Is my electric bill too high?

malkybck

Hi everyone, just looking for a bit of advice regarding my electric bill which went up to a crazy amount over a year ago now and to be honest I've never really understood why and feel like I need to try and investigate this now as I think we have been massively overcharged for this period. 

Our first increase has us being charged £191 per month, this went down to £156 per month in April and is still at that amount this month. We have around £450 credit in the account with edf. Originally we used to only pay around £60 per month before the first increase. Nothing has changed at all other than the addition of another small fish tank which we know doesn't use much as we already had another one before adding it. 

There's two of us living here in a small 2 bedroom bungalow, we both work together so are out all day 6 days a week and only home in the evenings. We don't have electric central heating, we don't have any immersion heater turned on for hot water. The only things that are always switched on are two security cameras and two small fish tanks, we do have a tumble dryer and dish washer but try to limit our use of them and also try to only have lights on in the rooms we are using.

To be honest we are starting to really struggle to keep up with this now and feel like we are doing everything we can to keep our electric usage down so something must be wrong.  We have a smart meter and I sat watching it the other night and it is constantly jumping up and down by huge amounts making it impossible to work out what is actually using the electric.

Does the price sound right to everyone? It's just such a big jump up from what we used to pay and nothing really has changed with our usage, if anything we use much less now than we did 2 years ago yet we pay more than double what we used to. It's so sickening.

The only thing that did change was someone built a house right next to us and moved in around the same time our price went up, is it in any way possible they are somehow tapped in to our supply? Is that even something that is possible? I wouldn't think so but I'm just at a loss as to how we pay so much for so little! 

I went online and got a quote based on our house from octopus last night and I was quoted £67 per month which sounds like what we used to pay, so are EDF conning us? We've been in touch with EDF and they've assured us there's no faults on our meter so we don't know what to do now. 

Any advice would be hugely appreciated, 

Thanks! 

ArbitraryRandom

A few questions to help us help you (just random questions from reading your post)  

1. Do you have access to your meter readings - they should be on your bill or online account?
1b. Can you provide us two meter readings approximately 12 months apart? (should be kWh not £)

2. Can you confirm what tariff you are on and do you know your rates (again, should be on your bill)?
2b. Can you see a bill from before your costs increased and tell us what your rates used to be (were you then/are you now on a fixed rate tariff or variable)?

3. When you say your 'costs increased', do you mean your bill or your direct debit (or both)?
3b. What information did you give octopus for them to generate a quote (did you give them a number based on your annual use or did they come up with a number themselves based on the size of the house/number of people etc)?

4. You say you don't have electric central heating or an immersion heater - may I check how do you heat your home and water? 
4b. When you say your smart meter is 'constantly jumping up and down by huge amounts' - do you mean the small handheld display?
4c. Have you tried turning everything off in your home (you could flick the main circuit breaker) and seeing if the meter still registers use? 

dunstonh

Our first increase has us being charged £191 per month, this went down to £156 per month in April and is still at that amount this month. 

Don't talk in £.   Give us the info in kWh or units.   Payment amounts could be due to price changes, arrears etc.   Its your usage that matters.

 Nothing has changed at all other than the addition of another small fish tank which we know doesn't use much as we already had another one before adding it. 

Fish tanks are notoriously high energy users.

Does the price sound right to everyone?

Insufficient info without knowing the unit counts between dates.  Ideally, give us a spread across a year and that will help enormously.

I went online and got a quote based on our house from octopus last night and I was quoted £67 per month which sounds like what we used to pay, so are EDF conning us? 

Was that quote based on your actual unit count use or some made up information?   

TheElectricCow

malkybck said:

To be honest we are starting to really struggle to keep up with this now and feel like we are doing everything we can to keep our electric usage down so something must be wrong.  We have a smart meter and I sat watching it the other night and it is constantly jumping up and down by huge amounts making it impossible to work out what is actually using the electric.

This might turn out to be more useful than you realise and at the very least shows that something is using the power. If you’re able to see exactly when the electric is being used it becomes a lot easier to identify precisely where it’s going.

