HELP!! £400 pcm Electricity!

ChuggerChugger

[Deleted User] said:

ChuggerChugger said:

I am more and more leaning towards the idea that the 40+ year old storage heaters are the issue and that even turned off at the wall there is some sort of error. Now that they have been turned off at the fuse board by the electrician, I am hoping I may see some improvement.

Following the visit of the electrician who turned off the storage heaters via the fuse board (as opposed to just at the wall) I installed the new Geo Energy Monitor.

I took a picture of the meter before bed and turned on the monitor. This morning I took a further picture of the meter and compared the reading with the data captured by the monitor. Both showed that 6 kwh had been used overnight on the Night Rate.

Hi,

but if the heaters were still drawing power, when off at wall, did you not notice heat in them?

No, they were all cool to the touch once I had turned them off at the wall, so goodness knows what has been going on. I have arranged for the electrician to come and install a new fuse board and generally tidy everything up and combine it into one modern board, to do away with the plethora of fuse boxes and wires everywhere. Perhaps that might reveal something. 

As you may have guessed, this is not my area of expertise, but the electrician seemed to think that over the years things had been tacked onto the original system and it was now all a bit of a mess.

ann_droid

Hi

Things I believe I know.....

A 3 phase supply is for BALANCED usage, IE the same amount over all 3 lines, with the neutral just coping with any im-balance.

So if only 1 phase is loaded, and I think there may a button to scroll thru the meter readings, you may get a multiplier on the bill for poor power factor correction (PF / PFc);  (That's how it used to be).

Not that it matters but most of what follows is true.................

Anytime you see demand charges billed in units of kVA, you should know that PF is baked into the demand charge and any drop in PF below 1 results in additional billed units of demand.

WHAT DOES IT DO TO MY ELECTRICITY BILL?

In a 3 phase supply, kW consumed is (VOLTS x AMPS x 1.73 x Power Factor) / 1000. The Electricity Company supply you VOLTS x AMPS and they have to supply extra to make up for the loss caused by poor Power Factor. When the power factor falls below a set figure, the electricity supply companies charge a premium on the kW being consumed, or, charge for the whole supply as kVA.

It may not be relevant, but I have not seen the bill.  Somewhat complicated.

Gerry1

Reed_Richards said:

Typically immersion heaters use 3 kW so an immersion heater run for 2 hours would consume 6 kW if the water in the tank did not reach temperature.  Actually your fridges and freezers will consume at least 1 kW over 7 hours so it won't all be the immersion heater.  

Nope.  A 3kW immersion heater run for 2 hours would consume 6kWh and the fridges and freezers would consume about 1kWh in 7 hours. It's important not to get the units muddled.

Gerry1

Which type of energy monitor did you buy? There are two types. One senses the current in the cable using a clip-on sensor, the other counts the impluses recorded by the flashing light on the meter

I trust you have the clip-on type, otherwise the results will be meaningless.  If the meter has gone haywire, then the energy monitor will get garbage in and will give garbage out.

It's essential to use the clip-on type if you want to check that the meter is accurate.  However, quite how that would work with 3-phase I'm not sure !

Gerry1

The fact that your consumption dropped when you switched off the NSH circuit doesn't necessarily mean that the NSHs are the culprit.  You may well find that there's something else on that circuit of which you were unaware.

ChuggerChugger

Gerry1 said:

Which type of energy monitor did you buy? There are two types. One senses the current in the cable using a clip-on sensor, the other counts the impluses recorded by the flashing light on the meter

I trust you have the clip-on type, otherwise the results will be meaningless.  If the meter has gone haywire, then the energy monitor will get garbage in and will give garbage out.

It's essential to use the clip-on type if you want to check that the meter is accurate.  However, quite how that would work with 3-phase I'm not sure !

I have the one that goes off the sensor as I don't think the clip on one would work with my meter. 

With regard to accuracy, the bill is based off the meter readings so if the readings and the monitor align in their reading it will surely be an accurate reflection of what the bill is likely to be. As far as I am concerned I am not trying to figure out if the meter is accurate (that is what the energy provider will have to do if/when I get them out to test if it is faulty); what I am trying to do here is experiment with turning things on and off to see if I can reduce reported consumption in a meaningful way.

ChuggerChugger

Gerry1 said:

The fact that your consumption dropped when you switched off the NSH circuit doesn't necessarily mean that the NSHs are the culprit.  You may well find that there's something else on that circuit of which you were unaware.

The electrician told me that it appeared only the Storage Heaters were on that circuit. In any event, having whatever it is that is causing the huge consumption turned off (if indeed that is what has been achieved - don't want to jump the gun) is a win to my mind in the short term. Long term, the electrician coming in and updating/consolidating the whole setup and going with updated heaters should hopefully resolve the issue long term.

ChuggerChugger

Gerry1 said:

Which type of energy monitor did you buy? There are two types. One senses the current in the cable using a clip-on sensor, the other counts the impluses recorded by the flashing light on the meter

I trust you have the clip-on type, otherwise the results will be meaningless.  If the meter has gone haywire, then the energy monitor will get garbage in and will give garbage out.

It's essential to use the clip-on type if you want to check that the meter is accurate.  However, quite how that would work with 3-phase I'm not sure !

I also read this review before purchasing which put me off the clamp type anyway. May have just been one person's bad experience but given the 3 phase meter I didn't have a lot of choice anyway.

ChuggerChugger

ChuggerChugger said:

Gerry1 said:

Which type of energy monitor did you buy? There are two types. One senses the current in the cable using a clip-on sensor, the other counts the impluses recorded by the flashing light on the meter

I trust you have the clip-on type, otherwise the results will be meaningless.  If the meter has gone haywire, then the energy monitor will get garbage in and will give garbage out.

It's essential to use the clip-on type if you want to check that the meter is accurate.  However, quite how that would work with 3-phase I'm not sure !

I also read this review before purchasing which put me off the clamp type anyway. May have just been one person's bad experience but given the 3 phase meter I didn't have a lot of choice anyway.

Continuation of the review I read...

Gerry1

ChuggerChugger said:

Gerry1 said:

Which type of energy monitor did you buy? There are two types. One senses the current in the cable using a clip-on sensor, the other counts the impluses recorded by the flashing light on the meter

I trust you have the clip-on type, otherwise the results will be meaningless.  If the meter has gone haywire, then the energy monitor will get garbage in and will give garbage out.

It's essential to use the clip-on type if you want to check that the meter is accurate.  However, quite how that would work with 3-phase I'm not sure !

With regard to accuracy, the bill is based off the meter readings so if the readings and the monitor align in their reading it will surely be an accurate reflection of what the bill is likely to be.

Yup, a wonky meter will say that £5's worth of electricity costs £20 and the energy monitor that relies on the flashing LED will say that it's all fine and dandy !

It may help you to discover that you're funding all the street lights or your next door neighbours, but for most people with a single phase meter worried about high bills they'd be better off with a current sensor because the measurement will be independent of a meter that's dodgy.