Using 4x The average electric consumption with 0 heating for 4 years.

clerytheAnt

I'm aware this post will be slightly 'guess-work' as I know 2 houses aren't the same and obviously nobody could really know the actual cause of whats going on here i'm hoping someone can maybe just throw some ideas to point me in the direction though in honesty I doubt anyone can help me or even wants to because why would you? We have never had help from anyone, even my own dad disowned me and hasn't even met my son. Never took handouts, never been offered any... Always worked... Never achieved much... But I digress anyway... To the issue at hand...

We bought our first home 4-5 years ago. The person before was an old fella who clearly done alot of DIY including the kitchen, bathroom and electrics (Spot lights etc).
In the living room we have 8 spot lights. These 'blow' and have to be changed id say a few times a year its fairly often.

We live ina very very small 2 bed flat. 1 of the bedrooms is just barely large enough to legally be called a bedroom.
We originally had 3 storage heaters when we moved in but 2 of them stopped working and the 3rd the 'buttons' to turn it on locked up and it also stopped working (this was about 3-4 years ago).

Since then we have had no heating although we do have a plug in electric radiator which we use on occasion but really only when the cold gets too much, we usually try to use blankets.

I work from home and my computer is on all day. Its fairly high powered (a gaming computer) so electric for this is likely higher than the average laptop.
Aside this we have 1 TV in the house. We use a henry hoover. We have an immersion heater which is left on 24/7 (We worked out this is cheaper than having it heat up 2-3 times a day). We have an electric oven with electric hobs. No gas in the flat.
We have 1 fridge (which is next to the oven...)

We have 1 Aircon unit which we use again on very hot days but not often.

With all that said our yearly consumption is around 8000-8600kwH/year.

I'm told that even a 3-4bedroom house with 4 grown adults who is considered a 'High energy user' will use roughly 4000/KwH/year.

So how on EARTH are we using SOOOO Much?! I have been on the phone to ovo for many many hours who refuse to acknowledge that there is even an issue.
I have called in electricians who have lit just looked at the meter, put their little metal prongs on it and then left saying it all looks fine (and charged me £80 for the pleasure).
We had a smart meter put in which tells us nothing really. Except that we sometimes wake up first thing in the morning and already £2-£3 worth of electric has been used? Somehow?
I've tried to monitor the meter for a while and it seems to go up by the amount they claim we are using?
This is literary ruining my life, nobody gives a crap, nobody wants to help, nobody wants to advise and i'm just at my wits end. It's making me depressed.
I want to get heating but i don't dare because as soon as we do god knows what our electric bill will be then!

On Ovo they have this chart which shows what is using what electric. I don't know how they determine it but it goes like this:
For this month:
Heating - £0 - 0/kwh
Idle(fridge etc) - £? - ?/Kwh
Appliances - £? - ?/Kwh
Entertainment - £? - ?/Kwh

And then it has another category called 'Other' Which is always higher than everything else. Ovo say they don't know what this is or where it came from or what it could be?

Anyone got any idea of what this could be, or what i can do or give me just anything... I'm losing the will to live. I wish i had neve bought my own place. I should of just either rented or quit my job and begged for a council house like everyone else round here seems to do.

Aside this we have 2 kids a boy and girl with what can only be described as a broom closet for them to share, No heating, Mould all over the place, Damp all over the place. We all have breathing issues and skin problems but apparently we ern soo much money that we are entitled to nothing and no help in anything. Though equally we are told we earn to little to get enough money to actually get a mortgage for a house or even another flat and that our flat is practically worthless and trash.

IF someone can please at the LEAST help me with this energy crisis you might just save a life.
Im currently training to become a salesforce developer which I hope in 2 years will save me from this cesspit of a life I have landed in. Though in honestly I dunno if I will survive 2 years in this crap-hole. If someone can AT LEAST help me with the energy bill that nobody cares about that might just about be enough to get me through the next 2 years of my miserable life.

