I think my average daily useage is high .. does anyone agree?

eurmalian

I don't know the technical details, whether it's like a leak or not, but faults with your electrical wiring or appliances can definitely cause you to use a lot more electric than you should. It's definitely a posibility, as is a fault with the meter causing it to run too fast. Unfortunately, checking all your wiring and appliances will cost you a fair bit, as will checking the meter if it turns out not to be faulty (as far as I know, most suppliers charge you for the check if the meter turns out to be fine).

molerat

E7 is probably costing you £2-300 per year over a normal plans. Your consumption is IRO £200 per month average. Def get that owl up and running. They are not 100% accurate but will give you an at a glance indication to what you are using. You can click things on and see in an instant what sort of consumption they have. And as has been mentioned take readings at least weekly if not daily.

Are you sure Mrs Phantomdog was not sitting in the conservatory in her bikini in the middle of january ?

macman

Phantomdog wrote: »

Thanks for all the help and suggestions.
If I do have a heated swimming pool in the garden, the wife must have had it hidden under the shed
I must say I didn't realise that you pay more for day time units if you're on E7. I will do all teh checks suggested and I also have one of those OWL whatchamacallits that I must set up.
Unfortunately gas for water heating and cooking is a bit of a no go. When we moved in there was no gas in the village, so it was oil fired from what looked like an oil drum in the kitchen, that sounded like a jet engine everytime it lit up. We got rid of that ASAP and lived without heating for 9 months until gas arrived then we just had a bolier fitted for the heating and not the water.
Anyway, as you say. Sort out the electric puzzle first.

I was reading online where someone had a similar issue and it turned out a neighbour had spliced into their power supply and was using it for heated lamps to grow cannabis in their shed!! I'm pretty sure none of my neighbours looked anymore spaced out than normal though, so that's probably out

One silly question, is it possible for electricity to "leak" i.e. some short or something that wouldnt blow a fuse/breaker but through which power could be drained to say heat the earth or a wall or something ? Just a thought.

If you didn't pay more for daytime E7 units, then everyone would be on E7 without exception! If you are not using at least 33% of your total units on E7 cheap rate, then it's costing you more than standard rate.
I suggest that you investigate as a priority having your CH system rejigged so that the boiler can supply your hot water, it's absurd to have a modern system that cannot supply your hot water-what make/model of boiler do you have? Even if this costs you a few hundred, you're going to recover that quite quickly given your insanely high electricity usage.
Get the Owl set up (it takes about 20 minutes) and give us some running consumption figures-something is seriously awry.
And work through dogshome's advice, which is spot on.

easylife73

Hello, just marking place to come back and check on this thread later! We're in a similar situation, as our latest electricity bill shows 3370 units for the last three month period, which would average out at about 13500 per annum. We had a new meter fitted last August, and the consumption seems to have shot up since then. Our average bills have been about £60 per month since then (family of 4 in a semi) which seems high to me. We've connected up an OWL monitor and had it on the energy usage rather than cost setting for the last 24 hours. Meter reading has gone up by about 13 units, but the OWL is showing 6.5 KWh. Am I right in thinking that, although not accurate, the OWL should have gone up by roughly the same amount as the meter? (Or is that incredibly simplistic?!?!)

Ben84

Our usage in a fairly average semi-detached house with four adults is around 100-120 kWh a week of electric. We heat the house and hot water with gas and use gas for both hob and oven cooking. Most this electric is actually used by our electric shower, as we discovered when it broke for a couple of weeks and the electric consumption dropped greatly.

So, comparatively, your usage does seem high.

Your bill should contain the meter readings (or estimates) and I presume you've confirmed these are similar to the numbers on the meters? If they are correct then I can only assume you either have something you've overlooked that's eating up the electric, your meter is faulty or there's been an error in the billing system.

As for economy seven, it's only worth using if a significant proportion of your electric consumption is overnight. People who use storage electric heaters and set their hot water to come on at night can benefit, but for just heating water you're probably spending more than you're saving through the higher unit costs the rest of the time. If you have a gas boiler that can heat the house and hot water tank, using electric, even economy seven electric for any heating is economically questionable anyway.

I pay about 8p a kWh for electric as a flat rate all day and even then I don't use electric to heat the water or house, my roughly 60% efficient gas back boiler is still the cheaper option as even when 40% of the energy goes up the chimney, gas going in at 2.5p a kWh still works out a lot cheaper, about 4.2p per kWh of energy delivered to the hot water tank/radiators. So, even with electric that is compared to the national average pretty cheap and with a minimally efficient boiler, gas still wins for heating the house and the hot water at the lowest cost.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Have a look at your hot water cylinder and check it is a proper E7 direct cylinder. It should have two holes [ with wiring coming out ] one top & one bottom Check the bottom hole / stat / element is connected to your night supply and the top is connected to your day supply. I assume you are using E7 night units because you say "" hear it at night when its on ""

If those wires are the wrong way round, you will be loosing a potential lot of money. If the cheap rate is into the top element you will only be heating 10-20% of the water volume [ top of the tank ] the other 80-90% above the bottom element never gets heated. Additionally if the cheap rate is into the top element turning the water heating on during the day will charge you full price for all 100% of the water volume in the tank.

You should never need to ' top up ' a proper E7 tank' unless you are spectacularly extravagant, or you have a dual fill washing machine on for most of all days, plus two very full baths / one bath average is 40-60 gallons.

Do you ever switch the day water on ? if you do it will eat a disproportionately huge part of your costs. If you also use baths rather than showers on day units it will easily use all of the extreme costs you mention.

grizzly1911

We have a 4 bed detached, fully insulated and double glazed.

Family of practically 4 adults (or 4 kids)

Gas for heating, water, and hob. 15000 kwh p.a. Thermostat is at 20C only on special occasions. No lounge fire used.

Electric - 7800kwh - Mostly energy efficient lighting, tumble drier 10 times a year max, our big user is the kids shower at 9kwh and we also do a lot of washing.

Energy monitor does track load increase/decreases and usually have a minimum background usage of 150 watts/hour during day.

Flat screen telly is also a culprit if left on all day...

bufferz

our electricty for a mid terrace of 6 is approx 10,000 kWh a year, mainly due to the tumble dryer/dishwasher/washing machine on every day virtually, the boiler is heated by an electric element, and tvs/laptops in every bedroom, etc, but our gas useage is only 1200 kWh a year, as gas is only on for the central heating and for the oven.

macman

Do you mean 12,000 kWh?

mattcanary

Has this large arrears on your electric payments accrued gradually or very quickly, ie : has it gradually gone up to this level or did it shoot up in one statement?

If it shot up in one go, was the electric meter changed then? This may well not have been processed correctly by the administrative sections