Electricity meter help :/

Gettingcross

Hi, I'm a student living in privately rented accommodation with a few friends. Im concerned about how much we're paying for our electricity, or rather how much we're apparently using. We top up about £90 a month, and for four people living in a small flat, I thought that a bit excessive.

There is nothing on in the house, apart from fridge etc, and the light on the meter is flashing approximately once every 1.31 seconds. It's an 800imp/kwh meter so that's 1kwh every 17 minutes?? That just seems too much...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks,

Dan

spiro

To help people reply better please quote the kwh used instead of or as well as £s.

Also are you all elec or do you have GSH as this makes a big difference?

Gettingcross

I'm not really sure of my total consumption for the whole month. I'll record it over the next week.

It's gsh so that won't make a difference. I just wanted to know if that was an unusual amount of energy to be using when everything was off. I think we pay 12.9p per unit as well.

spiro

As a comparison, I live in a 4 bed terrace house, two adults and we used 4175 kwh in the last year (348/month). I pay 21.13p for the 1st 84.66 units per month and 10.2p after that so my costs for a month would be £44.75.

Gettingcross

I'll record how much I use in the next week and I'll compare then. Thanks

Premier_2

Gettingcross wrote: »

...There is nothing on in the house, apart from fridge etc, and the light on the meter is flashing approximately once every 1.31 seconds. It's an 800imp/kwh meter so that's 1kwh every 17 minutes?? That just seems too much....

It is. A fridge should not be using 3kW an hour.
Turn the fridge off for an hour - it'll be fine as long as you keep the door closed
The meter should stop flashing and the reading at the start of the hour should be the same as at the end.

If it's not, you've probably got something else on somewhere (like a light, a computer, etc) and probably a few more high drain items.

To check the meter itself is not faulty and reading a consumption when there isn't any, just turn all the power off at the isolation switch and then the meter will stop flashing
You'll probably also hear the screams from your housemates when you do this, so highlighting that they are using electricity somewhere.

Gettingcross

I just turned everything off, and it stopped flashing, however, it does seem to be quite intermittent. As in this morning when I first posted, the light was going crazy when nothing was on, but now when a few more things (lights, computer, tv) are on, it's flashing much less and at a much more reasonable rate.

I'll try and turn everything off when I catch it going crazy next time

If I ring npower, do they have to come and check it? My housemate rang before and they fobbed him off with some story about it being cold and dark, so we'd use much more

Thanks

frugalmacdugal

Hi,

Gettingcross wrote: »

As in this morning when I first posted, the light was going crazy when nothing was on,

do you have a water heater on in the mornings, maybe somebody in the shower, even boiling a kettle speeds it up.

t0rt0ise

If you have gas central heating on, it will likely have an electric pump. Mine uses tons of electricity. Far more than I thought it would but it's an old boiler.

Gettingcross

The shower wasn't on at the time. If there is a heater, it's unknown to us.

Gettingcross

That could definitely be it. The boiler is as old as hell. Although the heating is on now, and its not using much. How much does yours use?