Electric bills out of control - advice needed

matelodave

I still find it hard to believe that you are using 24kwh a day just for household energy.

Even on a major washing day when the washing machine & tumble are flogging their hearts out (four cycles each) the most we can manage is about 19kwh.

That's with a couple of computers on all day, a 3D printer, fridge, freezer, printer, two dehumidifiers, sky box, humax box, 55" TV, surround system, lighting, oven hob and some other odds and sods.

So your consumption just seems excessive especially overnight

ajbell

Something very wrong with 24kwh usage in 24 hours without heating.

mbmonty

silfe wrote: »

Okay, so 24hr readings:

Total 24hr Domestic 23.21kW
Total 24hr Heating 50.14kW
Total Combined 73.35kW

Total off the meter: £9.17

So less than the £15 a day we've averaged over October, but we didn't do much washing or anything.

I want to get that down to half that a day at least.. but the storage heaters are using 50kW and we cannot control them, that's just the hydro switching them on. We could manually turn them off I guess but the house sits at about 15-16C even with them on from the hydro, if we turn them off the house would be even colder as they'd not charge til the hydro randomly puts them back on.

Complained to the council that they aren't efficient and don't heat the house but they don't care as technically they work. I have 3 young kids and apparently 15-16c is perfectly fine.

Oh also on top of the £450 electric for October we also had about £100 in coal bills as it's the only way to have any sort of real heat in the living room.

It is all very well quoting new readings but you really need to check things now.

Starting with the meter and the storage units.

They are the two most likely issues for the volume of electricity you say you are using, either they are on in the day because they are on the wrong circuit or the timer on the meter that turns on the nighttime tariff is faulty.

You did not answer my query about debt on the meter, in my experience most prepaid or key meters get put in because of unpaid bills, hence I asked.

With regard to council do a deal, get match funding or just do it yourself, by your figures you have spent £15k over the last three years and £1200 per annum more for coal.

If the heaters are useless that is another reason to do it

Meanwhile get rid of the tank and of course the old freezer, nobody needs more than one firdge freezer.

Smodlet

Move south to somewhere civilised with mains gas! For the money you are spending you could surely do so as it would pay for itself in months! And I thought it were grim oop 'ere!

House_Martin

Ok , back to the prepayment meter. It is possibly an Actaris or a Landis and Gyr or an Itron prepay meter with a blue button.They all register the details on the same screens.
For Eco 7 the day rate is on screen "H " ( 6 presses ) with the tariff for that rate on the next screen "I " night rate is on "J " tariff on "K". Screen "G " is the total of the day and night.

Possibly there is debt on the meter and its deducting this every week.Screens "S " and T show the debt and the weekly recovery amount.,. check if the the meter taking off a weekly debt .£16 a week is the max these meters can take off.
You will need the key inserted to see the debt screens S and T

silfe

There is no debt on the meter, we are always in credit with it.

House_Martin

silfe wrote: »

There is no debt on the meter, we are always in credit with it.

Might be worth a gamble ( about £70 ) with asking the supplier to fit a "check " meter alongside the meter.
We have had a few digital gas meters on here in the last few years with dodgy digits adding lots of units.
On my rounds its not uncommon to see a check meter installed. Suppliers have to bill the cost of installing one if the normal meter is found to be OK tho so its a bit of a gamble
.Someone could check how accurate the meter is by switching everything off and just using a 1 kwh (one bar ) electric fire for one hour which should only use exactly 1 unit on the meter
Another mess up is the timer switches which are frequently faulty or nowhere near the correct timings for the switchovers leading to more units billed at high rate

badmemory

silfe wrote: »

I have had a marine tank for about 1 year during the 3 years we lived here. Only just started up again. The bills have always been high, tank or not. Everything on it is very low wattage (ie pumps are 4-10w, led lights 80w, just the heaters that are big but they are controlled by thermostat so not on that often).

How much are your aerators using? They need to be on all the time with marines.

mbmonty

Well not much point asking for help if you do not take the advice given or answer questions asked in order to help you.

Good Luck