Usage question Electricity

Gerry1

Two freezers and underfloor heating go a long way to explaining the problem.

coffeehound

Also computers can use a significant amount, certainly hundreds of watts while working hard.  Tumble dryer another potential biggie

redginger44

British Gas fitted meter and my bills read
8.1.20 - 5.3.20 = 00000 - 00979
6.3.20 - 5.9.20 = 00979 - 03641
6.9,20  - 5.3.21 = 03641 - 06861
6.3.21 - 5.9.21 = 06861 - 09920

Sea_Shell

Do you still have your In house display (IHD) unit shoved in a drawer somewhere?

Might be worth digging it out, powering it up, and see what it can tell you.

Gerry1

Are the meter readings genuinely Smart or have they been Estimated?  Many smart meters have gone dumb.

macman

Do you have a wet rad in the bathroom as well? if so, turn the u/f heating off and use that.

Robin9

redginger44 said:

British Gas fitted meter and my bills read
8.1.20 - 5.3.20 = 00000 - 00979
6.3.20 - 5.9.20 = 00979 - 03641
6.9,20  - 5.3.21 = 03641 - 06861
6.3.21 - 5.9.21 = 06861 - 09920

And todays reading is ?

   0801020 to 050320 is approx 500 KWh / month

  060320 to 050920 is 450

060920 to 050321 is 500

060321 to 050921 is 500

remarkably consistent

EssexHebridean

There’s certainly something going on somewhere as you’re using a decent chunk more per year than we do and all our heating/hot water is electric as well as the usual lights, appliances etc. Definitely worth playing about with turning things on and off to see what makes a difference. Ask around among friends/family to see if anyone has a simple plug in monitor you can borrow if you’re not still in possession of the IHD - that attaches to the cables from the meter and will give you a decent idea of how much is being used at any given time. 

redginger44

Yes it a pretty flat profile throughout the day which ties in with most of our appliances being constant small spike when dishwasher or tumble dryer goes on ? 

Gerry1

EssexHebridean said:

Ask around among friends/family to see if anyone has a simple plug in monitor you can borrow if you’re not still in possession of the IHD - that attaches to the cables from the meter and will give you a decent idea of how much is being used at any given time. 

Unfortunately not, plug-in ones are for individual appliances, not for 'whole house' measurements.  You'd need one with a clip-on sensor or one with a sensor that's placed over the red LED on the meter that's marked '1000 Imp/kWh' or similar.

There are also some apps that will convert the red flashes into kW but my brief investigation didn't find one that worked reliably.