Insane night electricity usage Economy 7

MBA1413

Hi MSE,

Just registered because I think we have a huge issue and don't know what's the problem.

We live in a 2 bed flat, built around 1990 in London. The house doesn't offer good insulation and it is electricity only with no way of supplying gas.

We are currently on a Economy 7 with EDF Energy and we are switching to Bulb. However we found out that our readings are just too high for our usage.

We are three people, working professionals who usually leave home around 8:30-9am and come back around 6-7pm. We cook about 2-3 times a week (usually on weekends) and we don't watch TV, try to use the washing machine and the dishwasher on weekends only to take advantage of the cheaper rate.

We don't use the storage heaters as they are really bad and don't actually help at all, so they have been switched off. The only high consuming things could be the fridge, the stove and perhaps the boiler? (we have one that heats the cold water electrically but does not store it as I have seen in other houses)

So our annual consumption based on the last 3-4 quarterly estimates says a usage of:
3500-4000 kWh day and 10500-11000 kWh night so 15000 kWh per year in total.

As you can see, it is saying we have a over 80% of usage in the night and 20% in the morning. They define night as any 7 hours from 22:00 to 7:00 which we think it is most likely 1:00 AM to 8:00 AM or so.

According to our schedule, this makes absolutely no sense. In addition, from 07 jun 2018 to 15 aug 2018 we used 408 kWh day and 1244 kWh night (again the asme pattern, over 80% night and 20% day).

If you do the numbers trying to average it per day (70 days 408 + 1244 = 1652) which is about 23.6 kWh. We think this is still pretty high. I am not sure how yours look like for electricity only? Bulb quotes us about £125 per month.

In addition, we just found out that they made a mistake reading our meters. as it stands now, it is 894 low (night) and 14539 normal (day) however in our statements it says about 14000 low and 900 normal. If they were inverted we should be paying way more than we are doing out as the bulk is coming from night instead of day but we just cannot explain why is this so high?

We don't think the fridge, not even cooking using an oven for 1 hour could drive this much. Is it the washing machine or the dishwasher? Can anybody shed some light on this? Last winter we paid almost £700 for 3 months because of the damn storage heaters as somehow we used them on "manual model" instead of the proper storage mode only.

Many thanks!

Marcio45

I used to live on a 2 bed flat and we had storage heaters and an electric hot water tank. We used to use around 15000 kwh a year. In winter it was painfull, some of colder months we would spend 140 pounds, but in summer no more than 50 a month.

We had economy 10 and usage was almost 50/50 in between day and night rate. Economy 10, although not offered by all companies, gives you a cheap electricity boost by lunch time and also in the evening.

From reading your post i cant understand what are you using for heating. The storage heaters are quite good if set up properly and make use of the cheapest night rate. Are you using convector heaters or something like that? The cost quickly adds up.

I used to love the little flat and the storage heaters as it meant the flat was always warn, at any time of day or night. The house i live now has gas central heating and you only feel nice and warm when the boiler is on. And i spend now lots more.

From your description i would imagine it is the boiler that is consuming that large amount of energy. The water immersion tank i had on the flat if left run for 24/day would spend a crazy amount of energy, but i put a clock in it so that it would only switch on for an hour a day. But then it was only needed for sink taps as we had an electric shower.

Robin9

Morning showers for 3 possibly account for 6 units a day that's £1 a day.

As Marcio45 asks - how do you heat your flat - panel heaters, ?

[Deleted User]

If they have transposed the day night you will owe the differences and they can backbill for the full ammount.You must inform them to rectify this.
visit an easy to use comparison site such as Ukpower.co uk/Uswitch. There you will find probably the lowest Eco 7 rates in the UK especially designed for Eco 7 meters with a low night rate usage.
Yorkshire Energys Green Badger Oct Fix rates are (S.Yorks area ) 12.55p/kwh day and 12.10pkwh night with a pretty low standing charge of 18p a day. London rates I expect will be higher.
You can see the 2 rates are so close together it does nt matter about low rate usage at all and even if they transposed them its not drastic.
Yorkshire Energy seem to be the only supplier to use this Eco 7 strategy and it will work fine for a large number of Eco 7 users
In my area they are almost the cheapest possible rates in the UK except for Enstroga who I notice seem to be doing the late Iresa Energy trick and not communicating with current customers.
The advice is to firstly get the best rates possible and look into energy saving with the usual advice such as LED bulbs throughout,and dont leave lights on when no ones in the rooms. Cut down on heavy use appliances, use a washing line to dry cloths, keep showers to less than 5 mins etc

Robin9

MBA1413 Check the actual E7 times for your flat - if you have an old electromechanical timeswitch they can be many hours out (that can be to your advantage); if ita radio variety then they will be precise.

wavelets

Looking on the bright side, it sounds like the OP has had a lucky escape.

Once they get a firm handle on what their anticipated annual usage should be, then they should follow the advice given here:
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity

i.e. consult a comparison site, anmd ignore the spam that tends to proliferate this site, often by brand new MSE users who are posting for their own personal gain