Electricity bill 5x higher after smart meter installation

emv

We have a complicated metering situation. We live in a village which was a care village owned by a charity so there was one electricity meter for the village & one bill. When we moved in, all properties still shared the meter & we only took it over & started paying the bill when the developer (who owns the rest of the village) installed separate meters for all of his properties. That left us with 2 properties that ran off one meter.


Our bill was ridiculously cheap, the 2 properties are a 6 bed house & a much bigger but empty property where the only electricity usage is the odd light turned on when we're in there. We had a new smart meter installed last week & the bill has jumped from £30/month to what looks likely to be £150/month.


Although we'd checked as much as we could & were fairly certain that the meter was covering both buildings, I guess that the previous bill was only for the building we don't use & wasn't covering the building where we live. But as it's jumped so much, how do I know that it isn't covering any other buildings that we don't own? We're planning to turn off electrical supply to one then both buildings tomorrow to check usage from each & to see if anything registers when there's neither turned on.


Is there any point me asking to have the meter checked or is there a risk that they'd tell me we should have been paying a much higher rate since we took over the meter? Do I just accept that we had a bargain & now we're paying fairly? £150/month seems high, I have to accept though £30 was also much too low!

naedanger

emv wrote: »

Is there any point me asking to have the meter checked or is there a risk that they'd tell me we should have been paying a much higher rate since we took over the meter?

If you ask for the meter to be checked then you will have to pay the cost of testing the meter if it turns out not to be faulty.

Also it sound more likely that a fault (if any) will not be with the meter itself but rather the wiring after the meter.

You could pay your own electrician to see whether he can see a problem with the wiring on your side of the meter.

If you get your supplier to do any investigations then if they find a historic problem then they can bill you for at least the last 12 months under-charge, and five or six years of undercharging if they were not to blame for the previous undercharging.

Do I just accept that we had a bargain & now we're paying fairly?

I think you should do the testing you have already planned and see what that reveals. If it does not look like there is another property wired into your supply you could go on to monitor your usage more closely to see if that reveals a more subtle problem.

£150/month seems high, I have to accept though £30 was also much too low!

You don't need to accept unexplained usage. You can keep monitoring until you understand what is happening. Of course if you ask your supplier to do any checking they can correct any faults that were acting to undercharge you.

Norman_Castle

Was the £30 covering what you used or was it too low and has now been adjusted to cover a more recent reading and possibly previous underpayment?.

emv

The £30 was what we paid, my estimate of £150 is based on the KWh we are now using - we were using 300 a month, we've used 150 in 5 days now, :-(

Cardew

What heating?

emv

LPG heating not electric. We do have 4 fridges/freezers, washing machine, tumble dryer. All cookers are LPG, electric oven.

chanz4

Under floor heating? Been honest I live in a new build and myn is £55 for electric alone, exc gas

Norman_Castle

We're planning to turn off electrical supply to one then both buildings tomorrow to check usage from each & to see if anything registers when there's neither turned on.

Turning the power off in the empty house for hours if possible would help identify unknown use. In my experience fridges and freezers use much more than expected. As the compressors only run intermittently you will need an extended test for these to register.

With such an odd initial supply arrangement there could be connections to other properties.

emv

Today we turned the power off to different buildings for 2 hours at a time. With power to all buildings turned off there was no usage. The 'empty' property alone used 1KWh in 2 hours, our cottage alone 3KWh (while we were out). We now have both buildings & a woodwork workshop we own turned on & have a full house including guests. In an hour (will wait 2 but was impatient to check!) we've used 4 KWH. So it does seem like but the usage is from out house. Doesn't it? Confusing myself with so many figures!

brewerdave

For that rate of use (4kw per hour), there has to be a heater of some sort on consuming leccy -immersion heater,fan heater, old panel heater ???
Or were you using your electric oven?
I'm not particularly careful with leccy usage - for instance,we have 3 fridge freezers on at the moment ,2 in the garage, but we are only using ~ 14kwh per day.

Norman_Castle

The 'empty' property alone used 1KWh in 2 hours, our cottage alone 3KWh (while we were out).

What is switched on in the empty property?. A plug in monitor would help find out how much the fridges are using.