Octopus Energy Hike in bills.

victor2

You do seem to have something electric running that is using a lot. You haven't got an immersion heater switched on have you?

Your electricity  readings between 14 feb and today show a usage of 465 kWh, which is over 30kWh per day, and is very high.

You meter may well have a flashing LED on it - the faster it flashes the more electricity you are using. If you can send a photo of it, someone should be able to tell you what the flashes indicate.

Switch things off until the flashing slows down noticeably, and that will help you home in on the culprit...

Robin9

.................. The last electricity reading I submitted was 14th February and it was 064164. Today the reading is 064629..............

Look closely at your meter - could there be a decimal point   06416 . 4 and 06462.9   /   


Does your meter have a small key pad ?  If so what button are you pressing to get your reading ?

QrizB

The last electricity reading I submitted was 14th February and it was 064164. Today the reading is 064629.

That's 465kWh in 16 days, almost 30kWh/day. I would expect your household to be using less than 10kWh/day.

This isn't just one or two things on standby, you've got the equivalent of a stray one-bar electric fire running 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

badger09

OP you mention 4 young children and constant washing machine use. Is there also constant tumble dryer use?

BooJewels

Robin beat me to it, but I was thinking about the digits of the meter readings - both the ones I monitor are 5 digits, not 6.  If you ignore the last digit, that's then 46 kWh, which is possibly too low too.  As already asked, I think we need to see photos of the meter so you can be advised properly.

I reckon that I'm probably a high user, as I work at home and have computers running, two freezers, big fridge, a couple of small plug in heaters on low settings (cellar and attic where the GHC doesn't reach), an electric shower and lots of low wattage LED lamps, but they're on all day.  I average 16kWh/day.

wild666

Robin9 sometimes the TV can be a part of the problem old Analogue sets use a fair bit of power if they are used with a Freeview box to access TV channels. There's a house along the route I take on a night out they have an old analogue TV and a Freeview box, I guess they didn't want to throw out a working TV set and invested in a Freeview box when the analogue signal was turned off. This wouldn't be the sole problem but it could be part of the problem.  

Just-asking_4

Sorry, I was saying I have a family member, in a 3 bed house, with 4 kids, and their usage is a lot less than mine, so in their house 2 adults, 4 children, and I pay a whole lot more than them, as I said our situation here is 2 bed, 2 adults. I will take a photo of the meter when I get in a bit later.

Just-asking_4

Photos. No old tvs or halogen lights. I do have an american fridge freezer, but I have always had one for years and it hasn't caused huge electricity bills previously.

QrizB

Just-asking_4 said:

I will take a photo of the meter when I get in a bit later.

Thank you. You might like to take daily readings for a while. It's a shame you don't have a smart meter, you'd have a year's worth of half-hourly readings saved in it already.

BooJewels said:

Robin beat me to it, but I was thinking about the digits of the meter readings - both the ones I monitor are 5 digits, not 6.

Six-digit meters are definitely a thing, particularly old analogue ones.

victor2

Just-asking_4 said:

Photos. No old tvs or halogen lights. I do have an american fridge freezer, but I have always had one for years and it hasn't caused huge electricity bills previously.

We had a big old American (not just in style, it really was American!) fridge/freezer until it died last year. I noticed with its usage that there would be a spike for about 20 minutes every day when the anti-frost heating element cut in. That was rated at 800W. If something goes wrong, they can use a lot of electricity, although unlikely to account for your high daily average.

On the photo of your meter, the little LED on the left, labelled 1000 imp/kWh means it will flash 1000 times per kWh recorded. If you are consistently using 30kWh per day, it will flash at something like 21 times per minute. Fridges do cut in and out during the day, so your usage may be caused by such peaks, but it costs you nothing to do a few simple tests and see how many flashes per minute the meter shows - if the meter is easily accesible of course!