Massive jump in electricity consumption....how?

Magentasue

diddydiner

Do you have any electric heating or an immersion heater?

NicoC_3

I really sympathise with you! I've just rung the electricity company because our electricity seems to take a huge leap when we moved into our new house. We are apparently using 24 units a day. Again I don't see how this is possible but they have increased our direct debit from £40 a month to £98 to cover this!! :eek: They are exactly the same appliances, we have energy saving lightbulbs. It makes so little sense. All the bloke on the phone could say was that it was a new meter so they run faster than the old ones (well can we have our old one back then please!). I'm really cross because when we moved in their was a card meter in and the old bloke said he spent £10 a week- I asked for a normal meter to be put in because we didn't use that much!! Wish I'd kept in now.

To top this, we seem to be getting through £50 worth of oil a week as well- we live in a lovely house but I'm starting to long for our old rubbish 50s terrace- at least the bills were small!

bradshawce

Know exactly how you feel slummymummyof3.
In my 4 bed detached household we have 3 kids, 2 adults and someone in the house most of the week so you can guess where my readings are going to be.
Just took a reading for Scottish power as the last 2 were estimates (bad move) and the electricity has jumped by nearly 9000 units in 3 months!!! That's an average of 100 units per day :eek::o
Over the year though it agerages out to 29 units so not too unhappy but a hell of a shock all the same.
We were paing £160 per month for dual fuel now they want to raise it to £213.

I have an efergy meter and will be paying it more attention in future. As I sit here typing at 11pm it's showing 840w. Everyone else is in bed and I thought everything was turned off. Going on a Watt hunt now.

greenbee

Those of you using laptops and PCs... check your power settings to ensure that they are minimised. There's been some recent testing of laptops using vista showing them using approx 250 watts when idle unless the power management settings are adjusted! This is significantly higher than XP (approx 80 watts when idle). Use sleep/standby/hibernate (6/4/3 watts) when away from the machine and shut down (off at mains) when not in use.

You should be able to alter the power management settings so that the Vista idle/standby states are equivalent to the XP ones... it'll make a significant difference.

BTW... new electricity meters don't run faster than old ones, they all measure kilowatt hours. However, those kilowatt hours are more expensive than they used to be! Make sure you're submitting meter readings to your supplier regularly so that your costs are based on usage not estimates, otherwise all the good work you do cutting down will be ignored.