Being hit by a massive 6k bill

Robin9

Do you run your oil boiler in the summer for hot water ? If not how do you get it ?

9 kWh for today does seem high - suggests something left on. Forget battery chargers, laptops etc.

matelodave

Go to your fuse box and operate the big switch on the front - that will turn everything off - dont worry about the fridge or freezer, they'll be fine for several hours. Make sure that nothing is one in the house flat or garage etc) and see if the meter increments after an hour or so - if stuff stays on or the meter increments then you've got to look around to see whats consuming it. 
We are all electric, including hot water heating, cooking etc) and wouldn't use that much in a day at this time of the year

Are you in a flat or a house?. Unfortunately we don't even seem to be able to establish whether your first bill after the fitting of the new meter showed the transfer (ie the old reading and the new one). As I said without records, readings, bills or other info it's nigh on impossible to know where it all went awry. About the only bit of evidence you seem to have is the swap over card. I really find it incredible that you never read the meter or checked a bill in the whole four years.

Robin9

Im trying to get my head around your expected bill for £6k

You are using 16,000 kwh a year at a cost of £2,400 - that's £7,200 over the 3 years.
In that time you've paid £3000 in DD's. That means you only owe £4,200  (but its  better than the £6,000)

Whatever the figure that's expensive compared with spending 5/10 mins a month reading your meters, giving them to Eon and understanding your bills. I think we suspect something wrong at the meter change - those 5/10 mins in October 2016 would have been very well spent.

PS Don't forget when you move to read the meters at your present property. Then at your new one to read them and ring the existing supplier. Then you are free to switch 

Superbbill

Robin9 said:

Do you run your oil boiler in the summer for hot water ? If not how do you get it ?

9 kWh for today does seem high - suggests something left on. Forget battery chargers, laptops etc.

We do, it supplies hot water only during the summer as there's no need for heating

matelodave said:

Go to your fuse box and operate the big switch on the front - that will turn everything off - dont worry about the fridge or freezer, they'll be fine for several hours. Make sure that nothing is one in the house flat or garage etc) and see if the meter increments after an hour or so - if stuff stays on or the meter increments then you've got to look around to see whats consuming it. 
We are all electric, including hot water heating, cooking etc) and wouldn't use that much in a day at this time of the year

Are you in a flat or a house?. Unfortunately we don't even seem to be able to establish whether your first bill after the fitting of the new meter showed the transfer (ie the old reading and the new one). As I said without records, readings, bills or other info it's nigh on impossible to know where it all went awry. About the only bit of evidence you seem to have is the swap over card. I really find it incredible that you never read the meter or checked a bill in the whole four years.

Thank you, I will try to do this tonight, not knowing much about electrics I am nervous about touching stuff in there.
We are in a detached bungalow, 2 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom.

Robin9 said:

Im trying to get my head around your expected bill for £6k

You are using 16,000 kwh a year at a cost of £2,400 - that's £7,200 over the 3 years.
In that time you've paid £3000 in DD's. That means you only owe £4,200  (but its  better than the £6,000)

Whatever the figure that's expensive compared with spending 5/10 mins a month reading your meters, giving them to Eon and understanding your bills. I think we suspect something wrong at the meter change - those 5/10 mins in October 2016 would have been very well spent.

PS Don't forget when you move to read the meters at your present property. Then at your new one to read them and ring the existing supplier. Then you are free to switch 

My panic maths may have been off, but they believe we have used 3 times the electric that they were charging us for, so I just doubled my current bill and multiplied it by 36 (They thought we had used 22k but number on the meter says 64.5k)

I know it's silly, but SSE used to have someone come round and do it, eon apparently you tell them online. 

Robin9

I know it's silly, but SSE used to have someone come round and do it, eon apparently you tell them online. 

It is very rare for any meter reader to come around these days.  Some suppliers send prompting emails for you to read the meter.
I read mine on the last day of the month.

MWT

9kWh consumed in 7.5 hours is really high, I agree with Robin, something is not right there.

We consumed 4kWh in the same time period with 3 of us home, two PC's on all day, washing machine in use etc.

Gerry1

As your meter only shows whole kWh, the quickest way to see what it's clocking up at any given moment is to observe the flashing red light.

1000 flashes = 1kWh = 15p or whatever you're paying on your tariff.  So if you switch everything off at the meter it should never flash once.

You can then switch on each circuit in turn and calculate the consumption, e.g. 1 flash/minute is 60W, 3 flashes/minute = 180W (roughly typical average consumption with most things off except fridge and freezer), 50 flashes/minute = 3kW (immersion heater, 3-bar electric fire, etc).

Do those tests now to get an idea whether it's a rogue meter or some strange black hole into which your electricity is disappearing !

Gerry1

I hope you've looked at your bank statement more than once in four years...

Petriix

You definitely couldn't have used 9kWh between 09:00 and 17:00 without running something high-powered. It's the equivalent of having the kettle boiling for 3 hours straight.

Are you absolutely certain there isn't an immersion heater in the hot water tank?
Using that much power would generate quite a bit of heat so is somewhere in the house getting really warm?
Do you have power to any outbuildings or any external lights permanently switched on?

You urgently need to buy or borrow an energy monitor to see how much power you are using in real-time. Then you can turn off each circuit in turn to see when the usage drops.

Fo comparison: we have used just over 7kW in 20 hours including running the dishwasher, using the oven for 40 minutes and having the TV, AV receiver and laptop running all day.

Superbbill

Petriix said:

You definitely couldn't have used 9kWh between 09:00 and 17:00 without running something high-powered. It's the equivalent of having the kettle boiling for 3 hours straight.

Are you absolutely certain there isn't an immersion heater in the hot water tank?
Using that much power would generate quite a bit of heat so is somewhere in the house getting really warm?
Do you have power to any outbuildings or any external lights permanently switched on?

You urgently need to buy or borrow an energy monitor to see how much power you are using in real-time. Then you can turn off each circuit in turn to see when the usage drops.

Fo comparison: we have used just over 7kW in 20 hours including running the dishwasher, using the oven for 40 minutes and having the TV, AV receiver and laptop running all day.

I'm absolutely 100% there is no immersion heater. I know this for sure because when my boiler cuts out occasionally I lose all hot water until reset it / get an engineer to fix it. No shower, no hot water through any taps and no heating