Many thanks
Ant

clerytheAnt

Just to clarify I'm not looking for anyone to give me money or 'pay my bill' just maybe some insight into how our bill can be 4x that of the average 2bed-flat of which ours is still on the micro size, If the kids room was 1inch smaller it would be legally a 1-bed flat., or what action I can take to try and get to the bottom of this?

theoretica

You need to do a bit of detective work recording your readings and experimenting turning things off and on.  The first target - a potentially huge one - is the immersion heater.  Turn it off for a day and see what that does to your readings.  (Yes it is a minor bore being without hot water for a day, use the kettle and change your shower times.)   Then try setting it on for half an hour just before you actually most want the hot water. 

If this doesn't make a huge difference the next thing to try is turning *everything* off for an hour or two - the freezer will be fine that long - and confirming that your use drops to zero and there isn't anything electrical you don't know about (like paying for the flat next door too).  Easiest to do when you are going out.

Peter999_2

Hi Ant,

I'm sorry that you're having a bit of a nightmare with your energy.      Who told you that leaving an immersion heater 24 hours a day was better than just having it on while you use it?   I'm pretty sure that is not the case and Martin Lewis is always saying that leaving the heating on 24hrs a day is not as efficient as having it on when you need it.   I'm sure it will be the same as the immersion heater.

Have you got a IHD (display showing energy usage) with your Smart Meter?   When I was concerned with energy useage I just turned everything off and turned everything back on one by one to work out what used the most energy.

I also bought one of these which you can plug devices into and they tell you how much energy it is using :

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Monitoring-SmartThings-Wireless-KP115/dp/B08LZWBTR6/ref=sr_1_2?crid=EPI7REXN80UU&dchild=1&keywords=kasa+energy+monitoring&qid=1635867525&qsid=260-5091438-7449026&sprefix=kasa+ener,computers,153&sr=8-2&sres=B08LZWBTR6,B097YBXHTW,B08YNTMWKG,B0875DFSD3,B07QX6CF46,B0875CTMGH,B083Q162VP,B07ZWBBPQN,B09H3C7SNY,B07NDY1327,B08G37ML2R,B088RJ2FT1,B01BECPIMC,B07BWBP84P,B094JXF9KH,B083GGLKSJ,B00V52HTXS,B07RYPJTJX,B07FT8TH3W,B08QRB32MX

I personally live in a house with another adult and one child.  We use about 14 kWh's a day which is 5,110 kWh's a year and we are quite heavy users including an eletric car charged every day.

Is it essential that you use a gaming PC for work?, as you say they use a lot of energy.   I work from home and remote desktop into a server at work that does all the grunt work so my PC only uses about 60w compared to my gaming PC which uses up to 500w.

You will be able to narrow it down to what is using the power and then make some changes.      I was speaking to a colleague the other day and talking about him getting solar - he was at the boiler and told me that there was a switch that he didn't know what it did but he'd turned it on about 3 years earlier and left it on.   It turned out that it was his immersion heater - he turned it off and a week later told me that his energy use had gone down 20% during the night.  He was pretty angry with himself but also grateful that he had spoken to me.

Verdigris

The spotlights will be another culprit if you are still putting halogen bulbs in. My kitchen originally had 50W halogen bulbs so that was 200W in total. I replaced those with 7W LEDs which brings the total to 28W and it is much brighter.

Move the fridge away from the oven. You are just making work for it.

Has the hot water cylinder got a jacket/foam insulation? If no, get a jacket for it. If yes, put another jacket over that one.

MWT

clerytheAnt said:

In the living room we have 8 spot lights. These 'blow' and have to be changed id say a few times a year its fairly often.

We originally had 3 storage heaters when we moved in but 2 of them stopped working and the 3rd the 'buttons' to turn it on locked up and it also stopped working (this was about 3-4 years ago).

Since then we have had no heating although we do have a plug in electric radiator which we use on occasion but really only when the cold gets too much, we usually try to use blankets.

We have an immersion heater which is left on 24/7 (We worked out this is cheaper than having it heat up 2-3 times a day).

These are the areas I'd look at first.

