Electricity Meter Problems / High KW Usage

TFUNK

Hi everyone, we have a problem with (I think) our electricity meter and just wanted to put it out there to see if anyone had experienced something similar or could offer some advice. We took a meter reading recently and the kw's used was about 4/5 times more than we were expecting! So a few figures to start with:

We moved to EDF 28/10/13 and at the time the meter reading was 00093 (new build house, had been with British Gas for a couple of months before moving to them). We gave them a reading 30/12/13 of 00309. So that's 216kw used in 64 days, roughly 3.4kw per day.

Our next reading was 00443 on 06/02/14. So that would be 134kw in 38 days, just over 3.5kw per day.

Unfortunately for whatever reason we then didn't give them a meter reading for several months. When we realised we got one strait away and got a shock! On 11/07/14 our reading was 02490. So that would be a usage of 2047kw in 156 days, 13.1kw per day!

Obviously alarmed by this we called EDF who requested we take a weeks worth of meter readings so they could work out our usage (I actually took more than a week) and they worked out the average was 6.8kw per day. Not as high as 13 but still double our 'normal' usage. EDF are telling me that 6.8 is actually less than they would expect us to be using based on a very rough questionnaire they asked me (e.g. how many times a day do you boil the kettle). After spending over an hour on he phone arguing my point they said the only thing they could do is to send someone out to fit a monitor on our meter, this will stay on for about 2 weeks and tell them if it's faulty in any way. If there is no fault they will charge us £35 and wont enter into any further discussion about the abnormal reading. They've already entered the latest reading I gave them (02558) and taken the money from our account, we were in a fair bit of credit which is normal for us at this time of year however we are now £15 in debit. I've also ordered a Efergy home energy monitor so I can do my own investigation to see if there's something in our house using a massive amount of power. Having said that we have the same electrical items now that we did at the start of the term. The only changes have been selling a desktop PC and xbox 360, replacing them with a laptop and an xbox one. The laptop has a MUCH smaller power requirement than the desktop and I've got the xbone in power saving mode (so not 'always on').

I did have a theory about the wiring being mixed with next door as the power usage seems to have gone up since that house was sold, it was empty for the first few months. Other than that I'm completely lost to explain where this power is going or how we've been using 13kw a day!

macman

You don't say how the property is heated and hot watered, which will account for the vast majority of energy usage. So I'm assuming you have gas CH and DHW?
13kWh (not kW) is not that excessive. That means 4,745 kWh pa, whereas the average UK property uses about 3,300 kWh. So you are about 43% higher than average-but then we don't know the size of the property or the number of occupants.
Forget laptops and xboxes, what matters is heating, hot water, electric showers and white goods (tumble driers in particular).

TFUNK

Hi Macman. Thanks for the reply and guidance.

To answer your questions we have a 3 bed semi with 2 adults living there, both work full time. Gas combi for heating/hot water and gas hob. Big electrical items/white goods would be:

Oven
Washing Machine (with built in dryer)
Dish Washer
Large Double Door Fridge Freezer
Electric Shower

Other than that it's things like TV, Sky box, broadband router, laptop etc.

Now I understand the fridge freezer would be use a fair bit of power but we've had it (and all the other appliances) since the day we moved in. Our work patterns are the same so we're in the house roughly the same amount as we were and we aren't using things more or less than we ever have. I could understand if our consumption had been at that level from the start but it was much lower for months and I can't explain why it's increased. Also we've lived in a few property's before (some old, some new, various appliances) and we've never used anything like that level of electricity before. We're always in credit over the summer (granted that's more due to gas). EDF actually estimated a bill for us while I was taking that week of readings and they estimated it at 709 (it was actually 2558) and that's roughly where I expected it to be.

JJ_Egan

Measure your weekend usage via meter may give us a clue .

TFUNK

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Measure your weekend usage via meter may give us a clue .

If it helps here are the readings I recorded for EDF which includes the last 2 weekends (all taken at 8pm):

Fri 11/07 - 02490
Sat 12/07 - 02499
Sun 13/07 - 02505
Mon 14/07 - 02516
Tue 15/07 - 02520
Wed 16/07 - 02525
Thurs 17/07 - 02529
Fri 18/07 - 02533
Sat 19/07 - 02541
Sun 20/07 - 02548
Mon 21/07 -02558

I can see increases when we've been in the house but the only things that are on when we're here but otherwise off would be the TV, Oven (which obviously isn't on all the time) and lights. Dish washer and washing machine tend to be approx 3 loads a week each. We do use the dryer but it's normally a quick spin at the end of the wash and it isn't used all the time (which is again what we've always done even when using 3.whatever a day average).

Should hopefully get my energy monitor today so I can do a few checks myself, EDF are putting the blame on the fridge freezer so will be interesting to find out what's using all this power. My main concern was that they check the meter, don't find a problem and then I've got nowhere to go with it other than paying and putting up with it.

macman

Your next course would be to get a sparky in to check the circuits and appliances.
Have you tried testing a known consumption device, i.e. put a 1kw device on for an hour with everything else off and see if the meter increases 1 unit? Probably best done with an electric shower, as that'll have the highest rating.
Or do you by any chance have teenage kids who have started taking 15 minutes showers several times a day?
As I said, forget routers, laptops, PVR's etc; they are not relevant.

sheffield_lad

3.4kw per day is very very low for anyone other than a one bed bedsit etc as your double door fridge freezer would probably use most of that over 24hrs. The one that often causes the biggest use is the electric shower try checking the kw rating but typical is 9kw so that's 9 units per hour! Might be worth checking just how long you use the shower for.


13 units is what I would consider normal family use.

r2015

I use between 10 and 12 kWh a day for electricity with 2 off us in the house.


Water heating and cooking by gas.


Most usage is the computer, 2 monitors on all day, then the TV, the Sky box uses 40 watts so 1 kWh a day.


I have just come back from a weeks holiday where everything was switched off except the Sky box and fridge and freezer and the usage was 3 kWh a day.

matelodave

When we go away we leave the SKY box on standby as it does a bit of recording, the freezer stays on as well but we empty the fridge and shut it off. The router stays on with a couple of surveillance cameras and an energy monitor - everything is shut off at the wall and we average 3.0 kwh a day. When we are at home in summer we use between 8-11kwh a day and that includes cooking and water heating (we are all electric). high days are washing/dishwashing. We also have a couple of computers on nearly all day plus about 4-5 hours TV per day.

I reckon your 3.5kwh a day was a bit low, 7-10 is nearer the mark. If you use an electric shower then 5-6 minutes will use nearly a kwh.

Halogen downlighters left on when not needed can ramp it up as well - we had 10x50 watts in the kitchen, 2hrs a day = 1kwh

TFUNK

After reading these replies I'm starting to think the lower readings from the winter were wrong and the readings now are correct! To answer a few questions - no teenage kids only the 2 of us, I am guilty of the odd long shower in the morning (wont from now on!) and I'm going to do a test with everything off and one item on tomorrow when the wifes out to see if the meter is OK. Considering cancelling the meter check as I feel we may be throwing £35 down the drain.

Hope this isn't too stupid a question but I want to make sure we're reading this energy monitor correctly. Right now it says we're using 0.266kw. If that was constant (I know it will change) does that equate to 0.266kwh?

Again, thanks for all your replies and advice it's really helped.

macman

The energy monitors sold for consumer use are notoriously inaccurate, especially at low wattages such as 266W. The only accurate measure is your own electricity meter.