hundred times a day (feels like it!) gas heating admittedly, but only two radiators anyway, two sinks, two toilet, fridge, four computers, two heatpresses, three embroidery machines - £120 a month.

When you DO go for this, try Utilitrack to get you a contract - water is standard, you pay what you water board says, but electricity is negotiable to a point and utilitrack.co.uk save me a fortune each year - free service, get the best deals and do it annually so you don't forget!

 

[internetspaceships]

I wish mine were as efficient.

5000 sq ft of 7.5m pitched roof warehousing with pallet racking to 5M which is the height of the roof support beams, plus 2000 sq ft of offices and other storage.

The problem is the lack of insulation and the sheer cubic footage. I'm having to spend rather a lot of money to get heaters that hang from the beams and destratify the air.

Approx running cost is £10-£17 per hour at full belt :-(

 

[Parrot Hosting]

tbh the guy wanted an allowance to put down for the plan so I went high to make sure he wasn't underestimating.

Heck the electricity in winter in my place is £450 per week :-(

Well what do you expect if you are heating an internet spaceship

the rest of us earthlings would pay 10% of that a month.

 

[internetspaceships]

Haha no mate its to keep all those thousands of pretty rack servers and hardware spares nice and happy so hosting companies like you can buy them in a working condition!

lol couldn't resist the plug So bite me!