Is my electricity meter correct?

milbo1990

I know that this sounds like a bit of a stupid question, but all the current hype around energy prices has lead me to look into this (something which, I’ll be honest, I’ve never given much attention).

According to our electricity bill (based on meter readings), we use 10,800kwh of electricity per annum.

A few facts about our situation:
-There are just two of us living in the house; my partner and I
-We both work full time and are typically out of the house between 0700-1800
-We live in a modest 3 bedroom bungalow
-We don’t have a gas supply, so all of our energy is electricity
-The property isn’t particularly thermally efficient (something we’re working on)
-We use a mixture of storage heaters and plug-in heaters, but generally only for a couple of hours per day during the winter.
-We have an electric shower which is used twice each day
-We cook using an electric oven and hob around 4 times per week

From talking to family and friends, it feels like our useage is VERY high. We know people who, you would think, use more energy (e.g they have children, or are retired and in the house more) who use significantly less energy than we do. Also, from looking on comparrison sites, these all state that our consumption is high for our postcode, which is odd because a lot of people in the area are also purely using electric and many are retired and/or have much bigger houses.

Sorry for the long and rambling post, keen to hear your thoughts.

Swipe

Single person here, home all day every day. Rural detached bungalow with E7, storage heaters and immersion heater. I'm a careful user and I use the same as you so I'd say you are doing very well with your current usage. My annual figures for last year are 1300 daytime and 9600 night time. 

pochase

A bungalow is more expensive to heat that other building types.

You might be able to save a bit, but I don't think there is anything wrong with your meter.

QrizB

I agree that 10800kWh/yr sounds credible.

Before kids we were two working adults in an all-electric semi and we were using 9000kWh/yr.

pochase

Are friends and family also only on electricity, or are they on dual fuel (gas)?

The "average" Ofgem base the cap on is 12000/2900.

So 12000Kwh is been used for heating and hot water. A good gas boiler is 95% effective, so more than 11000Kwh is really used to heat the average house.

Your total electricity use is less than what the Ofgem average user uses to just heat his home.

macman

That is extremely low usage for a 3 b/r bungalow, where heat loss is higher because of the greater floor area.
However, I would query why you are using NSH's and convectors? This is insane, as the whole point of NSH's is that they heat up overnight on E7 cheap rate. If you then top up during the day/evening with convectors, that is on the much more expensive day rate. You can't just run an NSH for 'a couple of hours a day'.
The problem with NSH's is that they release most of their heat in the day, when you are not there, so they're more suited to houses occupied in the day.
So please can you confirm that a) you really do have NSH's and b) that you are on an E7 tariff?
If you are on E7, then please confirm the percentage split between registers on your annual kWh consumption: you typically need to be using at least 33% to make E7 worthwhile.

RobM99

"-We use a mixture of storage heaters and plug-in heaters, but generally only for a couple of hours per day during the winter."

I used a fan heater until I found out it cosy 60p an hour! Ouch...

MuckChucker

Our combined usage last year was around 15500kwh (this year, new boiler and habits im aiming for half that), 4 bed semi, 2 adults and 2 kids. So your actual energy use does not seem high. I think your problem will be that elec units are a lot more expensive than gas, which is 2/3 or our bill, so it'd still be worth your while to see what can be cut back on.

stewie_griffin

Are you on an Economy 7 meter and if so what’s your day/night split? 10k kWh in a 3 bed bungalow with electrical heating is actually lower than I’d have anticipated.

milbo1990

Thanks for the responses everyone, it’s reassuring to hear that our useage doesn’t seem high, because I do think we’re pretty careful.

Just to answer some of the questions; 
-Yes, we’re on E7
-Our split is nearly 50/50 (10,300 day, 10,500 night)
-The storage heaters are just used to heat some of the rooms we use in the mornings. By the time we get in from work, they’re pretty cool, so we top up with convector heaters. This is 2 heaters for 2-3 hours total. 

We’re currently in the process of extending and renovating the property. All being well, the whole property will be insulated to current building regs and we’ve installed 16nr solar panels, which will run an electric boiler and central heating system - so things should dramatically improve next year.

Thanks for your input

chris_n

milbo1990 said:

Thanks for the responses everyone, it’s reassuring to hear that our useage doesn’t seem high, because I do think we’re pretty careful.

Just to answer some of the questions; 
-Yes, we’re on E7
-Our split is nearly 50/50 (10,300 day, 10,500 night)
-The storage heaters are just used to heat some of the rooms we use in the mornings. By the time we get in from work, they’re pretty cool, so we top up with convector heaters. This is 2 heaters for 2-3 hours total. 

We’re currently in the process of extending and renovating the property. All being well, the whole property will be insulated to current building regs and we’ve installed 16nr solar panels, which will run an electric boiler and central heating system - so things should dramatically improve next year.

Thanks for your input

I very much doubt that will improve things, an electric boiler is probably the most expensive way to heat a house. Your solar panels will generate next to nothing when you need it most! You would be better using a diverter switch to divert spare PV production to your storage heaters. Maybe you should replace some of your storage heaters with modern high heat retention ones ( you can't easily use a PV diverter with these).
By the way you are using nearly 21,000kWh per year not your originally quoted 10,800. 10,300kWh day use is huge, probably mainly down to convector heaters.