If those are halogen spot lights then you are probably using about 50W per light where replacing them with an LED bulb could leave you using just 6 or 7W each. That can build up when you multiply by the number of spots you have and the length of time they are left on.

If the storage heaters are still physically there I'd suggest getting them checked to see if they can be fixed as the reasons for failure are often pretty cheap to correct and even old storage heaters will be effective if they are working.

Related to that, if you initially had storage heaters are you still on an Economy 7 tariff? If so you may be paying more than you need to for your electricity as you are probably not using enough overnight now you no longer have the heaters in use...

The immersion heater being left on may not be the cheaper option but it does depend on how well insulated your tank is and how often there is significant use of hot water. Also do you have one or two heating elements?

If it is two and you still have E7 then you may not be leaving it on as often as you think as it will only be turning on during the cheap period over-night if it is wired correctly.

If you are leaving the top one on all day as well then that is the one to turn off and see how much that reduces your power consumption vs still giving you enough hot water for the day...

doodling

Hi,

It is impossible for the immersion heater to consume more electricity if you turn it on/off as required than if you leave it on all day. Having said that, if it is really well insulated then you might find that there is little difference in consumption between the two.  What temperature do you have the immersion heater heating the hot water to, in general you want this to be around 65 degrees, definitely no higher, unless you find hot water runs out at peak bathing times.

Having a fridge next to an oven is sub-optimal - it will mean that the fridge has to work harder (= higher consumption) to keep it's contents cool.

Are the storage heaters turned off? Depending on the type they may still be storing energy but just not releasing it (having said that, it sounds like you would need the heating anyway).

The spot lights need to be replaced by LED equivalents - they should last a lot longer and consume a fifth of the energy.

The heater will be a big energy consumer, how often do you use this and for how long?

What sort of air conditioning do you have? This might be expensive to run and/or, if it one of the cheap "evaporative" ones, be responsible for some of the damp.

What is the measured consumption of the PC? Get one of those appliance power monitoring plugs and find out. If it is more than 150W then you might want to think about whether it is the right tool for everyday work.

Where is the damp coming from? Structural issues? Breathing? Cooking (no lids on pans?)? Drying clothes? Bathing / showering? All of these sources need to be addressed, where possible damp should be stopped at source but otherwise ventilation is the answer.

Penelopa.Pitstop

Spotlights are blowing probably due to overheating. I had that problem in utility room. Also, they use quite a lot of electricity. I replaced mine with LED lights and didn't have to replace any yet. I had 8 halogen lights in kitchen and they were using around 400W.

I suspect, your water heater is using the most electricity. You got good advice above, so just have to check every device one by one.

theoretica

Just throwing some very rough numbers in - you use 8500kWh a year - compared to a low to average user of 2000kWh that is 6500kwh going somewhere to find.  Some of it will be the occasional heater and air con.

6500kWh a year, 18kWh a day.

750W an hour for 24 hours or 1500W an hour for 12 hours a day. 

So things on for hours and using hundreds of watts are your most likely target.  If the gaming PC is indeed running at 500W, the lights at a 400W and on for hours, the immersion heater keeping the water warm when you aren't using it - these are all in the right ballpark of use to investigate and to be adding up to thousands of kWh over the year. 

EssexHebridean

Allowing for the mention of storage heaters I'm wondering whether a) as someone else says even though not working they have been left switched on, b) whether you are still on an E7 tariff (which would be fairly normal for someone with your set up) and are paying an actual daytime usage and an estimated nighttime usage without realising it, and c) whether you realise that if you ARE on an E7 tariff you should be using the immersion overnight to benefit from the cheap rate, just using the "boost" facility during the day if needed (which it probably won't be).  

Electric rads are pricey to run, no question. I imagine the aircon unit probably is as well. A plug in energy meter for appliances is a god start, plus keeping a spreadsheet of daily or even morning and evening meter readings alongside notes of what has been used that day. 

MWT

EssexHebridean said:

Allowing for the mention of storage heaters I'm wondering whether a) as someone else says even though not working they have been left switched on,

It would be hard not to notice that as the only way they can use power is to produce heat, and that heat has to go somewhere...