Meter Readings vs. Smart Meter Discrepancy - British Gas. Am I Being Diddled?

Alnat1

There's not a second "boost" type switch on the hot water tank that you've missed? Check your consumer unit and switch off sections for a few hours each, see if you can work out which area is using the electricity.

Alnat1

How big is the fish tank and have you had your power monitor test the heater?

EssexHebridean

Alnat1 said:

How big is the fish tank and have you had your power monitor test the heater?

That was going to be my first question. An immersion heater is also a decent shout for a lot of background use too. 

The heated airers aren't power hungry as such, but if it is being used a lot that would contribute - again worth running a check with the power monitor. 

I'd also suggest monitoring the FF for a longer period - overnight isn't the best time to really get an idea of use as generally speaking the doors aren't being opened, and often the house temperature is cooler too so it ight be working less hard. My small freezer runs on a smart plug with power monitoring all the time and I can see substantially lower use overnight than during the day and in to the evening. I'm going to hazard a guess that your 50kWh monthly might be a bit adrift of reality. 

Go round the house room by room and take an audit of absolutely everything that is plugged in to sockets - and bearing in mind you are probably not totally familiar with the house yet really look everywhere as well - there may be sockets that you aren't aware of that others in the house have found and plugged things in to! 

Raxiel

I recall one poster with inexplicable high usage discovered there was an electric underfloor heating system in one room they didn't know about, so check for that too.

Does your IHD have a live 'usage now' figure available? That can be useful in finding the culprit, because you can knock off individual breakers to narrow down the cause. Before we got the solar, the 'idle' draw of the house without any appliances on, just some lighting, router, tv on standby etc was around 100W and we were averaging 10kWh a day.

Joppydee

Hi All,

Thanks so much for helping! 

@Alnat1 - Last week we put a Hive system in, so replaced the control panel / master controls that dictate the boiler's activity and I did ask questions to the sparky fitting it about the immersion etc. and the immersion is as simple as a switch (in the style of a lightswitch / fuse switch) that is flicked to off. I will double check anything else around the heating. The Hive is quality and I am very stingy with it, so that heat isn't reflected in the rad temperature that's for sure. Thanks for the help. We actually have two consumer units... one for the original house and one for the extension. Do you think the meter could be doubling down on usage as a result of that? 

@Alnat1 - The fish tank is only a wee thing. I just measured the extension lead that all three things (light, filter, heater) are plugged into for about 2 hours and that looks to be using about 33 kWh per month so about £11 per month. No issue there! 

@EssexHebridean - Hmm. I will try disconnecting or turning off any chance of idle background activity on the immersion to put a manual stop to any power in that case. Thanks! Regarding the heated dryer, we don't have a tumble dryer and it's been a great help but even if I had it on for 8 hours a day for 5 days a week, it would use about 55kWh per month (£20 per month). Understood on the FF, maybe it needs to work harder in the day with the temperature being higher right? I will pop the plug-in back in for at least a few days and report back. 

@Raxiel - Wow, that sounds like a nice problem to have lol. There is no secret under floor heating but I appreciate that suggestion. I have this morning switched to a 30-min regular meter reading submission, so I will have a look at the live reading figure as you suggest and knock off one option from the consumer unit as I really don't think a discrepancy of almost 300kWh is a secret plug anywhere anymore. I am convinced it's something hardwired! 

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate your help on solving this.

Qyburn

Joppydee said: 
I do work from home but even that consistent draw from my laptop and monitors is totalling maybe 100kWh for the month, tops. 

Just on the working from home, it will probably be a lot less than that if switched off when you're not working. My rig of laptop with docking station, VPN homeworker gateway, and 24" external screen used to use no more than 0.8 kWh or so per day. A bit more if you have two external screens. If left switched on 24/7 it would have been more of course.

Raxiel

Joppydee said:

..

@Raxiel - Wow, that sounds like a nice problem to have lol. There is no secret under floor heating but I appreciate that suggestion. I have this morning switched to a 30-min regular meter reading submission, so I will have a look at the live reading figure as you suggest and knock off one option from the consumer unit as I really don't think a discrepancy of almost 300kWh is a secret plug anywhere anymore. I am convinced it's something hardwired! 

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate your help on solving this.

30 minute readings are good for identifying trends, so that's a good idea, although by live I mean instantaneous readings on the IHD itself, typically updated every 5 seconds, although I don't know if every IHD does this.

Mine looks like this https://i.imgur.com/2hyWfiY.jpg (ignore the fact it's negative, that's because we were exporting at the time)

Note it's reading in (k)W not (k)Wh

locky123

I'm a new smart meter user and not had any significant issues with the IHD, apart from sometimes it doesnt show a reading. On mine there is a meters menu option which shows you the meter details including the current meter reading. This meter reading should closely match the actual electric meter unit reading as it updated every minute.  British Gas havent got a usage function on their app so the alternative Bright app is good for seeing your data.

[Deleted User]

locky123 said:

I'm a new smart meter user and not had any significant issues with the IHD, apart from sometimes it doesnt show a reading. On mine there is a meters menu option which shows you the meter details including the current meter reading. This meter reading should closely match the actual electric meter unit reading as it updated every minute.  British Gas havent got a usage function on their app so the alternative Bright app is good for seeing your data.

Beware the current meter reading is not what you think it is. It is the TOTAL of all the 4 smart meter registers that have been used since the meter was installed. For example, my R1 reading is 02319 (offpeak) and R2 00421: the IHD reading is 02740.

[Deleted User]

Raxiel said:

Joppydee said:

..

@Raxiel - Wow, that sounds like a nice problem to have lol. There is no secret under floor heating but I appreciate that suggestion. I have this morning switched to a 30-min regular meter reading submission, so I will have a look at the live reading figure as you suggest and knock off one option from the consumer unit as I really don't think a discrepancy of almost 300kWh is a secret plug anywhere anymore. I am convinced it's something hardwired! 

Thanks everyone. Really appreciate your help on solving this.

30 minute readings are good for identifying trends, so that's a good idea, although by live I mean instantaneous readings on the IHD itself, typically updated every 5 seconds, although I don't know if every IHD does this.

Mine looks like this https://i.imgur.com/2hyWfiY.jpg (ignore the fact it's negative, that's because we were exporting at the time)

Note it's reading in (k)W not (k)Wh

Every IHD updates in the same way. Electricity updates every 10 seconds (instant power kW and usage kWh). Gas updates usage kWh every 30 minutes. Each comms hub can up to 4 IHD/CADs paired to it.