Huge Electric Bill

sootypea

We live in a three bed semi all our heat and hot water is gas. we have the usual electric things all bulbs are energy efficient. our Electric bill for October was unusually high £289.07 the gas was £90.00. I have just put the meter readings in today and the gas is £350.00 and the electric is £1000.00. surely there has to be something wrong I have checked the meter again and it appears to be going round properly and we have used two units in an hour tv, washer and comp on.

Magentasue

Could it be that you have been paying less than you should have for a while? Look at your opening reading on your bill - is it actual (A) or estimated (E)?

Take some readings daily for a week and see how many you use - maybe more than you think.

sootypea

No all my readings are put in when they email me for them the bill has not been estimated for tho years

Magentasue

What was your bill for this quarter last year. Anything changed? The obvious things are electric heaters, tumble drier etc but lots of halogen spotlights, plasma TV on for hours etc can add up.

Unless you can see somewhere a clerical error could have been made?

You really need to know how many kwh a day you're using and how many you would expect to be using.

sootypea

Hi the electric was £151.29 and the gas was £270.51

Magentasue

Well, your October bill looks high to me - not as bad as this one but bad enough.

Do you have any ideas? What do you use that could do so much damage? Or what other explanation could there be?

sootypea

none what so ever just looked at all the bills on there web sight and it just jumped up in October the only thing that we had fitted was a new shower. and a new consumer unit in August all our appliances are energy efficient. we have used 5 units in three hours up to now I will have to call them tomorrow and see what they say

Magentasue

Is it an electric shower? What rating? Not saying it would be easy to use a thousand pounds of electricity standing under it, but it may be a contributing factor.

We are using about 15 units a day - more on tumble drying days. We're using a unit every hour just having two TVs etc, lights (low energy) and background stuff (fridge/freezer/laptops etc). 5 units in 3 hours isn't excessive if you're in and using a fair bit of stuff.