High Electricity bills

Gerry1

iFunk said:

victor2 said:

We've strayed off topic a bit. Did you find out what is using electricity, apart from your computers and related equipment of course?

I'll just turn off the electric at the meter whenever I am away for the flat for for the day, all in all, I am of the opinion that the greener living we can do the better.

You might find yourself turning a bit green if the temperature of the unpowered fridge rises on a hot sunny day and the food poisoning bugs multiply by a million...

wild666

iFunk said:

Hi there,

Wonder if anyone can give me some advice. I'm in the Uk and since living in the current property, we have been paying very high bills, and the lat one claimed I used 2,980kW/h in the last 3 months. 1196kW/h of those is Night Energy of which we don't have anything on but a router and a booster, a fridge, a TV on standby and a set top box. To my knowledge nothing else is used at night, we have not used the heating for over a year now.

The Electricity company say that is the use, so we have requested to get the meter calibrated, but I don't know what to do if this comes back ok. I now live here on my own, and during the day apart from the above devices, I run two laptops, with 3 monitors and a charging point for my phone.

I really don't understand what is going on. The landlord got the electrics checked out last year and claims they are fine, but it does seem like I am feeding another property's electrics. The next door neighbour in an identical flat pays only £60 per month and they have a kid and so of course much more electrical appliances are on, lights, (I turn all mine off and often walk around in the dark, because of the bill) they do have gas central heating, but as I've mentioned, I do not use the heating as I know the storage heaters use a lot.

I don't know what to do, if the price goes up, I will be paying close to £1200 a quarter for electric, I don't know what to do, I suspect I am going to be forced to move out because no one will take any responsibility for this inefficiency.

Does anyone know what I can do to address this, there is clearly something wrong, but no one will address this issue. I'm getting to the point where I want out of this property because of this problem as there does not seem to be a solution, it's as if I am paying for someone else electricity, but I now feel trapped as I if I move out, then the issue can't be resolved and I will be black listed as I can't pay this bill, I simply do not have the money to pay it. Any advice on how I can move forward would be much appreciated.  thanks in advance.

Take regular readings from the meters, at least weekly, I do mine daily last thing, Do a sanity test by turning everything off, if the meters are still recording usage then someone else is possibly plugged into your meters or they are faulty
Appliances left in standby mode also use electric so consider turning them off at the socket and if possible unplug them, although unplugging them will only stop the appliance, i.e. a TV or similar from frying if there is a lightening strike.   

k_man

@wild666

I suspect you may be 8 pages late to the thread!

iFunk

Gerry1 said:

iFunk said:

victor2 said:

We've strayed off topic a bit. Did you find out what is using electricity, apart from your computers and related equipment of course?

I'll just turn off the electric at the meter whenever I am away for the flat for for the day, all in all, I am of the opinion that the greener living we can do the better.

You might find yourself turning a bit green if the temperature of the unpowered fridge rises on a hot sunny day and the food poisoning bugs multiply by a million...

Ah, I don't really use the fridge, I have a strange diet of raw veg. I only keep milk in the fridge for tea

[Deleted User]

Hi,

oh well, fridge off, use this,

iFunk

[Deleted User] said:

Hi,

oh well, fridge off, use this,

I can stop drinking Tea, and just have a black coffee in the morning. So it looks like, and probably no surprise here, but I put the water on this morning for half an hour taking advantage of the cheaper rate, and boom the night meter ticked over 2. That's fine, but that is the culprit, the boiler looks old and inefficient to me. And for what I use hot water for, I can use the kettle which is a lot cheaper.