Weirdly high energy Bills- faulty meter?

QrizB

Another thought, sorry.

Dommyb said:

... to fix the time on the meter ...

It would be useful to know when your E7 times are. This might mean staying up late and checking the meter.

In the photo of your meter we can see it has five wires at the bottom. The two on the left are the "in" and the three on the right are the "out". On the "out" side there are two wires with red cable ties; one has a single cable tie, the other has two. Where do they go, can you see?

In your flat (or wherever the consumer units [fuse boxes] are), do you have one consumer unit or two? Can you post photos?

Dommyb

QrizB said:

Another thought, sorry.

Dommyb said:

... to fix the time on the meter ...

It would be useful to know when your E7 times are. This might mean staying up late and checking the meter.

In the photo of your meter we can see it has five wires at the bottom. The two on the left are the "in" and the three on the right are the "out". On the "out" side there are two wires with red cable ties; one has a single cable tie, the other has two. Where do they go, can you see?

In your flat (or wherever the consumer units [fuse boxes] are), do you have one consumer unit or two? Can you post photos?

I think the times are 12am-7am a nigh time rates. HOWEVER, because time is wrong on the meter this is thrown off, its about 2 hrs behind so in reality our night rate is 2am-9am🙈

i will look at the wires when home. From the top of my heat its one unit BUT don’t take my word for it right now.

Dommyb

Robin9 said:

Dommyb said:

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


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!

.

The Octopus figure is correct but you don't pay it now. You are paying a monthly DD which is smoothing out what you pay because in summer your monthly consumption will plummet to perhaps £30 a month

Thats good to know- my partner was worried we had to pay asap, which we did the first time round but an extra £280 to shell out the month after seems like a lot so we held back until we had some answers. Will be great if this evens out during summer.

Dommyb

I emailed Octopus about changing to a single rate. They advised the flexible rate is going to be more per kwh and with prices rising in april it could impact us badly… maybe worth sticking to 2 rates? We could still make the most of it by delaying the washer dryer to only run in the night, and the same for the electric immersion water heater? Not sure how much that would help though, but would assume aside from heaters those are the 2 things that use up the most energy.

Robin9

Dommyb said:

QrizB said:

Another thought, sorry.

I think the times are 12am-7am a nigh time rates. HOWEVER, because time is wrong on the meter this is thrown off, its about 2 hrs behind so in reality our night rate is 2am-9am🙈

In that case keep quiet as that early morning cuppa, shower and breakfast are all at the low rate. -  unless of course if you are night owls.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

have you thought about THIS.

Basically you pay a fixed DD each month, over spring/summer you use less heating so build up a credit balance heading into winter, now would be a good time to start.

QrizB

Dommyb said:

I think the times are 12am-7am a nigh time rates. HOWEVER, because time is wrong on the meter this is thrown off, its about 2 hrs behind so in reality our night rate is 2am-9am🙈

2am to 9am is good, if true; you can get up at 7am and still have two hours of cheap rate to shower, heat water, wash laundry, switch the heating on, cook breakfast etc.

Dommyb said:

I emailed Octopus about changing to a single rate. They advised the flexible rate is going to be more per kwh and with prices rising in april it could impact us badly… maybe worth sticking to 2 rates?

Your choice. Switching to Flexible now will mean higher prices from April (Flexible is expected to rise to 28p/kWh) but you might be able to change to the single-rate version of your E7 tariff while staying on your fixed deal.

If you're able to make more use of the night-time E7 rate, as I've suggested above, there's no point in trying to change to single-rate.

Gerry1

QrizB said:

Dommyb said:

I think the times are 12am-7am a night time rates. HOWEVER, because time is wrong on the meter this is thrown off, its about 2 hrs behind so in reality our night rate is 2am-9am🙈

2am to 9am is good, if true; you can get up at 7am and still have two hours of cheap rate to shower, heat water, wash laundry, switch the heating on, cook breakfast etc.

Dommyb said:

I emailed Octopus about changing to a single rate. They advised the flexible rate is going to be more per kwh and with prices rising in april it could impact us badly… maybe worth sticking to 2 rates?

Your choice. Switching to Flexible now will mean higher prices from April (Flexible is expected to rise to 28p/kWh) but you might be able to change to the single-rate version of your E7 tariff while staying on your fixed deal.

If you're able to make more use of the night-time E7 rate, as I've suggested above, there's no point in trying to change to single-rate.

That needs to be quantified.  The OP needs to do the sums carefully, calculating the cost with the E7 rates and then recalculating at single rate.

The OP also needs to check the immersion heater(s).  If there are two, the lower one should be on the E7 circuit and left switched on.  The upper one is intended only for emergency top up to get half a tank of very expensive hot water if it's gone cold during the day, and should be left permanently off.

I'm not sure that Octopus understood the OP's request. Asking not to be on Economy 7 might make it clearer to them, but do the sums with a full week's usage and prove which one is cheaper.

Dommyb

Gerry1 said:

QrizB said:

Dommyb said:

I think the times are 12am-7am a night time rates. HOWEVER, because time is wrong on the meter this is thrown off, its about 2 hrs behind so in reality our night rate is 2am-9am🙈

2am to 9am is good, if true; you can get up at 7am and still have two hours of cheap rate to shower, heat water, wash laundry, switch the heating on, cook breakfast etc.

Dommyb said:

I emailed Octopus about changing to a single rate. They advised the flexible rate is going to be more per kwh and with prices rising in april it could impact us badly… maybe worth sticking to 2 rates?

Your choice. Switching to Flexible now will mean higher prices from April (Flexible is expected to rise to 28p/kWh) but you might be able to change to the single-rate version of your E7 tariff while staying on your fixed deal.

If you're able to make more use of the night-time E7 rate, as I've suggested above, there's no point in trying to change to single-rate.

That needs to be quantified.  The OP needs to do the sums carefully, calculating the cost with the E7 rates and then recalculating at single rate.

The OP also needs to check the immersion heater(s).  If there are two, the lower one should be on the E7 circuit and left switched on.  The upper one is intended only for emergency top up to get half a tank of very expensive hot water if it's gone cold during the day, and should be left permanently off.

I'm not sure that Octopus understood the OP's request. Asking not to be on Economy 7 might make it clearer to them, but do the sums with a full week's usage and prove which one is cheaper.

Great point about the immersion heater. Just to confirm, this is for the hot water right? I’m at work but just getting my partner to send images for this. In all honesty working one of these is confusing for myself so maybe by looking at it one of you might suggest a good way to set it up and use? We tend to just do on/off on the water selection side for 1-2 hrs before showering so be very helpful to see what you guys think!

Gerry1

Yup, it's for the hot water.  IF you stay with E7 then you need to make sure you're only heating the water at E7 rates.  Hot water at daytime rates is a No-No on an E7 tariff.

Take daily meter readings for a week and see whether E7 or single rate would be cheaper.

If there are two immersion heaters then it's as simple as lower ON, upper OFF.  The upper one may have a local timer on the wall to make sure it's not left on accidentally.