EDF have upped our monthly DD to £860, equivalent to £10,300 per year for our 3 bedroom semi

[Deleted User]

mroshaw said:

CanNeverThinkOfAUsername said:

This is one of the things i love about this forum. @mroshaw posted confused and upset about the sky high DD. he has got wonderful help, and is now making changes to check his usage and bring it down

Absolutely agree with this. What's most apparent to me is that is no "fault of EDF", which is obviously where my head was at when we got the bill in the post. Our lack of readings and a lack of our own understanding and control of our energy consumption are what lead to this situation. And it's only through our own analysis, work and efforts that we'll ultimately address what we're paying for energy - by fundamentally reducing the amount we consume.

Did we get to the bottom of the gas readings yet?

As far as I recall, you originally gave us a usage number around 3700kWh - which is about 1/3 of the typical household.

We then had the 828 meter reading, but were not quite sure of the units - it either equated to 9500kWh (80% of typical) or 26500kWh (220% of typical).

My money at the moment is on 9500kWh, despite the massive electricity use and purely based on your account of the dm3 pulse counter, which could suggest that the DD (your original worry) is too high.

mroshaw said:

My money is currently on the front room (TV, PS5 and Soundbar that sit on stand-by), the tumble drier (which is now unplugged and on the naughty step) and my "work" PC, which is a beast of a desktop/monitor combo. Those downstairs halogen spots are also on my list of suspects!

If it's helpful, I'll keep this post updated with our findings?

Front room, perhaps, but halogen spots are certainly often found to be a big contributor - people forget about them because they're only little lightbulbs but we've had people posting here with 3kW or more just in their kitchen.  That's like running a kettle constantly whenever the lights are on.

It's always good to know what you find, and helpful for others in the future with similar concerns.

Spoonie_Turtle

Hats off to you for realising the situation and not retreating into denial!  I for one would appreciate you updating with your findings.  Hopefully this will be a very rewarding exercise (in more ways than one).

Edit: I see from another thread the Tapo P110s that most people recommend are proving hard to come by for some, now.  If you would be happy with a non-smart monitor without an app, I can recommend this one from Low Energy Supermarket; on eBay it's the same price with postage included, on here if you buy anything else (e.g. bulbs) it spreads the postage across the items.  https://lowenergysupermarket.com/product/plug-in-energy-monitor/
The large screen one looks good too but you'd have to consider the placement of plugs you want to monitor, whether a larger one would fit or not.
[No affiliation, just a happy customer.]

Of course the Tapos do have the advantage of being able to be read remotely, and a life as a smart plug after monitoring.

badmemory

If 2 of you are working home that will account for a fair amount before you start.  2 of us in a small 3 bed modern terrace are using 8000 elect & 13000 gas.  But there are reasons for the extra electric use - long showers because they help with my sons mental health & more heating - gas - due to the fact that if I get just a bit cold my joints seize up.  The only items I have identified as a problem are the high usage of my now rather old freezer & separate fridge.  Also my old eyes need the lights on quite a lot, but all are low energy bulbs except for 2 strip lights & I don't know how much they use, but less than a normal bulb I believe.

MattMattMattUK

mroshaw said:

My money is currently on the front room (TV, PS5 and Soundbar that sit on stand-by), the tumble drier (which is now unplugged and on the naughty step) and my "work" PC, which is a beast of a desktop/monitor combo. Those downstairs halogen spots are also on my list of suspects!

If it's helpful, I'll keep this post updated with our findings?

In standby my PS5 uses .31 of a watt, my TV cycles in standby between .45 and 12 Watts as it periodically connects to the Internet, the soundbar .4 Watts in standby so they are unlikely to be the culprit. Even when all in use they are unlikely to se more than 500 Watts.

I have a gaming PC as I game and also do work in UE5, maximum draw can be 600-700 Watts with the monitor on as well, but generally it is much lower, normal stuff such as spreadsheets, emails etc. the whole setup draws around 160 Watts.

As has been said above the halogen lights could well be a large part of the problem, generally anything that is/gets hot is the culprit. 

Alnat1

Please do keep us all updated, there will be lots who read this without commenting and you may help them save some money too.

Spoonie_Turtle

Alnat1 said:

Please do keep us all updated, there will be lots who read this without commenting and you may help them save some money too.

Yep, threads like this were exactly what helped me start to audit our energy and at least understand where it's going.  We haven't been able to save an awful lot yet but at least we know next steps for sure.  And the small savings so far (haven't worked them out, but our estimated annual usage has already dropped slightly so we're doing something right!) are a step in the right direction at least.

Chrysalis

OP taking proper action to be commended, good decision on the smart meters for sure.

Coffeekup

mroshaw said:

My money is currently on the front room (TV, PS5 and Soundbar that sit on stand-by), the tumble drier (which is now unplugged and on the naughty step) and my "work" PC, which is a beast of a desktop/monitor combo. Those downstairs halogen spots are also on my list of suspects!

If it's helpful, I'll keep this post updated with our findings?

Please do... You may figure out something others here have it yet considered with you're findings. Then we can relay that to the net person with high usage asking for help.

Your PC will be a chuck of the usage.. electric showers, pond pumps/filter's, American fridge freezers, multiple and or old fridge freezers, hot tubs, along with multiple items just sitting on standby are the usual culprits of high energy usage.

Mobtr

It’s so refreshing to see someone take responsibility rather than just blame the energy company 

Coffeekup

Mobtr said:

It’s so refreshing to see someone take responsibility rather than just blame the energy company 

I think may do after they realized where and how it has gone wrong.

IMO we've had 15+ years of cheap energy, which has resulted with most of us being unaware of out usage effectively resulting with us being zombie's with energy consumption. Prices going up can only be a good thing. It makes people sit up and pay attention to their usage, instead of us all leaving things turned on. Or using power for unnecessary things, updating old inefficient appliances or having multiple appliances of the same thing (i.e. fridge freezers, wine coolers or mini homes for tropical pet's).
Even turning off the heating timer and physically turning it on when you're cold (why would you pay to heat the house during the day when no one is there or you're in bed and already warm?) It pollutes the environment unnecessarily, making the planet and future generations a better place to be.

I'd like to think the uk gas and electric usage as a whole in 2023/2024 would be down on 
2019 usages, even 2020/2021.