Help: Massive Energy Usage

MortysHead1938

Hi. I moved home to a smaller house one year ago. It is a four-bed house built in 2005. It has gas central heating, hot water, and hobs. We have three or four adults living here with much of the usual stuff - 2 TVs, laptops, a games console - and nothing out of the ordinary in terms of energy consumption. We charge 2 electric cars, but they do very low mileage.

We have a Smart Meter and over the past year it has recoded 13,500 kwh of electric usage. I can see online that typical usage for a 4-5 bedroom house is 3,100 kWh - 4,100 kWh per annum. My electricity bill more than £400 per month.

I am pretty certain we are not deliberately or consciously using all of this energy. My sons are not here half of the time. The usage at my previous house was much more in line with the average for the UK.

Are there any faults or problems with the Smart Meter, electricity supply, circuits, or appliances that I could begin to investigate? I am scratching my head trying to understand what is going on!

Any help would be deeply appreciated.

Newbie_John

13500 at 25p rate would result in £280 a month, what tarrif are you on?

Can you check usage in separate months? Is it constant, is it mostly during the day, night?

Any electric heaters?

How many kWh like yesterday or the day before?

Ayr_Rage

Do you have an immersion heater in a large water tank that has been left on 24/7/365?

Does anyone supplement their heating with an electric radiator?

Is anyone mining cryptocurrency on their computer?

Woodstok2000

What are you classing as 'low mileage' for the cars?

Can you look at your meter data on a 30min scale and identify your base usage (e.g overnight when nothing is switched on) and any obvious spikes?

Obviously usage is only half the calculation - what tariff are you on for your electricity, and do you have an EV add-on (if applicable)?

WiserMiser

Welcome to the forum.

Any electric showers? Any underfloor electric heating? Any electric panel heaters? Any immersion heaters left switched on? What's your gas consumption?

MortysHead1938

Hi all. Lots of questions. Ill try to cover them all.

No immersion heater or underfloor heating. No crypto mining or electric furnace!

2 x small electric oil filled radiators used occasionally.

Electric cars do about 5000m each per year.

Unless corrected, I am pretty sure we are not actively using 3-4 times more energy than the average family. Hence, my question is about any faults or problems that might be hoovering up electricity without us knowing.

Robin9

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6652625/help-massive-energy-usage

That 3100/4100 assumes gas heating - which you have . It does not include EV charging - and you have 2

born_again

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81858736#Comment_81858736

Are you bills estimated or from actual readings?

Actual energy usage in kWh (not £££) will help get a handle on your situation.

Is your account in debt or credit, who is the supplier & tariff you are on given 10K EV mileage?

MortysHead1938

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81858738#Comment_81858738

Would that triple the average usage? I would expect some uptick, but that seems extreme. I am really lacking knowledge in this field, so would be interesting to know.

MortysHead1938

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81858753#Comment_81858753

Smart Meter Readings. 13,500 kwh per annum.

Woodstok2000

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81858736#Comment_81858736

Assuming you have relatively efficient cars and can get around 3m/kWh, that's almost 3,500 kWh to add to your usage. Doesn't account for all the extra, but it's a decent chunk.

The radiators could easily add another 1000kWh if you're using them for an hour or two a day for half the year.

Can you post your usage graph for the last few days with hourly figures?