VERY high energy usage but why??

seabright

Turn everything off (even the freezers) and see what the meter does. Then turn on one thing at a time (freezers first).

If it's still whizz ing round when everything's is them the meter could well be faulty.

Why are you tumble drying in the summer? Rig up a line in the garden & you save lots

karenann76

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. We didn't get the boiler fixed because we couldn't afford it at the time. We will be getting it looked at this month though. Its a combi boiler by the way.

There has been no gas on this morning so far (lazy day!) and the metre hasn't moved. I just ran the hot water for 1 minute and the red numbers went from 73.5 - 77.1 that doesn't seem much does it?

Nada666

karenann76 wrote: »

There has been no gas on this morning so far (lazy day!) and the metre hasn't moved. I just ran the hot water for 1 minute and the red numbers went from 73.5 - 77.1 that doesn't seem much does it?

Yes it is. That would be about 60 or 71 kWh - far too high. Your boiler is not likely to be rated at more than 23 or 28 kWh. So something is amiss somewhere.

Or it could just be: Do you have a metric or an imperial meter? If you have a metric meter that could be your problem - you may be being charged for an imperial meter. Have you checked for that?

Anne_Marie_2

Agree that is very high, can you imagine what you are going through having a shower, or gawd forbid a bath? :eek: Get the boiler seen to asap.

Meadows

karenann76 wrote: »

We only have a gas boiler and for the last 9 months only the hot water has been on cos the heating was broken.

karenann76 wrote: »

The gas is 4 times as much, just for hot water though?

A few months ago we finally got an external expansion tank fitted to our boiler (after having to top up the boiler constantly due to no pressure and after having numerous plumbers out over the last year /18 months ish, all scratching their heads, saying there was no problem, could be a leak in the pipes (which would have meant carpet and floorboards up to try and trace a leak, and also meant that if that was the case no point getting a new boiler until the possible leak was found!).

While all this was going on my gas usage was 3 - 4 times normally use. Now I could understand that an inefficient boiler would cost more when using the heating but not just for hot water (or so we thought), but once the expansion tank was fitted the gas usage just for hot water has reverted back to what it was pre the problem with the pressure.

Nada666

Look on your bills to see how many kWhs a meter unit is being converted to. Divide the kWhs by number of meter units. The result will be either about 11.2 or about 32 or 33.

What you want is for your meter to be in cubic metres and the result from your bill to be 33. In such cases you will receive back two-thirds of your previous bills.

macman

karenann76 wrote: »

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated. We didn't get the boiler fixed because we couldn't afford it at the time. We will be getting it looked at this month though. Its a combi boiler by the way.

There has been no gas on this morning so far (lazy day!) and the metre hasn't moved. I just ran the hot water for 1 minute and the red numbers went from 73.5 - 77.1 that doesn't seem much does it?

But what you've wasted on electricity would have paid for the boiler repair several times over. Since the boiler is running OK on the DHW side, it can only be a relatively minor fault on the CH circuit, possibly a sticking pump or divertor valve.
Ignore the red numbers on your meter, you only read the black ones (whole units). If you've been submitting red numbers as part of your readings, then your billing will be massively out.
I repeat-post your annual kWh figures and you will get some meaningful advice. A meter reading over one minute tells us precisely nothing.
We also need to know if you have a metric or imperial meter-it's marked on the front (m3 or 100's cu ft)

macman

Nada666 wrote: »

Yes it is. That would be about 60 or 71 kWh - far too high. Your boiler is not likely to be rated at more than 23 or 28 kWh. So something is amiss somewhere.

Or it could just be: Do you have a metric or an imperial meter? If you have a metric meter that could be your problem - you may be being charged for an imperial meter. Have you checked for that?

But those are not whole units-they're red, hence decimals. Before noticing that I first calculated it as 41kWh (3.6 cu m) per minute (assuming a metric meter), which could only mean a (hugely) faulty meter.

macman

Speculaing for a moment in the absence of any more info, even assuming that the OP actually saw the red units increase from X.35 to X.71 (0.36 cu m) in one minute, that would be still be approx 4kWh a minute (20p). 240kWh per hour is not feasible either.
Either a misread or a meter error.

Peggybabcot

Just to throw a spanner in the works and don't ask me how it's possible but our bills (so we found out eventually) didn't match our metre number and somehow we were being billed for the wrong metre. Worth looking at as a potential reason for the high usage. Your neighbour may be having the heating on full blast, taking long luxurious baths every day and thinking wow our bills are cheap, all at your expense! x