Business using more kw/h when everything switched off - why ?

whiteswan

Hi

I am obviously missing something obvious here - I received my renewal for my fixed price electricity contract which is due to end sept 2016.

It lists the kw/h used under day rate - and also under night rate.

It reads thus........

day units - annual usage 24776 kwh
night units - annual usage 30751 kwh

Now why would MORE units have been used at night in the last 12 months than the DAY ?

The business is closed at night time and nobody lives on the premises. All lights are extinguished when me and my staff leave and all tv's radios etc switched off.

The only thing on is the alarm system - which is checked twice a year and is not faulty.

Any ideas ?

The meter is read on a regular basis and all my bills are from actual readings - so not estimates.

I will call and ask them on Monday morning - but they don't open weekends so thought I would ask here first.

Dave

Jonesya

Ideas:
Data is wrong.
Meter fault, perhaps with the clock?
Or, you really do use a lot of electricity over night - how is the place heated? Any storage heaters, or normal heaters which are left running overnight?

Robin9

Although you have a meter with 2 registers that does not necessarily mean that you have an offpeak tariff - it could be that the two readings are added together.

What is on your bill ? Could you post a copy -but blank out the personal info.

firefox1956

Electric water heater ???
Maybe an old clockwork Off Peak clock that has become many hours wrong ??

Smodlet

Heaven forbid, someone is breaking in, somehow without setting off the alarm and using your juice? Extremely unlikely, I know but there are incidences of electricity being stolen by some method I do not understand, meters being "hacked"? This is probably nonsense, sorry.

Taiko

Could even be a dial meter, and the day dial has clocked?

[Deleted User]

I see this quite often. The supplier may be transposing the readings, night and day readings getting reversed. Also its possible that the timer switch is`nt set at the correct time.Timer switch comes in three flavours- old analogue 24 hr circular timer with a pointer which should be set around the present time- a digital meter (many variations ) like the Ampy meter with a blue button which has its own built in clock- Radio Teleswitch timers are very accurate to a minute or so and rarely go s wrong.
As another poster has mentioned one of the registers may have "gone round the clock " Eco 7 digital meters may also show a "total " register and even this register may not be a sum of the night/day if the registers have gone round the clock as the older meters will do.

Rubidium

sacsquacco wrote: »

I see this quite often. The supplier may be transposing the readings, night and day readings getting reversed. Also its possible that the timer switch is`nt set at the correct time.Timer switch comes in three flavours- old analogue 24 hr circular timer with a pointer which should be set around the present time- a digital meter (many variations ) like the Ampy meter with a blue button which has its own built in clock-Radio Teleswitch , very accurate to a minute or so.

The Ampy meters with the blue button to cycle though the data that you refer to e.g. as shown below do not have an accurate radio teleswitch built in.

They simply contain an RTC module that is designed to be sufficiently accurate over the certified life of the meter and they do drift significantly over time.



The spec states that the RTC accuracy is typically ± 0.5 seconds per day at 23 degrees Celsius but it could be a lot worse!

0.5 x 365 = 182.5 seconds

182.5 / 60 = 3.042 minutes

3.042 minutes x 20 year life = 60.833 minutes

Mr.Generous

i wonder how the day / night split is measured? if day use is when you are open, say 9-5 then night use is 16 hrs vs day use 8 hrs.

[Deleted User]

Rubidium wrote: »

The Ampy meters with the blue button to cycle though the data that you refer to e.g. as shown below do not have an accurate radio teleswitch built in.

They simply contain an RTC module that is designed to be sufficiently accurate over the certified life of the meter and they do drift significantly over time.



The spec states that the RTC accuracy is typically ± 0.5 seconds per day at 23 degrees Celsius but it could be a lot worse!

0.5 x 365 = 182.5 seconds

182.5 / 60 = 3.042 minutes

3.042 minutes x 20 year life = 60.833 minutes

Three types of timer switches..each one followed by a dash like that" - " to signify end of sentence.. Not good grammar I admit, just a rush job .

lstar337

firefox1956 wrote: »

Electric water heater ???
Maybe an old clockwork Off Peak clock that has become many hours wrong ??

Ours certainly is. It's pretty much dead-on 12 hours inverted, so we get cheap rate electric from 1pm - 7pm.

Much more advantageous to us as we are closed during normal E7 hours and we have no E7 heating. I called the supplier but they didn't care. I even got them to put it in writing so they couldn't try and bill us for it at a later date.