Crazy high electricity usage with EDF

Robin9

A baby at home = higher electricity and gas bills.

Are you using portable electric heaters to keep the nursery warm ?

My money is on the freezer in the garage.

victor2

Read your meter a few times a day for a while, and see what usage it is recording. Also, switch off all power for a few hours and make sure the meter has not recorded anything.

Read it at night before you go to bed and then first thing in the morning to see what your overnight usage was.

Switch everything off and then use something of a known load, such as a fan heater, electric shower or even an electric kettle a few times, and see what the meter records.

If you have a faulty meter, which is fairly rare, that may reveal it. More likely, it will help show you what your bigger energy users are. 

Check your readings (ignoring estimated ones) from your bills about a year apart if you can, and see what the actual recorded usage was.

RelievedSheff

EDF_Victim said:

Thanks everyone for the help, I think the meter test is a good idea when I get home from work, I had a quick last night and the meter reading does line up with what EDF are claiming via their remote reads.

I do have an electric shower, (850w) - It gets used for around 10 minutes a day maximum.
All heating is gas powered (Combi Boiler), no electric heating in house. 
I do run a dish washer pretty much daily (2 years old), We have a tumble drier but have not used in years, (washing line or we use dehumidifier and clothes horse combo in wet/winter months)  
Washing machine used 2-3 times a week.
We have two under counter fridges (90CM) and one tall freezer in the garage on 24/7

Only other power hungry item could be a gaming PC used most evenings (750W)

If 7500KWH a year sounds reasonable/feasible with this setup I guess its right, just strange as I'm usually pretty diligent turning stuff off when finished with it, and my lights cant be left on (auto-off).

None of those items would add up the amount of electric you are consuming.

EDF_Victim

MP1995 said:

Electric showers?
Immersion left on?
Large American style fridge freezer
Desktop PC
Pond pump
EV?

Electric shower - 8.5KWh - Less than 10 mins a day
Desktop PC - 4 hours a day average
No EVs (EVER!!! lol)
No ponds
No American fridge freezer
No immersion heaters, underfloor heating, oil filled radiators etc, any and all heating is provided from gas combi boiler, unless you consider the hot air when I open the oven door as heating lol

Other then the wife making the odd brew using the kettle, the biggest draw "should" be the shower and fan assisted electric oven (Modern Neff). 

Freezer in garage is a floor standing (not chest freezer) from Beko, about 10 years old. 

I also have a 1450w Espresso machine which I use for 2 x coffees a day, every day. but I plugged a power monitor into this to see its average usage over a week and it was pretty low.  I have just ordered another power monitor to test other items in the house. 

I also have an electric pressure washer, used for about an hour a month.

Krakkkers

Old fridge in the garage is possible, that's why you need to check the for over night usage.
Are you checking the meter?

RelievedSheff

Krakkkers said:

Old fridge in the garage is possible, that's why you need to check the for over night usage.
Are you checking the meter?

We have a Beko upright freezer in our garage which sounds similar to the OP's and it really doesn't use a load of power at all. 

tim_p

EDF_Victim said:

tim_p said:

EDF_Victim said:

Thanks everyone for the help, I think the meter test is a good idea when I get home from work, I had a quick last night and the meter reading does line up with what EDF are claiming via their remote reads.

I do have an electric shower, (850w) - It gets used for around 10 minutes a day maximum.

This won’t go any way towards a massive energy bill (nor for that matter will it provide anything resembling a warm shower!). You need to work on the fact that it is an 8.5kW shower.

Sorry, my mistake it is in fact 8.5KW.  that said I think it's quite clearly a mistake since 850W showers don't exist, and me making this mistake on a forum when describing the issue, would not change my meter readings or bills from the EDF, so not really helpful in any way, shape or form.   But if this pointless correction gave you some satisfaction, fill your boots! 

It wasn’t pointless at all. If you were trying to work out where the juice was going then you might have ignored a shower that was consuming 10x what you thought it was, but hey, boots to be filled. 

EDF_Victim

RelievedSheff said:

Krakkkers said:

Old fridge in the garage is possible, that's why you need to check the for over night usage.
Are you checking the meter?

We have a Beko upright freezer in our garage which sounds similar to the OP's and it really doesn't use a load of power at all. 

Its around 10-13 years old,  its frost free and has the "super freeze" draw and button so i'm guessing it wont be too inefficient

Krakkkers

You won't know until you check that overnight usage.
You never answer if you are doing regular checks on your meter?
If you dismiss everything then how are you going to find a solution?

EDF_Victim

tim_p said:

EDF_Victim said:

tim_p said:

EDF_Victim said:

Thanks everyone for the help, I think the meter test is a good idea when I get home from work, I had a quick last night and the meter reading does line up with what EDF are claiming via their remote reads.

I do have an electric shower, (850w) - It gets used for around 10 minutes a day maximum.

This won’t go any way towards a massive energy bill (nor for that matter will it provide anything resembling a warm shower!). You need to work on the fact that it is an 8.5kW shower.

Sorry, my mistake it is in fact 8.5KW.  that said I think it's quite clearly a mistake since 850W showers don't exist, and me making this mistake on a forum when describing the issue, would not change my meter readings or bills from the EDF, so not really helpful in any way, shape or form.   But if this pointless correction gave you some satisfaction, fill your boots! 

It wasn’t pointless at all. If you were trying to work out where the juice was going then you might have ignored a shower that was consuming 10x what you thought it was, but hey, boots to be filled. 

I'm trying to work out if 7500KWH a year is a realistic draw of a household of my size with the appliances listed, Had my shower been 85KW instead of 8.5KW or 850W, then yes this would of been the major oversight, case closed... but as they don't exist and would be impossible to power from a residential consumer unit, it could never really of been the issue.  Also I clearly stated 10 mins a day, so 10 mins a day even of the highest wattage residential shower on market would not explain why my usage is so high according to other users. You clearly know enough yourself that 850w and 85KW residential showers don't exist, it was clearly a typo on my side......