Help with electric bill

Catwin_2

Hey, I'm with e-on on their standard electricity and gas plan, which I know isn't their cheapest. I moved in in september. When I moved I gave them our readings.

this month I sent them our readings again, and while our gas readings were lower than they had expected our electric is crazily high, they sent a bill through for £504, this is on top of the £55 they have already charged us for electricity

so from the 13th september to the 11th of december it looks like we have used 4586kwh of electricity... thats about what the average household uses annually... in less than three months...
our house is gas central heated, uses gas to heat the water, we dont use a tv.... there are 4 laptops, one desktop computer, a washing machine and a tumble dryer... a normal sized fridge/freezer
there is one 2kw fan heater that has been in use occasionally this month...

but surely this bill is insane...?
help!

closed

take readings for a few days, and make sure any hidden heating appliances/heavy users of electricity like immersion heaters/security lights are switched off.

sure you supplied correct readings both times, is the bill based on actual readings?

As you have a 2kw fan heater, should be relatively easy to check the accuracy of the meter, take a background reading for an hour without it on, and same again after an hour with it on.

if the meter is spinning like crazy, go around the house switching everything off one by one until it stops or slows to a crawl

The bill equates to approx 2kw/hour.

toolmaker54

Or get an energy meter, not as accurate as a meter reading, but if anything is switched on, or left on this will indicate it.

Probably not relevant to you but as an example we have a fish pond, which had a pump and water filter fitted, after we bought our meter I found the pump and filter were pulling 1Kw every four hours, this was on 24/7 so the total cost for the year was £180. Its been off a year now and the fish seem just as happy as before.

jalexa

Catwin wrote: »

so from the 13th september to the 11th of december it looks like we have used 4586kwh of electricity...

Does "4586" appear on the bill? Are the associated readings marked Actual, Customer or Estimated? If Customer is that the number you provided? What is the reading on the meter today? What type of meter dials do you have?

but surely this bill is insane...?

That depends on answers to the above questions.

chris1973

there is one 2kw fan heater that has been in use occasionally this month...

How 'occasionally' ??

For example, if its a cheap model with no thermostat and has been left running on full for 10 hours a day at the weekends then that is potentially 40 units used right there. However just because it has only been used at the weekends, some might say that its use was 'occasional' but it would still be responsible for a chunk of the bill

So we have to know, how often and for how long in order to say whether its relevant for part of this bill.

A tumble dryer with a 2kw - 2.2kw element would also use a similar amount