House using a rediculous amount of electricity.

polomints

I live in a house with a landlord who is also a good friend, we're burring through a rediculous amount of elecctricity and we don't use it to heat the house, the only really power hungry things are the kettle, the water heater, the oven and the shower. I've not used the oven today I did use a George Forman grill for 30mins and boiled the kettle twice, I did look at the electric meter before and after I had a shower and it went down by £0.15 which I would think to be about what you would exepect, but we have used over £2 since yesterday. What could be going wrong?

MovingForwards

Water heater and oven will be the heavy users.

How often is the water switched on and for how long?

ballisticbrian

I assume you haven't got a smart meter that comes with a gadget to analyse use as it occurs? You can also get a standalone unit that loops in next to the consumer unit. Your usage doesn't sound out of wack to be honest. Our display goes through the roof when I have a shower, which involves an extractor fan coming on, 3 lights and the shower itself.

Norman_Castle

Old style bulbs and fridges or freezers can be surprisingly expensive to use.
Do you boil a full kettle or just what you need?

[Deleted User]

Sounds like a prepayment electric meter. They take standing charges off once a week which is probably around £1.80. They also deduct any weekly debt set up on the meter. Have a scroll through the screens by pushing the blue button, with key inserted, to go to screens S and T which show total debt and the weekly repay rate to see if they are at zero..
If the meter is nt credited very often there can be a build up of standing charges

cranford

A typical electric shower uses 9kwh which means if you have a 7 min shower it will cost you one unit of electricity. Looks like you have already found this out.
My electric immersion heater (I have economy 7) is on for 3 hours a day and used 4 units of electricity.
You don't mention a TV but if you have one of at least 40 inch plus a box it will probably run for 10 hour for one unit.
An old style 100w light bulb will run for 10 hours for one unit but an equivlent new LED 12w bulb (about £3 each in a budget shop) will run for 83. Even 40w halogen bulbs will only run for 25 hours for one unit. Many kitchen lights have 5 or six halogen bulbs so only 5 hours for a unit.

AndyPK

water heater and shower !

matelodave

As others have said you should ensure that you are not paying down any arrears and don't forget there will also be a standing charge of between 20-30p a day that gets loaded on(I don't know if this happens once a week or once a day)

You probably wont be on a very cheap tariff either so it's wont be hard to get through 10kwh a day or about £1.50 a day in energy.

Try recording your daily consumption in kwh and trying to identify what is using it all.

Spend less time in the shower, don't let hot water run down the sink, turn lights off when you aren't using them and replace bulbs with LEDs. Dont boil up half a kettle full just for one cup - only fill the kettle with as much water as you need.

Stuff like the TV, Sky box, video recorders, Play-stations, computers, routers, fridges, freezers etc all use power unless they are shut off or unplugged at the wall.

Only use the tumble dryer, washing-machine or dishwasher with full loads.

Start monitoring your usage and you'll then know what using it all and you'll be able to reduce your consumption. You could also try and get on a cheaper tariff to reduce your costs