Huge electricity consumption in a brand new house

hellesangel

After a series of errors by our monumentally incompetent electricity provider (who shall remain nameless for eons) we've just got our first bill in two years, and it's huge - thousands, run up in just two years. Now I check the meter and it's showing over 20,000kWh consumed, which is almost impossible for a family of 2 adults with baby twins. Yes, I'm kicking myself for not checking sooner.

The house is a brand new, energy efficient house, fitted with LED lights almost everywhere, an air heat pump for heating, and then everything else we had in our old house which worked fine there. The fuses are modern earth leakage protection types. There are two digital 3 phase electricity meters of type ED300L, one for the heat pump (day, night tarif), and a second for everything else, and it's the 'everything else' meter that's the problem. The electrician who fitted the house, under contract from the building company, was also not the sharpest tool in the box, and could have made any error or shortcut possible to get the job done any way possible. A second electrician has verified the heat pump is correctly wired to its meter and not to the house. There's also a heat exchanging ventilation system (decentralised type, 5 separate ventilation units, all individually controllable), and electrically powered blinds on all windows. The builder, who is reputable and consciencous, built 12 houses exactly the same and nobody else has this problem.

Now I start to analyse our consumption I see that the house and everything in it (except heating and hot water which are separate) consumes 20kWh a day on average, which is about triple what it should be according to my research. I've started unplugging everything that's on standby, TVs, stereo, etc. and fitted power meters to the fridge and washing machine. As soon as I get the opportunity I'll switch everything in the house off at the fuses and go through them all, one by one, and see which one has background consumption I would not expect.

My question is this - what can possibly be using 20kWh per day? With that much consumption it must be getting hot, it should be fairly obvious, and as I can't find it it must be well hidden. From an initial test on the fuses, turning everything off and then back on one by one there was no obvious single source, so it may be multiple points. What could an incompetent electrician do that would burn power? Badly wired LED dimmers? Motors in the blinds somehow permanently consuming power? Somehow crossed wiring that 'leaks' current without tripping the circuit breakers?

Any help gratefully received, we're going to have a massive problem to pay this bill, or get someone else to acknowledge they have an obligation to pay a part. But first things first, find out what's going on and stop it getting worse. Thanks in advance.

HappyMJ

hellesangel wrote: »

After a series of errors by our monumentally incompetent electricity provider (who shall remain nameless for eons) we've just got our first bill in two years, and it's huge - thousands, run up in just two years. Now I check the meter and it's showing over 20,000kWh consumed, which is almost impossible for a family of 2 adults with baby twins. Yes, I'm kicking myself for not checking sooner.

The house is a brand new, energy efficient house, fitted with LED lights almost everywhere, an air heat pump for heating, and then everything else we had in our old house which worked fine there. The fuses are modern earth leakage protection types. There are two digital 3 phase electricity meters of type ED300L, one for the heat pump (day, night tarif), and a second for everything else, and it's the 'everything else' meter that's the problem. The electrician who fitted the house, under contract from the building company, was also not the sharpest tool in the box, and could have made any error or shortcut possible to get the job done any way possible. A second electrician has verified the heat pump is correctly wired to its meter and not to the house. There's also a heat exchanging ventilation system (decentralised type, 5 separate ventilation units, all individually controllable), and electrically powered blinds on all windows. The builder, who is reputable and consciencous, built 12 houses exactly the same and nobody else has this problem.

Now I start to analyse our consumption I see that the house and everything in it consumes 20kWh a day on average, which is about triple what it should be according to my research. I've started unplugging everything that's on standby, TVs, stereo, etc. and fitted power meters to the fridge and washing machine. As soon as I get the opportunity I'll switch everything in the house off at the fuses and go through them all, one by one, and see which one has background consumption I would not expect.

My question is this - what can possibly be using 20kWh per day? With that much consumption it must be getting hot, it should be fairly obvious, and as I can't find it it must be well hidden. From an initial test on the fuses, turning everything off and then back on one by one there was no obvious single source, so it may be multiple points. What could an incompetent electrician do that would burn power? Badly wired LED dimmers? Motors in the blinds somehow permanently consuming power? Somehow crossed wiring that 'leaks' current without tripping the circuit breakers?

