Phantom Electricity Usage Spikes

robshak

Hi all, I am pulling my hair out!!!

It all started about 10 days ago..I noticed a very unusual spike in electricity consumption throughout night, almost every  three hours, like a clockwork, that went on during day time too. What was random was when the spike occurred but the frequency and amount consumed was almost consistent.

I have now tested power consumption of every electrical item on socket, timed and measured fridge consumption, made notes on high usage instances, unplugged unused devices during night..BUT THIS PHANTOM SPIKES CONTINUES without any contributing anomaly.

Has anything of this sort happened to anyone here? If so, how did they identify the culprit?

I have even asked the provider to check the smart meter and ran tests that were inconclusive.

Can faulty smart meter cause these sort of unexplained spikes?

Any advice will be gratefully received.

mmmmikey

Hmmm - strange things are afoot...

A couple of questions:

1. Where are you seing these spikes - i.e. in an app, on the IHD, etc.?

2. How big are they - roughly how long and what sort of power?

victor2

When you say you've tested the power consumption of your fridge, was that over at least a 24 hour period? If you have at "frost free" freezer, they often include a heating element that comes on periodically. In the case of my old fridge/freezer, that was about once every 24 hours or so, and consumed about 800 watts for up to 20 minutes.
Of course it could be something else altogether!
How big is the spike you are seeing?
I wouldn't have thought a faulty meter would cause such phantom spikes.


If you haven't got one already, a plug in monitor such as the Tapo P110 gives a time based report of appliances plugged into it.

Gerry1

Immersion heater left on permanently and continually topping up?

Krakkkers

My oven has a dodgy on/off temp controller and if i don't switch it off very firmly it will basically try to defrost, so it kicks in at 2.5kw for 30 seconds or so every few hours.

Gerry1

Krakkkers said:

My oven has a dodgy on/off temp controller and if i don't switch it off very firmly it will basically try to defrost, so it kicks in at 2.5kw for 30 seconds or so every few hours.

Your oven needs defosting?

Krakkkers

No to be clear my oven does not need defrosting but it does have a defrost setting for defrosting food from the freezer.

daveaspy

I have a whole house power logging graph and see "spikes" that last seconds - these are the fridge and freezer motors kicking in every few hours. So it depends where you are seeing this spike - if its on a 30 minute smart meter reading its obviously a big load, if its just a spike in a near real time graph then its likely nothing to worry about

robshak

Thanks for all your comments. Will try to answer queries below:

- I have noted the spoke pattern in the app and it is about 0.5kwh each time when logged.

- I did measure the fridge over 24 hrs but did not note consumption, not alarmingly high may be that's why. I will try again.  Might get a Tapo.

- No immersion heater or left on oven.

What baffled me is that nothing has changed and we ran all appliances as we are now, then suddenly these spikes appeared from nowhere doubling our consumption. I will investigate further with TapoP110 as suggested above to see ifI can nail the !!!!!! down.

Keep those comments coming :-)

mmmmikey

Hi -  a Tapo would be a great investment - as you say you want the P110 which you can get off Amazon and the like for £10 or so. It will give you a much better idea of how much things are using.

Sorry to answer your questions with questions, but it all helps trigger ideas....

1. Which app are you using and where is it getting it's data from?

2. How old are your fridge and/or freezer? (A thought that occurs to me is that a the compressor is on it's way out that could cause a spike and we've had some pretty hot weather so any underlying problem may well manifest itself now)

robshak

mmmmikey said:

Hi -  a Tapo would be a great investment - as you say you want the P110 which you can get off Amazon and the like for £10 or so. It will give you a much better idea of how much things are using.

Sorry to answer your questions with questions, but it all helps trigger ideas....

1. Which app are you using and where is it getting it's data from?

2. How old are your fridge and/or freezer? (A thought that occurs to me is that a the compressor is on it's way out that could cause a spike and we've had some pretty hot weather so any underlying problem may well manifest itself now)

It is the Octopus smart meter app and it gets data from the smart meter I guess. Updates about mid-day next day for previous day's use.

The fridge/freezer is about 3 yrs old only, suppose new enough not to start these compressor issues.

Yes looking for a Tapo p110 now but only 4 packs!