Electricity usage increased and dont know why!

jonnyb1978

I have an old bill in front of me from 24/06/04 to 28/02/05. A period of just over 8 months. Now the bill states that i have used 2788 kwh units and my total bill is 277.05 + vat = £290.90

This works out about £36.36 a month and an average usage of 348.5kwh a month.

Now i have another bill dating 08/07/06-15/11/06 (more recent)
and i have used 1895 kwh units in this short 4 month period, averaging about 475kwh per month. The bill coming to £218. Also I have put £90 in the meter since december 1st

Now i understand there has been price increases so obviously i will be paying more but what i dont understand is the increasing amout of units used. I can not seem to find out where it is going. Im thinking maybe athe tumble dryer as this is the only thing new in the house. Could it use that much more energy???

I have monitored the prepayment meter today and at 09.40 am it stood at £6.30. 2 hours late it had gone down to £5.91 (The dryer being on for 1hr 20 mins).
I had a 3 hour sleep and turned everything off except the fridge and combi boiler and it still used 7p.
16.50 i turned the heating on and in 30 mins (17.30) it had shot down from £5.70 to £5.53. Thats 17p in 40 miinutes. The heating remained on until gone 18.00 and the metre still read £5.53!!!!!

This seems inconsistant to me. I can understand the dryer using alot but whilst asleep i dont get. (If i went on a months holiday with only fridge and boiler on i would still use about £17 worth of electricity). And why did it stay static at £5.53 when the heating was on.

How does it work.?? When you turn on an appliance does it take a large chunk out and then decrease slowly. Instead of turning things on and off am i just better leaving them on if i know im going to be using them regularly.

Any help please as this is bugging me.