nPower Usage - Please Help

CeePeeBee

Hi Guys,

(posted on here before but had to register a new account)

Little bit of background:

Switched to nPower in May 2010. Gave them a physical reading, and since then every bill has been estimated. We had a direct debit for Electricity and Gas with them totalling £72 per month.

For one reason or another our DD bounced last month and we thought we'd take the opportunity to give a physical reading and start from scratch. Cutting a bit of the story, the bill came to £740 Electricity and £130 Gas (£888). The reason for this was that a) the estimates had been so far out, b) the direct debit was apportioned as £66 to Gas and only £5 to Electricity. This wasn't picked up by anybody (not just nPowers fault...we are to blame for the lack of readings).

So off the back of this we have an electricity monitor now. The tariff we are on is about 14p for the first x number of units then 12p after. I setup the monitor at worst case scenario of 14p. The monitor is so far saying we are using around £2.60 a day in Electricity?!? I honestly can't see where this is coming from....no spikes or anything other than a kettle being used occasionally and the oven obviously...everything else is fairly static.

I know monitors aren't to be taken literally all the time, but the readings are fairly static in terms of our usage....anyone any ideas where to look first or what to do about the usage?
:(:(:(

As for the £888 bill...luckily we had the means to pay that this month and start afresh (by moving from nPower!) as the direct debit from nPower is stating at least £260 based on the physical readings a year apart!

Any help or advice on either score is greatly appreciated.

KimYeovil

What does your electricity METER say you are spending per day? £2.60 is 18 units at 14p per unit (though technically you should be using the lower tier two price).

18 kWhs is a sizeable amount - do you have an electric hob as well as oven? Showers also use more than you think.

But first thing is to check your useage with your meter rather than the monitor.

CeePeeBee

KimYeovil wrote: »

What does your electricity METER say you are spending per day? £2.60 is 18 units at 14p per unit (though technically you should be using the lower tier two price).

18 kWhs is a sizeable amount - do you have an electric hob as well as oven? Showers also use more than you think.

But first thing is to check your useage with your meter rather than the monitor.

Right so If I take a reading tonight, and then take a reading same time tomorrow night and get my kW/h usage, I can find out the actual. I'll have a looksee but I can't see it being a million miles away.

As for usage....Gas hob, gas central heating (obviously the thermostat and the pump on the tank is electric) computer is on 24/7 too...might turn that off for a day to see what it looks like (but it's drawing only a small amount). Other than that..energy efficient bulbs in lights...and TV...with about 5-6 units on standby (dvd players etc..). Then you have the usual like Fridge/Freezer etc.

macman

The things to focus on are heating, hot water, cooking, and high consumption white goods like tumble driers. All the other stuff is minimal in comparison. Maybe add electrical showers to that list, though they're rarely on for more than a few minutes.

CeePeeBee

macman wrote: »

The things to focus on are heating, hot water, cooking, and high consumption white goods like tumble driers. All the other stuff is minimal in comparison. Maybe add electrical showers to that list, though they're rarely on for more than a few minutes.

Thanks for that. Washing Machine is once a week...obviously Fridge/Freezer is on constant....cooking is intermittent as we say. Hot Water is something I've looked at in the last couple of days...timing, not having it on 24/7 etc.. However Electrical Shower is something worth looking at also...we have an issue currently with it tripping out and having to be put back on at the box.

Might be an issue? Is it worth paying a trusted leccy guy to come in and look around for issues? Or is that pointless?

Cheers

macman

If your electric shower is tripping out, then something is clearly wrong and you should get it sorted as a priority! Is the cable adequate for the rating of the shower-did you upgrade the shower without upgrading the cable? It's tripping for a reason and is doing so for your safety.
Also sounds like you have no dedicated RCD on the shower?
How is your hot water currently produced and controlled? Assuming you have gas CH, it should be heated by the boiler. If you have a back up immersion heater that has been left on 24/7, that will probably explain your very high electrcity consumption.
Leaving the PC etc on 24/7 is unnecessary and wasteful, but it doesn't use very much power.

undaunted

There are some typical consumption by appliance here which you may be able to compare with what you are running

http://www.carbonfootprint.com/energyconsumption.html

You should be able to negotiate a payment plan with Npower to pay the bill (obviously plus future usage) over the same period it accrued - so I reckon 10 months would give more like £176 pm (£888/10 debt plus the same again for future use)

Whether your bounced DD indicates any difficulties or not I'm not sure but suppliers are required / expected by Ofgem to consider affordability when setting debt repayment plans

CeePeeBee

undaunted wrote: »

There are some typical consumption by appliance here which you may be able to compare with what you are running


You should be able to negotiate a payment plan with Npower to pay the bill (obviously plus future usage) over the same period it accrued - so I reckon 10 months would give more like £176 pm (£888/10 debt plus the same again for future use)

Whether your bounced DD indicates any difficulties or not I'm not sure but suppliers are required / expected by Ofgem to consider affordability when setting debt repayment plans

I agree, and I told them that but the basically said the only thing they could do was give us a pre-payment meter....however if I required £10 to be put on the meter, i'd have to pay £20.

Hence I told them politely to go away.

techno12

macman wrote: »

Leaving the PC etc on 24/7 is unnecessary and wasteful, but it doesn't use very much power.

I beg to differ - putting my PC into standby whenever I wasn't using it caused my electricity consumption to drop by 1/3. Started doing this a few years ago and was amazed how much I was saving.

I have an nPower monitor as well and can see it's using 175w when on (including the other gubbins like printers on standby and speakers etc) so that's 4kw a day if left on 24/7

macman

Those monitors are rarely accurate at such low levels of consumption. A modern PC won't use as much as 175W when in standby.

techno12

macman wrote: »

Those monitors are rarely accurate at such low levels of consumption. A modern PC won't use as much as 175W when in standby.

I know, that's why I said it was using 175w when ON. It uses 2w standby as my Intellipanel switches everything else connected off (monitor, speakers etc) when the PC is in standby so the 2w is just the trickle charge to maintain the memory voltage etc.

I have a separate plug in electricity usage meter as well, so know the figures for my PC.