Weirdly high energy Bills- faulty meter?

Dommyb

Hello all,

Myself and my partner have recently moved out of home to live by ourselves in a block of flats, in November.
In the 3 months we have been living here we have had weirdly high meter readings and what seems to be HUGE energy bills.

Here’s some basic info which should help:
We are the landlord’s first tenants, the supplier for energy (no gas) is Octopus, and our meter is an AMPY 5184C (I’ve seemed to read a lot on other posts that this gets faulty a lot?)
it is a fairly new build (2006?) and 2 bed flat.
the meter is located in a communal cupboard with other meters.

our standard fixed 12m monthly debit is approx £116 monthly, at day and night rates. 27p day and 17p night.

So that all sounds good.
the reading when we moved in was 69111 on the day reading. We didnt take a night time one as didn’t realise we had both tarifs when moving in.
Octopus asked us to provide meter readings about 6 weeks after moving in -70084 - please note there are no full stops, dots or anytbing on the meter.
So as you can see that gives us a total of 973 over 6 weeks which Octopus told us was an extra £199 to pay!
Now we never did any of this before now so figured maybe we used the heating too much, and it was 6 weeks since the last reading so perhaps we just had to be more careful.

So since then we used the electric heaters only when we were in specific rooms, like bedroom only, living room only etc and turned them off when we weren’t using the rooms. We also took extra care to turn off lights, turn off the cooker and hob when not using, let washing build up before using the washer dryer.
Keep in mind i work 8-9 hrs 5 days a week so i am not home until 6-7 pm most days to contribute to usage.
partner works from home but normally just sits in office and does not use anything but pc and kettle occasionally.

Now, come meter readings for the end of January.
The timing is 8 january- 2nd feb.
In the 26 days according to our readings we had apparently used 1386 kw???
So our account is -£288 now. 
(No we haven’t paid this time around).

We are at a loss as to what is happening we spoke to numerous people we know about what they pay, and they all confirmed this is not normal. Most of our friends in electric only 2 bed flats pay no more than £100 a month, even with heaters on all the time !!

I have researched lots into this, and tried looking into the type of meter it is as well, but still unsure.
we have done different tests like using no heating, lots of heating etc so a day with minimal energy use, then lots of use, the daily readings are not usually more than a few kw apart, as if it makes no difference. 

Oh also the time is wrong on the meter so when its 9:20 am on the meter it shows something like 7:00 am…

from what I’ve read the meter might be busted or there might be a cross meter issue which is something I read about today. 

If anyone has dealt with something similar and came out in the right we would really appreciate any help. We are gathering as much evidence in our favour to get octopus to come out and fix this, just trying to make sure we can 100% get it sorted as its stressful enough already on top of us working.
not sure how to post pics but i have LOTS of meter images if they would help.

Robin9

Give us details of those heaters please - make and model.

I'm a bit confused  - you say you gave a single reading when you moved  in but didn't realise ut was a 2 rate meter.  Have you reading for both registers please.

What is you tariff ?

It is possible that day and night mixed up

Have a look at your meter - is there a arrow pointing to 1 or day or high ?


PS I hope you have got conventional storage heaters rather than panel and definitely not magic dust panels.

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

Bong !  If you're using plug-in electric heaters (panel radiators, fan heaters, electric fires, oil filled radiators etc) that's the most expensive form of heating you can have.

Bong !  If you're on an Economy 7 tariff that makes it even worse because the day rate is even more expensive than single rate.  Ask your supplier to switch you to single rate.  This usually doesn't need a meter change, although Bulb won't play ball.

Start by doing the Meter Sanity Test.

Dommyb

Ive tried looking up what heaters we have, they dont seem the most new looking, they are wall mounted and have a on and off switch. Not sure which type this is.

the confusing this is we have tried having days where we use a lot of heating and no heating. The day rate usually still works out to 25-30 kw a day, which seems like double for what our size household would use? We’ve read that most 2 person households would use 10-12kw a day so approx 30 seems like LOADS..

[Deleted User]

Hi,

you only give total units used, have you no day/night split?

Dommyb

To clear up any confusion- on the day we moved in i only took a picture of 69111 (R1) reading as we didnt know at the time we had a split rate. 

We have been sending both rates since.
to give you an idea our total day usage for last month was:

173 kwh night time (R4)
973 kwh day time (R1)

brewerdave

Dommyb said:

Ive tried looking up what heaters we have, they dont seem the most new looking, they are wall mounted and have a on and off switch. Not sure which type this is.

the confusing this is we have tried having days where we use a lot of heating and no heating. The day rate usually still works out to 25-30 kw a day, which seems like double for what our size household would use? We’ve read that most 2 person households would use 10-12kw a day so approx 30 seems like LOADS..

That's very low for a day in Winter with electric heating.

Robin9

Dommyb said:

 so approx 30 seems like LOADS..

You have an electrically heated flat - 30 KWh is not a lot

We need meter readings please -  day and night. A photo of that meter would help.

Dommyb

Here is the reading from this morning 

theoretica

Dommyb said:

the confusing this is we have tried having days where we use a lot of heating and no heating. The day rate usually still works out to 25-30 kw a day,

You need to do the basic test that the meter does relate to your flat.  Should be easy enough with one person in the flat to turn everything off/on and the other at the meters. 

[Deleted User]

Dommyb said:

To clear up any confusion- on the day we moved in i only took a picture of 69111 (R1) reading as we didnt know at the time we had a split rate. 

We have been sending both rates since.
to give you an idea our total day usage for last month was:

173 kwh night time (R4)
973 kwh day time (R1)

Hi,

are you on same rate for day/night?

Are you certain the meter you are reading serves your flat, there have been mix ups before with flats?