horrendous elec bill

gupsta

Perhaps one of the fridge / freezers is faulty, causing the compressor to run longer/continuously.

Your central heating boiler will use some electric. Mine is rated at 190watts. Most of that will be the central heating pump.

How old is the meter ? Modern meters are digital. Got mine replaced for free when I asked my supplier for economy 7.

Some computers can use alot of power. Does anyone leave a pc switched on overnight downloading ?

Yorkshire_Bred

I would get the meter checked out, I read somewhere that 3 out of every 10 meters checked are not within industry standard!

Is there any way you can check your average usage as opposed to previous years?

If you do go for the calibration test on your meter make sure you take the reading and serial number of the meter before it is changed.

richardc1983

Either way even if your fridge freezer was on all night it would not be using 10kw at night! Your using the equivalent of 10 x 1kw fan heaters left on for 10hours! Seriously not possible with what you are running.

A boiler also does not use that much, even a commercial boiler for a building doesnt use that much. IF you dont have an immersion and your kids are not using electric heaters to keep warm in their rooms on the sly then your meter is faulty. Guaranteed i used to work for British Gas too!

dc

You will be suprised how much fridge freezers, especially older less insulated ones use in a well heated home.

Get an energy monitor like an Owl which will check your total consumption, roughly to the nearest 10 watts or a cheaper plug energy meter from Lidl/Aldi (£6/7)that totals use via a single socket and can be moved around from socket to socket.

KimYeovil

Or use your kettle. It'll have it's wattage printed on it's base. Tip: do not tip kettle upside down to check when it contains boiling water.

[Edit: sorrry, never mind. Stupid idea. Boiling a 2.5kWh element for a short time and gauging meter reads is impractical.]

LumpyCustard_2

40 kwh/day does seem very high. I use on average 4.38 kwh/day, also heating house by gas, but fridge-freezer is on permanently due to overriding a fault, computer is on most of the time and use an electric oven. There's only one of me, so would expect your usage to exceed mine, but not by a factor of 10. Definitely get your meter checked.

jentiggy

British gas (or another Co) are coming next tuesday to rig up another meter to run alongside our meter for a week to compare.
If our meter is faulty then they will recalculate our bills (how?), and if not then we have to pay £43.00
Either way i need to get it sorted out - i have become manic switching off everything bar the essential, and this hasn't shown a reduction in my daily readings - still on average 30 units per day and 10 per night !!!
Will keep you updated to what happens after the end of the weeks test.
I will definately keep a notice of meter readings and meter no.

Alan_Vickers

Good uck jentiggy.

Can I suggest that you take simultaneous readings of all digits on each meter whilst you have the test meter in circuit.

SwanJon

Yorkshire_Bred wrote: »

I would get the meter checked out, I read somewhere that 3 out of every 10 meters checked are not within industry standard!

Where? I've always heard much lower than that, and remember that the suppliers will weed out the unneccesary tests.

jentiggy wrote: »

...another meter to run alongside our meter for a week to compare.
If our meter is faulty then they will recalculate our bills (how?)

If the Check Meter shows that your meter is 5% out they will adjust your bill by 5%.
What if it shows that you are using more than your meter shows?

dannymccann

There is no way you should be using 30kwh in the day hours of electricity. When im at home all day with the heating on (electric pump) TV, laptop, electric grill/hob, xbox/wii, lights, phone charging, fridge/freezer on all the time I use 5-7kwh in 24 hours!