10,000 kwh of electricty per year, please help.

shelleuk

Just had my yearly review from EDF and apparently i used just short of 10,000 kwh of electricty last year. We live in a semi-detached house with 3 children and our heating source is gas central heating. I can't understand where all the energy is going. We have a biorb fishtank thats on all day and just the usual household things like tv, ps3 and lights (all enegy saving) etc. Im concerned that there may be a problem with the way the meters wired up. Before we moved into the previous owners replaced the storage heaters with GCH, the old wires are still conected to the electricity box. Lastnight i switched everything off except for the fish tank and the fridge/freezer and the wheel was still spinning round on the meter really fast. Before i start paying to have them check the meter is it possible that it might be broken or am i just consuming large amounts of electricity. Im thinking of buying a energy monitor from argos later to see whats going on. I just feel that 10,000 kwh is really excessive and its obvioulsy costing us a fortune too. Im paying about £360 per quarter.

Widelats

that is expensive, i only use £50 per quarter, yes get someone to check it.

penrhyn

Have you got an Immersion Heater on your hot water tank?
You seem to be using twice the average household consumption.
Switch everything off then check the meter.

HappyMJ

10,000kwh is excessive. The fish tank if rated at 60W would add about 500kw per year to the average bill which is around 3,300kw. You can switch the tank and the fridges/freezer off for a while trying to diagnose where the power is being used. Switch everything off until the meter stops spinning then gradually switch stuff back on.

DUTR

shelleuk wrote: »

Just had my yearly review from EDF and apparently i used just short of 10,000 kwh of electricty last year. We live in a semi-detached house Im thinking of buying a energy monitor from argos later to see whats going on. I just feel that 10,000 kwh is really excessive and its obvioulsy costing us a fortune too. Im paying about £360 per quarter.

That is good, my Mum used 12,000 and is a 1 bed flat :eek:

savemoney

Thats nearly double what we use and we not a low user unfortunately last year I used 5,184 kWh which comes to £498.07

You use around 27 kWh units per day we uses around 13-14. We dont have an immersion heater and use GCH


I would get a energy monitor and one of those plugin monitors to check how much things are taking

savemoney

"Lastnight i switched everything off except for the fish tank and the fridge/freezer and the wheel was still spinning round on the meter really fast."

If thats the case something isnt right, I doubt a fish tank and a fridge freezer would make the meter spin fast and FF dont run 24/7, are you sure you dont have an immersion heater on?

Check you bill to see it correspondence to your meter number

shelleuk

Thanks for the replies, i dont have an immersion heater i don't think, we have a combi condenser boiler.

penrhyn

Assuming you don't have a horticultural enterprise in the loft, then do as suggested turn everything off and check that the meter stops moving.

macman

You say that the property used to have storage heaters, so are you still on a E7 tariff by any chance? if so your bills will be much higher (though not your total kWh consumption), as all your daytime usage will be charged at E7 peak rate). Do you still have an E7 meter?
Then you need to check your meter and billing, are they both in the same units i.e. both metric (cu m) or both imperial (cu ft)? An error the wrong way here will triple your bill.
I suspect an error here when the meter was presumably changed back to non E7-you are possibly being measured in metric but billed in imperial.

penrhyn

Ummm, OP is concerned about their electricity consumption, not their gas. 1 unit = 1Kwh.