Help with measuring my electricity.

WestonDave

Just a thought - what shower do you have - is it an instant heat electric one - if so how long and often do you shower for. I know our shower can easily eat 4-6kWh per day.

Hughie73

Thank you all for your help today guys.

Is there anything though that will tell me precisely where my electricity is going? It's driving me nuts........

WestonDave

Might be worth having a look at your council website to see if they loan out the electricity monitors - ours does. That might give you an easier visual way of seeing what's going on. (To be honest you can usually pick them up on ebay for about £15!). They aren't totally accurate but they do give a clear visual indicator of when large amounts of power are being used, and you can then use that to go around switching things off.

Another potential high drain culprit might be a secondary electric element in your hot water tank. If that has accidentally got switched on and left on for an extended period, it could be draining a lot of energy away.

alanq

For plug-in devices the amount of electricity being used can be monitored with a device such as this.

http://www.maplin.co.uk/plug-in-electricity-cost-and-usage-calculator-223573

That's no help with wired-in devices though.

There isn't an electric heater left on in garage or loft?

WestonDave wrote: »

Might be worth having a look at your council website to see if they loan out the electricity monitors - ours does.

Where available they are usually borrowed from a public library.

welshee

Hughie73 wrote: »

Thank you Val and Swanjon.

I beg your pardon but my gas and electric combined is £211pcm.
My electricity was £134.97 last month - still too high!!!


I've given some details below.......


Estimated meter reading 30/11/12 - 6351
Estimated meter reading 31/12/12 - 7434


Units - 1083


Kilowatt-hours - 1083
Pence per kilowatt-hour - 12.463
Total cost - £134.97


Amount outstanding - £850


Last month bill was also £134.


I use a tumble dryer once a week only.

amount oustanding is the clue to cost here i think.
A debt is on the direct debit...i think.

alanq

welshee wrote: »

amount oustanding is the clue to cost here i think.
A debt is on the direct debit...i think.

Nope!

Units used 1083 (allegedly).

Price per kWh 12.463p

1083*£0.12463=£134.97.

alanq

There's something strange here. Using a price comparison website and entering a South-Eastern postcode (costs vary a little between regions) I found a Utility Warehouse tariff costing 12.463p per kWh.

That is ex VAT so unit price should be 5% higher.
That is for a High User tariff with an additional 18.082p per day standing charge that has not been mentioned.

Using those figures the bill seems too low for the amount of electricity allegedly used.

HappyMJ

alanq wrote: »

There's something strange here. Using a price comparison website and entering a South-Eastern postcode (costs vary a little between regions) I found a Utility Warehouse tariff costing 12.463p per kWh.

That is ex VAT so unit price should be 5% higher.
That is for a High User tariff with an additional 18.082p per day standing charge that has not been mentioned.

Using those figures the bill seems too low for the amount of electricity allegedly used.

As OP stated only "some" information from the bill was provided. The actual bill is £211 a month so it comes from the electric usage plus the standing charges plus the gas usage plus it's standing charges plus monthly membership fee plus vat.

undaunted

Each appliance will have a rating stamped on a plate on the back or bottom, eg your kettle is possibly 2000 or 3000w. An electric fire or fan heater might be similar.

If you take that rating and x by no. of hours used then / 1000 it will tell you how many kw it used in that time

eg 2000w appliance used for 5 hours continuously = 2000w x 5h /1000 = 10kw - about £1.25 based on the above unit price.

Alternatively you can buy an electricity monitor cheaply eg http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalog?q=electricity+monitor&hl=en&cr=countryUK%7CcountryGB&gbv=2&safe=vss&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=6541309796622430079#

securityguy

Something's clearly awry. We have a three bedroomed house, gas central heating, gas cooking (so similar to the OP's), and every reason why our electricity bill should be high. We do a fair amount of home working, have made no particular effort to install low energy bulbs, have two fridges one of which is at least twenty years old, make regular use of a tumble drier, have several computers running 24x7, and so on. Measured at the meter tails, our base load (ie, the electricity we're using at two in the morning with everything that can go off turned off) is close to 300W. Even so, our electricity bill averages out at only around £80 per month.

To get through 1083 units in a month implies an average load of 1.5kW. There are 720ish hours in a month, so anything more than 720 units means an average consumption of more than 1kW. That's a massive amount of electricity. I would start to worry if someone else was tapping off my supply to run their cannabis farm!