Huge Electricity Usage

worrywart_3

slj432 said:

Thanks, i don't have an electric shower and my oven is gas so even factoring in the car charging its incredibly high use. I know its a big 1 bed flat but that doesn't really impact my electricity use since my heating runs on gas. Im literally at a loss. 

The figure is accurate, I've been providing monthly readings to my electricity company and know what it was this time last year so it is based on actual use but clearly im going to have to start doing it daily and factoring in what i use. I have a dishwasher that goes on once per day (on a quick cycle) and a washing machine but i feel those things are all standard and compared to average electricity use for a 1 bed flat with 1 person living in it, my usage is extortionate. I spoke to somebody today who lives in 6,000sq house with 4 people and they use 12,000kwh per year so it makes my 8,000 seem insane! 

Do they have an electric car? Are you on a special ev tarrif ? Your ev usage snapped the quicksand of five days normal electric adding it all up it doesn’t seem that bad remember your not paying any fuel costs for the car.

QrizB

slj432 said:

I spoke to somebody today who lives in 6,000sq house with 4 people and they use 12,000kwh per year so it makes my 8,000 seem insane! 

You're not using 8000kWh/yr in your flat, you're using 5000kWh/yr and running your car on 3000kWh/yr.

5000kWh/yr is still more than I'd expect for one person in a flat. Do the checks other posters have mentioned to make sure the meter you're reading is genuinely the one for your flat; mix-ups are more common than you'd think.

If it really is your meter, then unless you're Bitcoin mining (or similar) there's probably something in your flat that's electrically heated. The usual suspects are immersion heaters, towel rails, underfloor heating, ventilation equipment, instant hot water taps.

matelodave

If you have double height rooms then you can probably expect to be heating the equivalent volume of a two storey house. rather than a one bedroom flat. 985 square ft is pretty big and there are plenty of houses than have a smaller footprint than that.  They get the benefit of heat from downstairs warming upstairs, whereas all yours is heating the ceiling and possibly the roof space or flat above.

Even our reasonably large three bed bungalow is only 1350square feet with a volume of 9,800cu ft compared with you 985 x 14 = 13,800 cu ft so you could reasonably be expecting your heating bills to be nearer the cost of a two storey house rather than a "one bedroom flat"

However I don't know how you can be using 8200kwh or leccy if you have gas central heating and hot water. We are all electric, at home all day an only use around 7500-8000kwh a year in total (heating, hot water, cooking, washing, lighting etc) although we do have a heatpump

TBH the only way you can get a handle on what is using it all and when is to read the meters a bit more often rather than having a panic when the bill comes in. You can't control it if you don't monitor it a bit more closely. Weekly or even daily meters reads would help you understand what is going on.

Try and do a read before going to bed and another first thing in the morning before you put the kettle on or use any leccy to find out what your baseline figure is and then go from there.

QrizB

bagand96 said:

Immersion heater on the water tank accidentally left on 24/7?

I'll tag forum user @Gerry1 hopefully he will be along and leave you a link to his Meter Sanity Test!

Hewre is @Gerry1 's link to the Meter Sanity Test. - it's proving popular at the moment

wild666

slj432 said:

Can anyone help me...i live in 1 bed flat that is around 985sqft (its is double height in all rooms). Its just me, so i live alone yet my electricity use is 8200kwh per year according to my supplier. I'm a 35 yr old and work from home maybe 3 days per week with a normal laptop. I have an electric car which i plug in once a week on average and it uses roughly 50-60kwh per charge (it tells me after each charge). I don't have anything unusual that plug in, i have LED light bulbs and only really use lamps not ceiling lights anyway, i only use 1 TV at a time (they're all new-ish)  with a sky Q box (no gaming etc). My heating is gas (its also high but i expect that with the room height) and my boiler is only 2 years old with hot water coming on for a hour in the morning + 1 hr at night....clearly with energy prices as they are, my electricity bills are extortionate - over £2000 a year with the cheapest supplier - for 4 weeks of December my electricity bill is £145 and i'm currently on a very cheap deal thats about to end - i was also away for the whole christmas week! I'm going to test the metre by turning everything off and checking if it still runs but if it doesn't, i really dont know what im supposed to do or how on earth im supposed to find out why my usage is equivalent to a detached family home with 4 people in it! Needless to say with prices the way they are and usage so high, its also becoming affordable. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. 

Try turning everything that you leave in standby mode off at the wall socket, I do this and it's saving me £14 per month, the only appliance that need to be on 24/7 are the fridge, freezer and router, everything else can be off at the wall socket. 
Some people think I'm mad but if you want to reduce energy consumption it's the way to do things. There is only one day per week I use loads of electric 11.5 kWh and that's when I wash clothing & bedding and the grandkids use the Xbox with the TV and surround sound system.

Gerry1

Sorry, late to the party.  The other posters seems to have covered most of the bases and to have set your homework, so with luck you'll find some clues.

I'd guess that the main possibilities include:-

●  It's someone else's meter, perhaps a bigger flat with lots of people taking long hot leisurely electric showers, thinking how economical they are and blissfully ignorant of the true cost.

●  There's something of which you are unaware.  If there's a loft, it might be a tubular heater to guard against freezing, or electrical heating tape wrapped around the pipes.  Or perhaps some electric underfloor heating.  Or a second immersion heater that you haven't noticed, the tank often has two but one might not be easily visible e.g. if it's down at the back behind a jacket.  Stop the boiler providing hot water (if that's possible) and see whether it goes cold and stays that way.

●  Meter reading errors.  Not querying your sanity, it can easily happen, especially if it's a too-clever-by-half-but-gone-dumb smart meter with several registers.  One smart meter design is so bad it even caught out a former meter reader recently, and others were double charged having once participated a British Gas 'Free Electricity' offer.  If you post a photo together with your reading(s) then someone may be able to spot some clues.  Best to redact serial numbers and bar codes.

●  It's a rogue meter.  Far less likely than most people imagine, but not impossible.  Again, far more likely with a too-clever-by-half-but-gone-dumb smart meter than a spinning disk one, but don't even think of getting it tested until you have strong evidence that it's faulty.  If it looks that way, it's possible to buy a cheap meter and to get an electrician to wire it in series so that you have an independent check.  If it showed a significant discrepancy with the real one then you would have sufficient confidence to pay for an official test (which is expensive if the meter turns out to be OK).

Have you moved in relatively recently, or has this problem been happening for years?  If you're new, you can often work out the average annual consumption from installation by noting the meter manufacture date (often part of a bar code number printed on the meter case) or the certification date (usually a circular sticker).

slj432

Thanks for all of the replies. Its really helpful and i'm going to turn everything off and monitor the usage of different items to hopefully to narrow things down daily. I have tried turning my fuse box off fully and then monitoring the electricity meter for an hour to see if it changed and it didn't. Whilst it wasn't a long time, i would expect it to have changed a bit if someone else was using my supply. 

Petriix

Random thought: could someone be using your EV charger when you're not there?
Do you have any way of monitoring it? 

Gerry1

slj432 said:

I have tried turning my fuse box off fully and then monitoring the electricity meter for an hour to see if it changed and it didn't. Whilst it wasn't a long time, i would expect it to have changed a bit if someone else was using my supply. 

If it only increments in 1kWh intervals (i.e. no decimal point), that's far too crude.  Watch the flashing red LED, which is probably 1000 times more granular if it flashes for every 0.001kWh.

slj432

Petriix said:

Random thought: could someone be using your EV charger when you're not there?
Do you have any way of monitoring it? 

I do, I had a mains switch installed so I turn it off inside when I’m not using it for that reason!