Electricity

Karrie

I read earlier that the average electricity usage per household is 4602 units per year. So where am I going wrong?

One adult one child - 3 bed house - I work full-time - am out of the house at 7.40am and not home til 4.30pm. I don't have the heating on all night. I use washing machine/dish washer at cheap rate times. Don't use my tumble dryer any more (for over a year now). All electrical items are never put on standby. I just looked up my electricity usage for the past year and it came out at 12340 units!!!! I've been pulling my hair out trying to work out where all this electricity is going. My house is double glazed. I had the loft insulated 2 years ago. Can anyone help? I used to live in a 2 bed house and was always always in credit but since I moved here they just want more and more money and I don't understand why when I spend all my time switching things off!

Bri_2205

You mention cheap rate, is your heating & hot water electric too (i.e. Storage & immersion heaters)? If so, you're not the 'average' household.

In fact, in my experience, there is no such thing as an average household

calleyw

I guess from the fact that you say you use electric on cheap rate you are on the economy 7 tariff and possibly heating by storage heaters. And cook by electric.

I am home all day and we (2 adult household) uses approx between 60-180 units a month. So take an average of 120 a month 1440 a year.

We heat by gas and cook by gas. Only things plugged in all the time is a the fridge /freezer and soon to arrive chest freezer that will increase our usage slightly.

What you need to do is turn everything off and I mean everything fridge/freezer (will not hurt as it is only going to be off for a matter of minutes). And then look at the meter. if it is still going around then it is one of two things

1) you have missed something like a immersion heater and it is on all day
2) you are supplying someone else with there electric

Not sure what else to suggest.

Yours

Calley

elvis_bloggs

Have you checked your attic lately. :eek:

Karrie

I haven't tried my attic lately! Do you know what though - I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone was living up there all nice and warm!!! :rotfl:

lovelyjubbly

Karrie, if you are on economy 7 tarrif, ie cheap rate at night I dont think your unit usage is too much, we only have electric, no gas, and night storage heaters, live in a 3 bed bungalow and try really hard to save electric where we can, and our average is just over 14,000 a year, we only have showers, never a bath, and don't heat the immersion tank at all, we wash the dishes with water from the kettle so no running hot water through pipes which is a waste of electric!. we pay £50 to southern electric a month and it is easily covered, with us in credit at the end of the year.

paul_h

If you have storage heaters, then as lovelyjubbly says, your usage is not excessive.

I'm not sure what type of house you live in, but the average heating requirement for a modern 3 bed detached house is 14,800 KWh per year, irrespective of your method of heating. This would be off-peak usage in the case of storage heaters.

Add to this your normal daytime peak electricity usage of probably 4000-5000 KWh per annum.