2k electricity bill!! Could it be a faulty meter?

Richie-from-the-Boro

laurac12 wrote: »

What I truly cannot fathom is that between August 2011 and January 2012 we used roughly 2000 Kwh. Now somehow between January 2012 and May 2012 we've used 13000?!? Thats an increase of over 600%! We haven't had any new appliances and we've been using the storage heaters even less than we used to. Even if the wiring is mixed, the same shop has been there all the time, its a cash converters type place so all they use is lights, a computer and to plug things in to test they work when people bring them in. If it was a food place that needed big fridges or ovens I could maybe understand using that amount of electricity.

Thanks for your suggestions on how to proceed with this. I am going to switch everything off (with the exception of the fridge/freezer) while me and my partner are at work today and read the meters before we go and after we come back.

I don't think we've given the wrong meter reading by mistake, the other meter has a reading which is 6 digits long and ours is only 5.

I will call power back today with the meter reading they requested and ask them about the other meter (see if thats registered to any account) and ask how we can go about checking if that meter measures just our usage, just our heating/hot water usage or if it measures both properties usage.

I will also ask the people in the shop below us if they have an electricity meter on their property, if they do then that would indicate that both meters on our property are for us.

- don't focus on use [of] electricity [quantity]
- focus on the fact that they swapped [yours & the shops] the readings over
- getting the shop / your numbers mixed might mean your account may have suddenly jumped from for example :

- rate 01 / 222892 to - rate 01 / + £1200:00 worth of use
- rate 02 / 037664 to - rate 02 / + £800.00 worth of use

NOTE1 - you can switch the whole mains including freezer of for 4 hours it won't defrost
NOTE2 - what sort of meter do you have is - it an AMPY like the one in the pic I put up ?

Terrylw1

Forget about asking npower about tracing appliances its a call centre so they will give you very generic advice. Tracing requires for you to pay for an electrician but you can check where the meters are connecting to in terms of fusebox yourself.

What is the start reading for your 1st bill?

DVardysShadow

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

If its digital does it look like this ?
versa

Richie, could you either post a smaller image or link to an external host for the image? At its current size, it is making a mess of reading the thread, you have to scroll horizontally for each line.

molerat

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Richie, could you either post a smaller image or link to an external host for the image? At its current size, it is making a mess of reading the thread, you have to scroll horizontally for each line.

AdBlock Plus is your friend

DVardysShadow

molerat wrote: »

AdBlock Plus is your friend

No it is not. I don't want to block the picture.

I just don't want such a huge picture.

londonTiger

It's important to keep logs of your meter readings. It could be that for years the electricity company has been under estimating your bill. They did a meter reading after a long time and realised so. Now they're asking you to foot the bill. Tell the electricity company that you're a new tenant and inform your landlord about it. It's your landlords responsibility to pay for the bills that incurred prior to you moving in.

Richie-from-the-Boro

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Richie, could you either post a smaller image or link to an external host for the image? At its current size, it is making a mess of reading the thread, you have to scroll horizontally for each line.

- fair comment DVardysShadow
- I forgot everyone does not have my display capabilities
- it displays perfectly in mine .. .. but fair comment for others
- I'll zap the pic now and replace it later

Wywth

laurac12 wrote: »

...The meters were last read in January and were correct then, ...

laurac12 wrote: »

Thank you Cardew for your input but I'm 90% sure it is a digital meter (its too high for me to see and check!)...

How do you know it was correct in January then? :huh:

Wywth

laurac12 wrote: »

...Even if we'd left all our storage heaters and appliances on all day long ...

laurac12 wrote: »

I'm not on Economy 7, ...
Should I be on Economy 7? ...

If you use electric storage heaters, almost certainly you should be on E7 (or some other multi rate tariff)

Using storage heaters on a single rate supply will be tremendously expensive. It could explain why after 13 months you now owe £2k.

nPower

Hi laurac12,

That sounds like a really big jump in energy use!

I think it'll be worth checking we have the correct readings and the correct meter serial number for you.

If you can pop your details over to me at [EMAIL="forumresponse@npower.com"]forumresponse@npower.com[/EMAIL], I'll be able to take a look into this for you.

Many thanks,

Adam