Electricity Help

k_man

@Nikki19912022

How well insulated is your hot water tank?
e.g does it feel warm or hot to the touch, and how warm does the cupboard it is in get when there is hot water in the tank?

If it is well insulated then the immersion heater being on for long periods won't use a massive amount of extra energy, unless you then use all the hot water, because it's there.

If however the tank is uninsulated, then you have a big (albeit inefficient shaped) radiator on all the time.

Nikki19912022

k_man said:

@Nikki19912022

How well insulated is your hot water tank?
e.g does it feel warm or hot to the touch, and how warm does the cupboard it is in get when there is hot water in the tank?

If it is well insulated then the immersion heater being on for long periods won't use a massive amount of extra energy, unless you then use all the hot water, because it's there.

If however the tank is uninsulated, then you have a big (albeit inefficient shaped) radiator on all the time.

Morning, 

Thanks for your message. It isn't hot to touch at all and the room never gets hot. To be honest, I only shower really once in the morning and sometimes in the evening (maybe twice a week) and that is it. The rest of the time I use water to wash my hands etc. In terms of washing up, I have a dishwasher, but dont use it huge amounts as there is not much in there. Thanks 

k_man

That is unlikely to be the cause of high usage then.

But still worthwhile setting the timer to not be on 24/7 though.

Nikki19912022

Morning @Coffeekup thank you for your message. Yes since looking at it, it doesn't seem as bad. I am switching everything off so at least I know that is helping. I have fun out of things to switch off now, so its the best it will be. Annoying as comparing to a friend who doesn't switch off, and doesn't seem to use the same kwh as me, but I will look into that at some point. Eons new rates for me to renew have daily standing charge at 41.66p and then unit rate of 46.37p, so they have taken October into consideration. I have been advised by them I can only renew with them, if I set up a direct debit of £308.12 so I am completely stuck with what to do as I will have no choice but to renew with them, but having to pay out a huge amount which I wont be using anymore. I am in credit with them so its not paying things back, but they said I need to do it to cover winter.The builders are also going to send someone to the property to check everything is set up properly in terms of metres etc and that things are not wired wrong etc.

Alnat1

You could try gradually cutting the amount of time you heat the hot water. Not sure if your timer can do minutes as ours does, but we reduced it every 3 days and now find 40 minutes gives enough hot water for 2 showers and hubby's shave, a bit left for cleaning etc. We also changed the thermostat so it heats to 55C. If we want a bath we manually turn it on for 15 minutes and if we need very hot water (mop bucket) we boil the kettle.

We also now wash our hands in cold water. We realised that when we turned the hot tap on we'd finished washing them before the water was getting warm so all we were doing was filling the pipes up with hot water which then went cold and was wasted. Research has shown it's the soap that removes germs, not hot water, so it's perfectly safe.

Nikki19912022

Thank you so much to everyone for their replies and help. My loop account has finally synced so I have now been able to look at my usage a little more. Todays usage is already 5.6kwh, which is a lot higher than normal (Yesterday was 6.5kwh for the full 24 hours) so I have looked at the peak times. Between 4:30 - 6:30 this morning it used 5.1kwh. I changed the time last night for the times on the immersion heater to come on between 4:30 - 6:30. The day before it was on 3 hours and it only used 1.9kwh. So it is something to do with the immersion heater. My only other peaks during dates are 6pm in the evening when I am cooking (1.5 kwh) and when I first wake up (1.1kwh) the other hours are anywhere between 0.2kwh - 0.5kwh. So changing the immersion heater to this may not have helped. 

MattMattMattUK

Nikki19912022 said:

Thank you so much to everyone for their replies and help. My loop account has finally synced so I have now been able to look at my usage a little more. Todays usage is already 5.6kwh, which is a lot higher than normal (Yesterday was 6.5kwh for the full 24 hours) so I have looked at the peak times. Between 4:30 - 6:30 this morning it used 5.1kwh. I changed the time last night for the times on the immersion heater to come on between 4:30 - 6:30. The day before it was on 3 hours and it only used 1.9kwh. So it is something to do with the immersion heater. My only other peaks during dates are 6pm in the evening when I am cooking (1.5 kwh) and when I first wake up (1.1kwh) the other hours are anywhere between 0.2kwh - 0.5kwh. So changing the immersion heater to this may not have helped. 

Try turning your hot water heating off for a few days and see what happens. There will be more than enough hot water to get several days of showers out of the tank without needing to heat it again, that would give you a guide if all of that usage is your hot water, or just some of it.

The immersion heater should only heat water that needs heating, if the water is hot enough it should shut off, if the thermostat on the immersion heater had gone the water would be heated for the whole time it was on and it would be using significantly more electricity that it is. 

Nikki19912022

Thank you @MattMattMattUK. I will switch it off now. It was only that and the fridge/freezer on. The builders put a cover across something in there, which maybe the thermostat as I can not see that at all. So maybe there is something wrong. I will switch it off now, and see how it is tomorrow morning. It is very strange as Thursday it dropped right now but now changing it to two hours its gone up. Thank you 

markin

40-60min should be enough for your hot water needs.

New builds will sometimes have a heat recovery ventilation fan system, is the anything like that, any boxes you don't what they are for?  Maybe time to post photos.

And you're sure the meter is yours? With all breakers/fuses off the is no power use at all, Then it shoots up if you put the immersion and kettle on?

Nikki19912022

Hi Everyone, 
I wanted to say again thank you so much for your help. I did a check and it is my metre. I have spent over an hour on the phone this morning to Eon Next who have been extremely helpful. They have advised my consumption (which is 11 months to date) has been 7135kwh. They said the average for a 3 bed home is 3000kwh so there is an issue. We have looked at my hourly usage, when tv is on, or laptop etc (I am using loop too) and it is completely on the immersion heater. It is now all switched off and I am waiting to hear back from the builders of the property who installed these. It maybe that the thermostat is broken or there is something set on it to be on 24 hours a day. I was advised when I moved in that it was set up correctly and I wouldn't need to touch it. This is now an issue for the development to deal with, which will take a while I imagine. But I do really appreciate all of your help. Thanks