Electric useage nearly tripled in one month

calleyw

I am one of these sad people who takes a water/gas/electric meter readings once a month. And yes I even put it in a spreadsheet so I can track month on month what the useage is. Mainly so I can spot problems before they become big problems.

Anyway this month our electric useage has nearly tripled well to be pedantic 2.7 times higher. The reading went from 64 units for october to 178 for november. Now as winter is coming I would expect the electric bill to go up a bit. But not sure that much. The problem is we only moved in to this house back in March so have never had a winter here yet. We have had no other major changes apart from new central heating put in.

Anyway the only things that have changed in the last month are

1)Bought a slow cooker used for a few hours once or twice a week
2)been using my tumble drier for maybe once or twice a week for about 30 mins max to air clothes as we have no airing cupboard.
3)new central heating system and of course using the heating and it using the pump
4)have been using on the odd occasion to keep warm a little electric heater so I warm one room rather than the whole house. Use it for about 5/10 mins and then switch it off until I feel cold and then put it on again.

The tumble drier I have had for years and used in the flat we lived in before and that never really added much to the bill. But then I never kept a monthly check on it.

Oh and I am home all day. And have been for since before we moved back in march so it is not that I am suddenly using more electric. I have a laptop rather than desktop so that uses a lot less electric. If I want to listen to the radio or play cds then it is via my laptop. Still use and always have in most rooms energy saving bulbs.

And the only things that are on all the time are fridge/freezer, the answer machine and of course the combi boiler. No different to in the flat apart from the fact that the fridge/freezer is a brand new one that is A rated so uses a lot less electric.

So any idea anyone. I going to be making a effort to 1) not use the tumble drier use the towel radiator in the bathroom to air my washing on and 2) not use my slow cooker and see what difference that makes in a month and 3) try and avoid using the little electric heater.

And the only other final thing to do is to go out and get a job or spend more time up my mums and use her electric :rotfl:


Yours


Calley

irnbru_2

calleyw wrote:

I am one of these sad people who takes a water/gas/electric meter readings once a month. And yes I even put it in a spreadsheet so I can track month on month what the useage is. Mainly so I can spot problems before they become big problems.

Pah! Monthly! For this quarter I'm doing it daily to evaluate the storage heaters etc.

calleyw wrote:

Anyway this month our electric useage has nearly tripled well to be pedantic 2.7 times higher. The reading went from 64 units for october to 178 for november. Now as winter is coming I would expect the electric bill to go up a bit. But not sure that much. The problem is we only moved in to this house back in March so have never had a winter here yet. We have had no other major changes apart from new central heating put in.

At the start of November?

calleyw wrote:

Oh and I am home all day. And have been for since before we moved back in march so it is not that I am suddenly using more electric. I have a laptop rather than desktop so that uses a lot less electric. If I want to listen to the radio or play cds then it is via my laptop. Still use and always have in most rooms energy saving bulbs.

I work from home, two desktops going plus TFT monitor. I use about 8 units in the standard rate. Storage heaters , so only fire is living room one in the evening when it gets cold.

calleyw wrote:

So any idea anyone.

Don't have central heating but I would post the settings and someone might be able to help you out from there.

calleyw

we use to live in a one bedroom flat with a F rated fridge/freezer with a sava plug on as well. Everything else the same and used about 500 units a quarter.

We have now moved to a 3 bedroom house only change is A rated fridge freezer and the last bill was £22 for electric. Where as in the old place it was £43 a quarter. Big difference.

I suppose the our electric useage is good but it just worries about the huge jump when nothing else has changed.


Yours

Calley

calleyw

irnbru wrote:

At the start of November?

Don't have central heating but I would post the settings and someone might be able to help you out from there.

We take a meter readings on the 24th of the month as that was when we moved in to the house and had to take readings anyway.

I am not sure if in the info for the boiler if gives the anything useful about the pump on the boiler. It has been in since mid august but of course we have hardly needed the heating on. I will drag it out and see what it says.

Yours

Calley

LSM_2

68 units!! 178!! I wish! We use 34 a day! due to an electric aga! :mad:

calleyw

LSM wrote:

68 units!! 178!! I wish! We use 34 a day! due to an electric aga! :mad:

OMG I would love an gas aga but when I saw how much they use per week I went don't think so.

If that was me out the window it would go.


Yours


Calley

Seamus

Does your new central heating system have a hot water tank with an immersion heater ?

This immersion heater should only be used when your boiler is knackered so that you can still get hot water and is basically a big electric element inside the tank. If this has been switched on by accident it could account for a large rise in electricity usage.

calleyw

Seamus wrote:

Does your new central heating system have a hot water tank with an immersion heater ?

This immersion heater should only be used when your boiler is knackered so that you can still get hot water and is basically a big electric element inside the tank. If this has been switched on by accident it could account for a large rise in electricity usage.

Nope. I thought I said it was combi boiler. Actually a condensing combi boiler and the one before was a hot water tank but that was heated by gas as well.


Yours

Calley

LSM_2

calleyw wrote:

OMG I would love an gas aga but when I saw how much they use per week I went don't think so.

If that was me out the window it would go.


Yours


Calley

To be fair, we don't need any other heating in a 3 bed farm house! :eek:

Cardew

178 units in a month in winter is still very low. You are only using an additional 3.5kWh per day more than Oct - which is easily accounted for.

The clocks going back and an extra hours lighting would account for some of this, and your post gives the other reasons.

seaniboy

4)have been using on the odd occasion to keep warm a little electric heater so I warm one room rather than the whole house. Use it for about 5/10 mins and then switch it off until I feel cold and then put it on again

here is your culprit, they are darn cheap to buy and expensive to run