£3000 Hilarious, well, not really

xMADxCHR15

Hi all

I am currently with EDF at the moment and we've just had our end of year settlement bill come through and to my surprise, apparently we owe an extra £3000!!!

To give you an idea, we live in a 2 bed cottage. Very small, all electric on economy7 rate.
We have just discovered that for the whole of this period our meter has never switched to economy7 at night. This had now been rectified and a new economy7 box has been installed.
We have been instructed to take readings every day for the following week to determine how much electricity we are using in each rate to work out a more accurate bill.
Fine.
Since seeing this huge bill you can imagine the panic we came under. So for the last 5 days we have used on average, per day

day rate: 1/2hr heating. 6hrs tv and lighting (2 energy efficient lamps, 1 40W bulb)

night rate: 4 1/2 hrs heating, 2 wash loads, 2 tumble

now our meter readings for these last few days have said we've used, per day 75 units!!
50 in the day rate and 25 at evening rate. Per day!

Surely that is too much!

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry for the long post

KimYeovil

There is something else contributing to your 50 kWhs during the day. If it came from your TV you would be able to tell (by the smell of smoldering plastic and silicon).

Are you sure there is no heater being left on during the day? The 25 kWhs is a little low for the whole cottage - that would only cover a couple of rooms at most.

xMADxCHR15

We do not own any heaters. All we have is our central heating which is on a timer at the moment to come on for 1hr during the day rate. Like I said there is nothing else on. I am out of the house from 6.30am until 7pm. So the main bulk of these apparent 50 units is from 7pm until 12.30 when the economy7 first kicks in. By which time I am asleep anyway with everything turned off

stewie_griffin

How do you heat your water? Could it be that you have unwittingly left your immersion heater on 24/7.

KimYeovil

(I mean check that none of your storage heaters are switched on in radiant rather than storage mode.)

anonymousie

Anyone siphonning off your leccy? Other houses usig it? cannabis farm??(:rotfl:Ok but it's not unknown for 2 properties to run on 1 meter)

JasX

check it every 6 hours, and if they're basing your whole annual bill on this week I'd do my best to use as little electricity during the day/non-cheap rate evening but use your evening heating as usual....

xMADxCHR15

@stewie_griffin. From my understanding, which is very little. Our Immersion only has an on off switch and a boost button, there is no way to have it timed. If it helps we have a Heatrae Sadia ElectroMax boiler

I appreciate the comment about the basis of the bill and using as little as possible during the day but that's what we are trying to do.
Hence the 1hr of heat during the day and the 4 1/2 during the night. Trust me that's not how we usually operate

stewie_griffin

I take it you've only been switching on the immersion heater when you need hot water and for as little time as possible.If this is the case and you're only using your heating for 1 hour per day then something else must be using the electricity. Have you tried turning everything off and checking if the meter is still going round? If it does then there is either something else using the electricity that you're not aware of or your meter is faulty.

markharding557

I am a bit confused whether the op has electric central heating or storage heaters this will make a big difference because you wouldn't want storage heaters taking power in the day time

JennyR68

Are you sure you've got the reads the right way round?