Electricity usage gone through the roof

headoutthesand

I have an online capped tariff with SP and pay £110 per month for dual fuel on a 3 bedroom semi with rubbish windows and 20yr old boiler.

When I entered my quarterly reading on Thursday, my electricity usage had jumped from 6kw/h to 16!!!!

I put another readying in last night and it claims my usage over 3 days is £7 per day. I haven't really been at home over the weekend and I'm very miticulous about switching things off at the wall

The only change in household appliances/gadgets/habits is a new TiVo box and wireless hub and even then, I've only had them a month and only had them switched on on Sunday night from 6pm -10.30pm.

Any advice on what I should do?? Based on my weekend usage my bill will jump to £217pm which I cannot afford

victor2

It is no use dealing with monetary amounts, look at your usage in kWh.
You say your electricity usage has jumped from 6kWh to 16. Is that per day and over what period is it based?
Read your electricity meter daily, at about the same time, to get an idea what your current usage is. If you only give readings quarterly, you could have had a period of much higher usage than normal in that quarter, but it's now back to normal.

The monthly payments may also be trying to recover the debt, which may be higher than expected at this time of year, but the main thing is to concentrate on what the current usage is.

penrhyn

Thats two threads you have started on the same subject. I'm on the other one:D

headoutthesand

Sorry - I posted it on the tv board then thought it was better placed in gas & electric.....

I under stand about the price being irrelevant at the moment but it is the usage that's causing me to worry

In the last 2 years my usage is between 6 and 8 per month. The highest it has been before now was 10 and even then it was during the awful weather, snow and -10 conditions (and Christmas) in 2010.

When I log on to my SP account I can also see in a graph when my usage peaks and drops. It starts to peak from march and hasn't dropped at all

As I said earlier, I switch everything off. When I leave for work at 8.45am the only things on at the plug are my washing machine, tumble dryer, fridge freezer, oven, house alarm, boiler, bedside alarm clock but these are all things that have been consistant since before the usage sky rocketed

I'm keeping a log of my readings when I go to bed at night, leave in the morning and come in each night at 6pm

Is a week long enough to do this before I contact my supplier?

Thanks in advance

victor2

headoutthesand wrote: »

In the last 2 years my usage is between 6 and 8 per month. The highest it has been before now was 10 and even then it was during the awful weather, snow and -10 conditions (and Christmas) in 2010.

6 and 8 what per month?

You want to get an idea of how many kWh of electricity you are using in a typical day or week.
If you're using gas for heating and hot water then your electricity usage will only vary slightly due to the seasons, especially if you have low energy light bulbs. So if you take the total kWh used over a particular billing period and divide it by the number of days in that period you'll get an average daily usage.
If the only power consuming change to the way you live your life is the Tivo box and wireless router, they're unlikely to have made a huge difference. Take readings for about a week to get an idea what you're currently using. If you notice a peak on a particular day, consider what appliance(s) were used in that day. Basically, anything that produces heat is likely to be a high energy user, but once you've got an idea what a typical day's usage is, you can experiment with using or not using certain items.

Maestro.

Process of elimination is the only way to do it. It's easier if the meter has a wheel... turn absolutely everything off and flick things on one by one to see what causes the wheel to go berserk.

One potential problem could be the oven... you say you leave it on at the switch. I have to turn mine off at the wall because the oven temp knob is faulty and sometimes isn't "off" when it says it off... result is the oven would keep coming on and off, you might have something similar.

It could also be a faulty meter, which process of elimination should help find out.

molerat

headoutthesand wrote: »

Sorry - I posted it on the tv board then thought it was better placed in gas & electric.....

I under stand about the price being irrelevant at the moment but it is the usage that's causing me to worry

In the last 2 years my usage is between 6 and 8 per month. The highest it has been before now was 10 and even then it was during the awful weather, snow and -10 conditions (and Christmas) in 2010.

When I log on to my SP account I can also see in a graph when my usage peaks and drops. It starts to peak from march and hasn't dropped at all

As I said earlier, I switch everything off. When I leave for work at 8.45am the only things on at the plug are my washing machine, tumble dryer, fridge freezer, oven, house alarm, boiler, bedside alarm clock but these are all things that have been consistant since before the usage sky rocketed

I'm keeping a log of my readings when I go to bed at night, leave in the morning and come in each night at 6pm

Is a week long enough to do this before I contact my supplier?

Thanks in advance

Is this graph from meter reads you have supplied or from their (not very) clever computer predictions ?

headoutthesand

victor2 wrote: »

6 and 8 what per month?

That should have read that my average daily usage during the month has always been between 6 and 8 Kw/h

I phoned SP today and had the girl go over it all. She has said that over the last few years in the winter, my average daily usage is between 8 and 9Kw/H (except for December 2010 when it was 10).

She also said to log daily readings online and keep a note of what appliances are used and what the readings are before and after using them.

To answer some of the other questions;

My oven is an eye level oven and the switch to turn off the power is in the wall behind the oven. I have no other means of turning it off without removing the oven from the unit. It runs a digital clock so is always using power but again, it's been doing this for 2+ years so not likely to be that.

I don't run electric heaters or imersion heating, it's all off my gas boiler.

The graph view on my SP account isn't projected, it's a view of my usage from previous months based on my monthly input of readings.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to reply. I guess i'll just have to wait another week and see what I come up with.

victor2

If it's just a period in the last month that saw your usage go very high and it's now back to normal, you may not find the cause. If you have an electric shower, that will use a lot, but generally only for short periods. Tumble dryers can use a lot of energy too as they tend to be on for longer periods of time.
Takes time and you risk becoming an energy anorak, but monitoring your daily usage is probably the best way to do it without investing in any special equipment, although some libraries will loan an electricity monitor.