270 units of electricity in 2 days?!

spiro

Read the meter, check everything thats switched on and read it an hour later to see what you are using. The repeat but this time switch everything off (including fridge and freezer) this should show almost no consumption, if it shows lots of consumption then something is on you dont realise.

If possible post the readings and a photo of the meter so can confirm its being read correctly.

Ther next stage would be for an accuracy check which in its basic form is a 'kettle test'.

rlc22

Thanks everyone for your help.

I just thought I'd add an update to say the offender seems to be the air source heat pump.

The plumber and someone from the manufacturer are going to look at it next week to try and work out what's going on.

Mickey_Mouse_4

Does £1.82 per cubic metre make sense?

4$£&*(£$&*(!

rlc22 wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your help.

I just thought I'd add an update to say the offender seems to be the air source heat pump.

The plumber and someone from the manufacturer are going to look at it next week to try and work out what's going on.

Air source heat pumps are not cheap to run, contrary to the expectations of many. Typically for every unit of electricity put into one, you get between 2.5 - 3 units worth of heat back out. So let's say you have a two bar electric fire in a room to keep it warm, that won't be cheap at all, but imagine that will then give you the equivalent of two more of those fires to heat the rest of the house. It still munches electric but on a less worse scale from the amount of heat it generates.

Also the colder it gets, the harder it is to extract heat out of the air. They are only any good down to minus 16c roughly which until December we would have laughed at, it never gets that cold across most of the country (but it very nearly did this time).

On a cost basis you can equate running air sourced heat pumps similarly to oil fuelled heating. More expensive than gas but ASHP is more convenient than oil if you cannot have gas. Sadly the cheapest way (other than burning wood) to heat a home is gas still.

grahamc2003

CitySlicker wrote: »

Air source heat pumps are not cheap to run, contrary to the expectations of many. Typically for every unit of electricity put into one, you get between 2.5 - 3 units worth of heat back out. So let's say you have a two bar electric fire in a room to keep it warm, that won't be cheap at all, but imagine that will then give you the equivalent of two more of those fires to heat the rest of the house. It still munches electric but on a less worse scale from the amount of heat it generates.

Also the colder it gets, the harder it is to extract heat out of the air. They are only any good down to minus 16c roughly which until December we would have laughed at, it never gets that cold across most of the country (but it very nearly did this time).

On a cost basis you can equate running air sourced heat pumps similarly to oil fuelled heating. More expensive than gas but ASHP is more convenient than oil if you cannot have gas. Sadly the cheapest way (other than burning wood) to heat a home is gas still.

If you get 3kw out for 1kw in (i.e. a cop of 3), then that would make the cost compatible with gas.

These days, you can get units with cops of approaching 6 (i.e. 6kw of heat out for 1kw of power in), at the standard temps these are measured at. As you say, these drop the lower the temperature, but conversely, rise at higher ambient temps. I wouldn't use a heatpump in very cold conditions for the reasons you state, I'd use other heating in those extreme conditions, and hope they don't occur too often.

But that is not the problem of such a massive use of electricity. The fault here, afaiui, is the 8kw resistive heaters some heat pumps use under certain conditions. I think it's pretty bad design myself, but some heat pumps simply switch on a great 8kw heater to assist the heat pump to maintain internal temperatures when otherwise the heatpump couldn't. The danger of this is that the 8kw heater seems to be invisible to the user.

I certainly wouldn't buy any sort of heatpump which sometimes relied on resistive heating assist.

4$£&*(£$&*(!

It has been a while since I looked at ASHP cop, it has clearly improved in that case, depending what the manufacturers say when they inspect the unit it could be worth upgrading it.

Now the idea I do like is solar panels powering ASHP, that would give you free heating in the daytime.

rlc22

CitySlicker wrote: »

It has been a while since I looked at ASHP cop, it has clearly improved in that case, depending what the manufacturers say when they inspect the unit it could be worth upgrading it.

Now the idea I do like is solar panels powering ASHP, that would give you free heating in the daytime.

I don't really know anything about it at all, but I do know that when my mum spoke to the plumber they were quite alarmed by the readings they were getting as they far exceeded the manufacturers claims. Apparently my parents went for the ASHP that was meant to be best in low temps etc, etc... It will be interesting to see what they say next week.

They have solar panels too which kick in to power the ASHP, but they've not had much sun lately to benefit from it. Roll on the longer, sunnier days!

bushyh

I have a long thread about an asp on another site where I am in dispute with the builder about the capacity of the pump. What this does mean is I have many meter rreadings we have 2000 sq ft, 3 of us in the house. When the system comes on at 6.30 and goes off at 9pm I use around 80 units a day and I would add that has only given me a temperature of about 15C (which is why I am in dispute). If on 24 hours it uses 112 units a day, I do probably between 4 and 6 loads of washing a week, rarely use the tumble dryer, dishwasher probably once a day.