A good starting point would be to turn off everything you can - if you think you’ve got everything and it’s still showing some consumption then there’s a good chance you’ve got an unknown or forgotten appliance running somewhere (think loft lights, electric heaters, anything in the garden/shed/garage, etc.).

Then start switching things on one at a time and wait a moment to see what impact each appliance has on your usage. If you see the usage starts jumping up and down as you previously observed shortly after switching a certain appliance on that may well be a significant part of the increased usage. It could also indicate a fault in one of your appliances such as a fridge/freezer stuck on a defrost cycle or with a broken thermostat for example causing it to run when it shouldn’t be.

daveyjp

Fish tanks are notoriously high energy users.

Not all.  Cold water fish tanks need a pump and a light, pennies a day to run,

malkybck

ArbitraryRandom said:

A few questions to help us help you (just random questions from reading your post)  

1. Do you have access to your meter readings - they should be on your bill or online account?
1b. Can you provide us two meter readings approximately 12 months apart? (should be kWh not £)

2. Can you confirm what tariff you are on and do you know your rates (again, should be on your bill)?
2b. Can you see a bill from before your costs increased and tell us what your rates used to be (were you then/are you now on a fixed rate tariff or variable)?

3. When you say your 'costs increased', do you mean your bill or your direct debit (or both)?
3b. What information did you give octopus for them to generate a quote (did you give them a number based on your annual use or did they come up with a number themselves based on the size of the house/number of people etc)?

4. You say you don't have electric central heating or an immersion heater - may I check how do you heat your home and water? 
4b. When you say your smart meter is 'constantly jumping up and down by huge amounts' - do you mean the small handheld display?
4c. Have you tried turning everything off in your home (you could flick the main circuit breaker) and seeing if the meter still registers use? 

It was around May 2022 our prices went up i think, i cant access any bills before then for some reason though despite being with them since 2013.

Im a bit confused looking at the bills with the meter readings they make no sense to me, we got our smart meter on 23rd November 2022.

1) These are my latest readings...

2nd November 2023 - 5129.5
12th October 2023  - 4741.3

then my bill from 2022 is written like this...

21 Sep 22 - 30 Sep 22--- 64191 YOUR READ --- 64309 ESTIMATED --- 118 kWh 
01 Oct 22 - 25 Oct 22 --- 64309 ESTIMATED --- 64622 OUR READ --- 313 kWh 
26 Oct 22 - 31 Dec 22 ---  0 OUR READ --- 1068 OUR READ --- 1068 kWh 
01 Jan 23 - 03 Feb 23 --- 1068 OUR READ --- 1588 OUR READ --- 520 kWh 


2) Tarriff is Standard Variable, rate is 25.60p but as i say unfortunately it wont let me see any of my bills between 2013 and 2022 although i can see what i was paying in the old emails, when i click to view the bill nothing happens.


3) Monthly Direct Debit was £68 in 2020 and 2021,  then £77 for around half of 2022, then it went up to £191 per month for quite some time. It only recently came down to £156.

Octopus gave me the number based on the number of people/type of house etc.


4) We have Oil heating but the boiler has been broken since February and switched off since then, We use a coal fire at the moment but with the current colder weather it isnt enough and this is why the price of our electric is something we are looking in to now as we want to try and free up some money to pay for it to be fixed.

Yes the small handheld display, someone advised us to have it set to current usage and watch it. For example, currently it is showing 232W, but out of nowhere it'll then jump up to say 2.53kw,then right back down to 200/300/400w.  It seems to change all the time, sometimes it goes as high as over 4kw whilst we are sitting here doing nothing. We've been trying turning off various things today and watching it but it still does it. 

Haven't tried turning off absolutely everything yet so will give that a go

Is the small handheld display not actually accurate?  the meter itself is quite high up and difficult to see to keep track of it but i took a photo of it when i got home at 3.50pm and it was on 5150, it is now on 5153 at 6:40pm. All we've had on is our two fish tanks, the fridge freezer, living room/kitchen lights, a half hour washing machine cycle, oven on for 20 minutes, and the PC.  I unplugged my security cameras when we got home to see if it was them. Is that a normal amount of usage for what we had on do you think? I'll try checking it again before going to bed.  

malkybck

Sorry forgot to say, for the water we have a shower. There is a switch next to the smart meter for turning it on and off, and also a cord in the bathroom to turn it on and off. The one next to the smart meter has always been on so that was our first thought and we turned that off, but it doesn't seem to have made it any better as yet. 

malkybck

dunstonh said:

Our first increase has us being charged £191 per month, this went down to £156 per month in April and is still at that amount this month. 