Any help gratefully received, we're going to have a massive problem to pay this bill, or get someone else to acknowledge they have an obligation to pay a part. But first things first, find out what's going on and stop it getting worse. Thanks in advance.

20kWh a day is fantastic. That's very low. I would be very happy to only use 20kWh per day. What's the problem?

You are using electricity for everything so you have to ignore averages.

20,000kWh in two years is very good. You don't have any problem at all using that amount. That's actually less than average if you really must use averages....but as I said they do not apply to you.

If the bill is too high then look to switch suppliers and get your bill down.

edit: What's using the most? The electric immersion element in your hot water cylinder.

tiger0cub

We had air heating in our flat (rented) using a gas heater and immersion heating for water which we couldn't control (it had fixed summer and winter control), just the two of us not a big flat purpose built and our bills were high. Think we were paying £98 a month.

btr30

For an all electric house 20 kWh per day does not seem excessive.
That equates to an average load of 0.8 kW.
The big users will be the heat pump, hot water immersion heaters, electric shower. Limiting the running hours of these would make the biggest impact in reducing your consumption.

Cardew

With your heat exchanging ventilation system, who is the Heat Pump system manufacturer? Could it be NIBE?


http://www.nibe.co.uk/Products/Exhaust-air-heat-pumps/


If so do a search on MSE and the internet!


The UK annual average electricity consumption is apparently 3,300kWh(9kWh a day) many of us with gas/oil CH still use far more than 9kWh.

Rubidium

You have a 3 phase supply, required to power lots of electrical gear, so why the surprise at 20kWh per day. As stated averages do not apply to your property which is very different from the norm.

If you have ED300L meters these will display your consumption of the last 1, 7, 30, and 365 days, so you really have no excuse for not knowing how much you have consumed and the cost, even if your supplier has only recently supplied you with a bill.

As you have neglected to read your meters until now, I'm guessing that you have not researched to find the best possible tariffs for your usage and switched accordingly, which would likely give you a big saving.

hellesangel

Thanks for the replies everyone - the heating & hot water system (the heat pump heat exchanger and compressor, the backup immersion heater, the heating system pumps and valves) are all on a separate meter which is currently showing ca. 9000kWh for both tarifs combined which is absolutely fine. The heat pump is from Vaillant and all 12 houses in the development have the same unit with no problems.

The 20,000kWh are only for everything else (no heating, no hot water) and that is a massive problem. It's basically impossible - the house seems to 'leak' large amounts of electricity. Where can this be going? We have devices on standby, the fridge obviously, but these account for only a fraction of what's being consumed. I'm an electronic engineer and understand how electricity works, I'm stumped.

Oh, and re. not checking the meter, our twins were prematurely born as we moved into the house, which was still being completed, so we had plenty of other things to think about than the electricity meter.

saveallmymoney

Do you have a flashing LED on your meter?

If so you can get a smartphone app to read it and tell you the instant consumption, turn each breaker off and then back on one by one until you find the problem.

Could just be an immersion switch left on.

hellesangel

I've read something about this in the meter's instructions, will check it out, but I couldn't get the day/week/month readings to show so I think our meter is some sort of simplified version. Thanks for the tip though.

Sadly I'm quite sure the immersion heater is on the other meter, and we've verified this being correctly wired.

Cardew

4,500kWh pa for an air source heat pump providing heating and hot water is excellent - almost unbelievable excellent; particularly with two babies and presumably the house occupied during the day.


You have confirmed the 'conventional' immersion heater is wired to the correct meter(i.e. not included in the 20,000kWh 2 year total) and switched off.


However is there a second immersion heater that kicks in automatically when the ASHP cannot cope(for short periods) with the demand for space heating and domestic hot water?


If you are convinced that the 20,000kWh does not include a proportion of the Heat Pump/immersion consumption, then it should be fairly easy to narrow down the culprit causing the heavy consumption. The dryer will presumably be used a great deal.

[Deleted User]

Just to give you a comparison.

Our all electric 100+ year old [large by modern standards] house consumes ~8000kWh pa. This is rural Scotland.

Heating/hot water is done by a 14kw ASHP, 95% of all lighting is LED. I try to be frugal but not easy as house is usually occupied, two fridges, two freezers, children!!!...

Temps are 21c occupied, 18c unoccupied.

We do have solar PV which helps.

Cheers