Eon - paying £35+ per week for electric - help!

MorbidX

EdGasket wrote: »

Maybe someone has tacked themselves onto your wiring? Known it happen.

You need to turn everything off from time to time and actually check the meter is not advancing; if it is then a neighbour is using your elecricity.

A possibility.

Easiest way to do this is trip your main fuse on your consumer unit for half hour- to an hour (Freezer will be fine!) and see if the reading increases.

You're using about 1.25 - 1.5kwh per hour on average.

When you and your husband are at home working what are you doing generally? Both using PC's etc?

Turquoise1975

Pc is constantly on during the day as it is an online business, & i am packing orders.
My neighbours both sides are lovely people so i don't think that is a possibility & we have chatted to them about how much they use, so i think if they were doing something they shouldn't it would have frightened them into disconnecting from us lol & we are still paying the same.

EdGasket

NO NO NO.
Tripping the consumer unit won't show if someone is plugged into your circuit. The usual way a neighbour does this is to piggy-back off an electrical socket in the wall. If you simply trip the consumer unit then none of your circuits are live so the meter definitely won't turn. Instead you just need to unplug/switch off everything but leave electricity connected to your wiring.

If you are in a flat, it's possible that some of your circuit is powering another flat if they haven't been correctly isolated; especially if its a converted flat.

aleph_0

Eon are charging you based on what you use. So, either the meter is faulty, or you are using the electricity, or someone is stealing your electricity accidently/deliberately.

As others have said, to test the first, see what happens when you switch off power at the fusebox, and then what happens if you turn off all your appliances. If you run an appliances with a known load, does the meter run at the right rate?

The second possibility is you have got something running that is constantly drawing electricity that you're not aware of/forgot about. I assume you probably don't have a hot water tank, but immersion heaters left running constantly are expensive. Do you have any electric heaters or towel rails running constantly?

It's also worth investigating whether a neighbour is using your power somehow. If the power is still flowing with all your appliances off, then systematically trip the fuse on each circuit to work out where the power is going. Once you've identified the circuit, I'm not sure what the next step would be. Maybe try tripping the power on that circuit at a time that you might be able to see the results (e.g. neighbour home with lights home/tv on).

At the very least, if you can identify the dodgy circuit, you might be able to live with that circuit switched off until you solve things.

aleph_0

Turquoise1975 wrote: »

Pc is constantly on during the day as it is an online business, & i am packing orders.
My neighbours both sides are lovely people so i don't think that is a possibility & we have chatted to them about how much they use, so i think if they were doing something they shouldn't it would have frightened them into disconnecting from us lol & we are still paying the same.

I don't know think this is likely, but it's possible that, for example, someone's immersion heater has been wired in to your circuit by the previous owners, or by a poor tradesmen, that your neighbours don't know about.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi Turquoise1975

I'm sorry you were given some duff information when you called and for the upset caused by some of the advisors you spoke with.

There's no charge for a Standard Load Test. There is, though, currently a charge of £93 for a check meter. This is fully refundable if the meter turns out to be faulty.

Before going down the check meter route, I'd do as others have suggested and keep a check on the ongoing usage. Take regular meter readings and see if it's possible to pinpoint where the bulk of the electricity is going.

One thing to be aware of is the daily standing charge. This is currently £1.82 per week and comes off the credit regardless of how much electricity is used. Fully appreciate, this isn't a great percentage of your overall spend but it'll contribute to the money going down whilst you're away.

Have to say, your gas spend does seem low, particularly if the figures quoted include a winter period. Do you use any electric heaters as well as the gas central heating? Is there an electric water immersion heater?

Electric heaters/water immersion heaters can be expensive to run.

Once you've a good picture of your usage in kWh, talk to our prepayment specialists (contact details are on your statements). They've access to much more of your metering information and will have a better understanding of what's been going on.

There'll be notes on the account, too, following the visit from our Energy Efficiency lady. These will help.

See what our specialists say. Go down the prepayment complaints route. If, after 56 days, we've not come up with a satisfactory resolution you can go to the Ombudsman for an independent review.

As you've contacted us about this before, your complaint will be back dated to this first contact. From what you say, I suspect this will eat well into the 56 days.

Sorry again for upsetting you but hope this helps point you in the right direction. Let me know if you need any more details as will be happy to help.

Malc