Don't talk in £.   Give us the info in kWh or units.   Payment amounts could be due to price changes, arrears etc.   Its your usage that matters.

 Nothing has changed at all other than the addition of another small fish tank which we know doesn't use much as we already had another one before adding it. 

Fish tanks are notoriously high energy users.

Does the price sound right to everyone?

Insufficient info without knowing the unit counts between dates.  Ideally, give us a spread across a year and that will help enormously.

I went online and got a quote based on our house from octopus last night and I was quoted £67 per month which sounds like what we used to pay, so are EDF conning us? 

Was that quote based on your actual unit count use or some made up information?   

I think i have answered these in my reply to the AR,  but how much would you expect the fish tanks to use? They are both very small tanks and they were one of the first things i thought of, i did some research on them and figured they weren't actually too bad but obviously could be wrong.

Gerry1

Big mistake to use an instantaneous electric shower.  Nothing is more expensive (apart from day rate E7).

How are you heating your hot water at present?  Likely to be an immersion heater which would explain the 2.54kW being drawn when it kicks in.

PeterGr

Try using the login to your online account to access your previous bills, and I'd suggest downloading a copy.

From what you've shown a new meter was put in on 26 October 2022 (not 23 November), and the consumption to 02 November 2023 ( approx 1 year) is 5130 kWh.  That is high consumption. ( I run 2 fish tanks in a 2 bed flat using 1700 kWh per annum)

Using the SV tariff for January that is £1924 per annum or £160 per month.  The recent change in unit rate is a fall of 26.5% from January to October, so significant changes in Direct Debit is not a surprise for such a high annual consumption.

Short term changes on your home display are typical of say a kettle or washing machine heater element being on for a few minutes.  If you can not access your 30 min data from your online account taking an actual meter reading once a week or once a month will soon give you some data to confirm what appears on your bills.

Spoonie_Turtle

malkybck said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

A few questions to help us help you (just random questions from reading your post)  

1. Do you have access to your meter readings - they should be on your bill or online account?
1b. Can you provide us two meter readings approximately 12 months apart? (should be kWh not £)

2. Can you confirm what tariff you are on and do you know your rates (again, should be on your bill)?
2b. Can you see a bill from before your costs increased and tell us what your rates used to be (were you then/are you now on a fixed rate tariff or variable)?

3. When you say your 'costs increased', do you mean your bill or your direct debit (or both)?
3b. What information did you give octopus for them to generate a quote (did you give them a number based on your annual use or did they come up with a number themselves based on the size of the house/number of people etc)?

4. You say you don't have electric central heating or an immersion heater - may I check how do you heat your home and water? 
4b. When you say your smart meter is 'constantly jumping up and down by huge amounts' - do you mean the small handheld display?
4c. Have you tried turning everything off in your home (you could flick the main circuit breaker) and seeing if the meter still registers use? 

1) These are my latest readings...

2nd November 2023 - 5129.5
12th October 2023  - 4741.3

then my bill from 2022 is written like this...

21 Sep 22 - 30 Sep 22--- 64191 YOUR READ --- 64309 ESTIMATED --- 118 kWh 
01 Oct 22 - 25 Oct 22 --- 64309 ESTIMATED --- 64622 OUR READ --- 313 kWh 
26 Oct 22 - 31 Dec 22 ---  0 OUR READ --- 1068 OUR READ --- 1068 kWh 
01 Jan 23 - 03 Feb 23 --- 1068 OUR READ --- 1588 OUR READ --- 520 kWh 
…

Octopus gave me the number based on the number of people/type of house etc.

Have a look on your bills and see what the estimated annual usage is.  But based on those readings (Oct 22 0 to Oct 23 4741) it looks like near enough a year has used 4741kWh, say 4750 or 4800 for the whole year.

Octopus giving you a quote based on estimates means the quote is irrelevant, sorry.