Massive increase in electricity bills out of nowhere

bsms1147

24-35 units ‘normal’ useage daily, in summer, no heating, and you’re at uni most of the year? Something must be off, something must be using that energy. I’m in a 2-bedroom all-electric flat and were using about 10 kWh a day give or take at the moment. I think you need to start playing detective.

Your bills do show a use of ~5,500 units in 5.5 months, so ~1000 units per month, and most of these are summer months, so potentially 12,000+ units per year. This is a lot.

~30 units per day over the year is around 10,000 units, plus a little for 30mins of panel heating a day 3 months of the year, and you can instantly see that if you’ve only been paying the equivalent of 1,200 units a year so far you may have easily underpaid to the tune of 18,000-22,000+ units, hence some catch up billing now.

The main issue is that we have no readings for the old meter. Do you have all your old bills? There will be an Actual, (A), reading on one of them, maybe the first one from 2 years ago.

Gerry1

As far as consumers are concerned, the only genuine benefit of an expensive smart meter is the ability to monitor usage in real time.  You should be able to switch off / unplug everything in your flat and see the consumption fall to zero.  You can then go round switching things back on and checking the consumption.  The extra consumption after midnight could well be an underfloor heating mat coming on automatically.

Talldave

bsms1147 said:

24-35 units ‘normal’ useage daily, in summer, no heating, and you’re at uni most of the year? Something must be off on, something must be using that energy. I’m in a 2-bedroom all-electric flat and were using about 10 kWh a day give or take at the moment. I think you need to start playing detective.

Corrected that !!  My money's on the immersion heater or the underfloor heating.

theoretica

Talldave said:

bsms1147 said:

24-35 units ‘normal’ useage daily, in summer, no heating, and you’re at uni most of the year? Something must be off on, something must be using that energy. I’m in a 2-bedroom all-electric flat and were using about 10 kWh a day give or take at the moment. I think you need to start playing detective.

Corrected that !!  My money's on the immersion heater or the underfloor heating.

My money's on something off with the meter, or why would there be the usage change when the meter was changed?  Usual suspicion towards whatever has changed as the culprit.  If you can get the readings to zero when absolutely everything is off, I would then try either a known constant electricity use (eg lamp with 100w bulb) or get a plug in energy meter and compare readings with only one thing running, maybe the fridge.

[Deleted User]

I’m thinking how did the meter get changed?

You say you have no access to it so surely for the meter to be changed you’d need to contact the landlord and arrange access for it to be changed?

_Jem_

Wouldn't it be easier for you to phone up your electricity supplier and say something is wrong then they can come out and put on a chaser unit to see if the meter is faulty. 
That's what I did when my bill was higher than it should of been. 

Talldave

theoretica said:

Talldave said:

bsms1147 said:

24-35 units ‘normal’ useage daily, in summer, no heating, and you’re at uni most of the year? Something must be off on, something must be using that energy. I’m in a 2-bedroom all-electric flat and were using about 10 kWh a day give or take at the moment. I think you need to start playing detective.

Corrected that !!  My money's on the immersion heater or the underfloor heating.

My money's on something off with the meter, or why would there be the usage change when the meter was changed?  Usual suspicion towards whatever has changed as the culprit.  If you can get the readings to zero when absolutely everything is off, I would then try either a known constant electricity use (eg lamp with 100w bulb) or get a plug in energy meter and compare readings with only one thing running, maybe the fridge.

I don't think we've seen any evidence of previous meter consumption? The bills could have been works of fiction based on estimates. 

@riblem do you have an IHD with your meter to give you a live consumption readout.  There seems to an underlying 500W consumption running most of the time. But of course that could be a 3kW immersion running for 10 minutes an hour? How old is the fridge? How many minutes an hour is it running?

You need to monitor live consumption whilst shutting each circuit off at the consumer unit and see which circuit is the greedy one.

Robin9

@riblem do you have an IHD with your meter to give you a live consumption readout.  There seems to an underlying 500W consumption running most of the time. But of course that could be a 3kW immersion running for 10 minutes an hour? How old is the fridge? How many minutes an hour is it running?

@riblem didn't even know he had a Smart meter until he rang up- as part of the installation the fitter has to do a polarity test and leave/give a teach in of the IHD. I am not convinced he has a Smart meter.

theoretica

Talldave said:

theoretica said:

Talldave said:

bsms1147 said:

24-35 units ‘normal’ useage daily, in summer, no heating, and you’re at uni most of the year? Something must be off on, something must be using that energy. I’m in a 2-bedroom all-electric flat and were using about 10 kWh a day give or take at the moment. I think you need to start playing detective.

Corrected that !!  My money's on the immersion heater or the underfloor heating.

My money's on something off with the meter, or why would there be the usage change when the meter was changed?  Usual suspicion towards whatever has changed as the culprit.  If you can get the readings to zero when absolutely everything is off, I would then try either a known constant electricity use (eg lamp with 100w bulb) or get a plug in energy meter and compare readings with only one thing running, maybe the fridge.

I don't think we've seen any evidence of previous meter consumption? The bills could have been works of fiction based on estimates.

The last page of scans - the reading from 23rd November looks like a closing reading on the old meter - the only previous readings for that meter are estimates, but a closing reading would be enough to confirm total usage up to that point.

Talldave

theoretica said:

Talldave said:

theoretica said:

Talldave said:

bsms1147 said:

24-35 units ‘normal’ useage daily, in summer, no heating, and you’re at uni most of the year? Something must be off on, something must be using that energy. I’m in a 2-bedroom all-electric flat and were using about 10 kWh a day give or take at the moment. I think you need to start playing detective.

Corrected that !!  My money's on the immersion heater or the underfloor heating.

My money's on something off with the meter, or why would there be the usage change when the meter was changed?  Usual suspicion towards whatever has changed as the culprit.  If you can get the readings to zero when absolutely everything is off, I would then try either a known constant electricity use (eg lamp with 100w bulb) or get a plug in energy meter and compare readings with only one thing running, maybe the fridge.

I don't think we've seen any evidence of previous meter consumption? The bills could have been works of fiction based on estimates.

The last page of scans - the reading from 23rd November looks like a closing reading on the old meter - the only previous readings for that meter are estimates, but a closing reading would be enough to confirm total usage up to that point.

But that reading is gobbledegook? Taken 2 weeks after a smart meter reading and no confidence it's correct because no earlier readings from the old meter to validate it against. And if, as suggested by another poster, the new smart meter was set to carry on from the old meter's reading, then that reading is definitely rubbish. [Are smart meters ever setup to provide reading continuity with the removed meter? ]