High electricity usage - could there be a mistake?

Enigma80

Hi all,

We (myself, wife and two kids) live in a 3 bed mid terrace and work from home.  So laptops and monitors are used daily.  Other appliances are normal, except have two fridge freezers (1x American style double door, and a  normal fridge-freezer. We use the tumble dryer and electric oven almost daily.  We've all got issues with long-term breathing issues so heating will start to go on timer soon.

We don't have a smart metre, but one of those old analogue ones. With no nothing major running like the dryer, dishwasher, shower or oven etc, just the work laptops and TV stuff it takes around 40seconds for the metre disc to make a single revolution, not sure if this means anything to anyone whether they're all standard or vary between models etc.  According to BG this is my estimated annual usage based on last year which results in around £4.5K annually:

Electricity estimated annual consumption 10,117.12kWh

Gas estimated annual consumption 13,626.39kWh

I did one of those walkaround the house and checking the appliances nothing seemed to be using specifically more than normal, this was some time ago.  Someone even suggested I check that the neighbours aren't using our electric.

Does anyone else use this much?  Might there be a fault with the metre?

Spoonie_Turtle

Do you send them readings?  (If not, start doing that.  Monthly, ideally.)

If you can find two actual readings (not estimates) 12months apart that will tell you your actual consumption and you can go from there.

As a general rule anything that heats up (or rapidly cools down, such as fridge/freezer) uses more electricity than other things that don't heat up so much/at all.  So the oven and tumble dryer electricity usage will be mounting up.  Same with if your shower is electric.

You mention heating in your post, but you have gas heating.  (If that annual usage is correct, that's slightly higher than typical which might not be expected for a mid-terrace - how high do you have the temperature?  Preheat on the boiler for hot water?)
Do you use any supplemental electric heating?

A meter fault is possible but with daily washing machine and tumble dryer, that doesn't indicate an awareness of energy saving so chances are your usage is really is quite high.  The annual estimate might be based on last year's usage plus 20%, or something.  Particularly with British Gas, they're not known for their strict accuracy.

[Deleted User]

Hi,

as above, send monthly readings to BG.

If you take a daily read about same time each day, it will help to pinpoint any spike in usage.

markin

27kwh a day on elec is extreme if you have Gas heating, If that BG estimate is actually correct.

 Is the Shower Electric?
Both work from home?
Get a plug in monitor and test the Big fridge / how old is it?
Tank immersion heat lest on by accident?
water pump in a cellar?

Robin9

After the electric shower  top of the list is the American FF.

Read the meter today, how does that reading compare with the last one from BG. Look on the bill for the letters A C E S or our read/your read ; take great care in reading the meter look for the decimal point.

Give us some those readings please

ArbitraryRandom

I'm going to suggest, from the way you describe your household, the number is quite plausible and one that you would have scope to reduce if you wanted to. 

But one easy way to test for an obvious problem is for everyone in the house to go out for the day (at least 4 hours, ideally longer) - before you do, take an electricity meter reading and turn of everything at the wall (other than your fridge/freezer, but even that should be fine for upto 12 hours if it's staying closed). 

When you get back, before turning anything on, take another meter reading, inc any numbers in red/after the decimal - for 4 hours, if you left the fridge/freezer on, you should see a very low level of use. If it's more than 1 or 2 units then there's either something in the house using energy that you don't know about, worth thinking about replacing the old fridge, or a problem with the meter recording phantom usage. 

Qyburn

Robin9 said:

After the electric shower  top of the list is the American FF.

And the tumble dryer, unless it's a heat pump model it's around 4kWh for a load, if used every day thats nearly 1,500 kWh per year. 

Best advice is to get one or two Tapo P110s and monitor various devices. We found our freezer drawing 70W for hours on end due to some defrost fault.

Another win was the desktop computer, setting that to "hibernate" instead of sleep.

QrizB

Enigma80 said:

According to BG this is my estimated annual usage based on last year which results in around £4.5K annually:

Electricity estimated annual consumption 10,117.12kWh

Gas estimated annual consumption 13,626.39kWh

Is that what you have actually used and paid for the past 12 months, or is it just the estimate on your latest bill?

cm4ever

@Enigma80 Dare I say it - any reason you haven't got around to getting your meters replaced with smart meters?

At least with smart meters an IHD or use of an energy app would give you an idea of your instantaneous and base load - that might just surprise you.... but be careful it could lead to changes in how you think about your energy use!

Gerry1

Your electricity consumption is almost four times the average.  As previously mentioned, beware American Fridge/Freezers (check for dodgy door seals) and instantaneous electric showers (use water heated by gas).

Start by doing the Meter Sanity Test.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/78850409#Comment_78850409

You'll need to watch the spinning disc instead of the red flashing light.  Imp/kWh (Impulses=Flashes) become Rev/kWh (Revolutions).

Mobtr

Enigma80 said:

Hi all,

We (myself, wife and two kids) live in a 3 bed mid terrace and work from home.  So laptops and monitors are used daily.  Other appliances are normal, except have two fridge freezers (1x American style double door, and a  normal fridge-freezer. We use the tumble dryer and electric oven almost daily.  We've all got issues with long-term breathing issues so heating will start to go on timer soon.

We don't have a smart metre, but one of those old analogue ones. With no nothing major running like the dryer, dishwasher, shower or oven etc, just the work laptops and TV stuff it takes around 40seconds for the metre disc to make a single revolution, not sure if this means anything to anyone whether they're all standard or vary between models etc.  According to BG this is my estimated annual usage based on last year which results in around £4.5K annually:

Electricity estimated annual consumption 10,117.12kWh

Gas estimated annual consumption 13,626.39kWh

I did one of those walkaround the house and checking the appliances nothing seemed to be using specifically more than normal, this was some time ago.  Someone even suggested I check that the neighbours aren't using our electric.

Does anyone else use this much?  Might there be a fault with the metre?

You say there is a disc on your meter. I’m assuming this is a dial style meter which are very easy to over read. What is the last reading you took from the meter and can you post a photo of the dials so we can check it is correct? It might be an easy fix 🤞