Smart Meter HELP

Matt99Islands

Hi All,

This is going to be a long one. Please could you advise on what we can / should do here please.

Property Context

We live in a two-bedroom bungalow which is fully electric. It is classed as a "Scandi" house it has triple glazing and a villavent system. We have lived here for 5+ years. In the last 4 years there have been no changes to the electricity usage.

Issue

In November 2025 we had a Smart Meter installed by our electricity company. The second it was installed, we were met with issues. Our electricity usage shot up. (See the graph below). We were then met with bills of over £450 a month, with the highest being £550 in February-26.

Energy Company

We reached out to our Energy provider, over and over again we were told it was storage heaters(We dont have storage heaters), we had changed something in the property (Nothing had changed). Every time we finally managed to explain the property context they were surprised "We thought you lived in a 5 bedroom large house".

We asked for a meter test, (This is the best bit). A meter test was completed, we got the results this week, our current smart meter is running 7% slow, meaning our 1874 kWh usage should have been a lot close to 2000 in a month. Every single time we ask, can you provide us a reason why the kWh usage has increased by over 130% since the smart meter was installed we do not get a straight answer.

"The Engineer noted you had a large TV" The TV (Sony XE85, Model: KD-75XE8596) has an annual consumption of approximately 180 kWh/year (~0.13 kWh per hour typical use)

“There was something incorrect with your original meter” Why did they let a meter run from 2009 to 2025 if it was running at such a deficit. They have provided 0 evidence to backup the old meter being faulty.


We have no idea what to do

Month	2024 KWH	2025 KWH	Average	2026 KWH	% Increase
January	775	759	767	1701	121.77%
February	776	781	778.5	1874	140.72%
March	593	677	635	1462	130.24%

Bill Month	Day KWH	Night KWH	Total KWH
Jan-24	195	580	775
Feb-24	207	569	776
Mar-24	148	445	593
Apr-24	203	502	705
May-24	199	400	599
Jun-24	140	407	547
Jul-24	207	302	509
Aug-24	132	422	554
Sep-24	132	367	499
Oct-24	139	359	498
Nov-24	176	488	664
Dec-24	163	530	693
Jan-25	160	599	759
Feb-25	168	613	781
Mar-25	144	533	677
Apr-25	151	513	664
May-25	158	442	600
Jun-25	145	398	543
Jul-25	129	383	512
Aug-25	153	353	506
Sep-25	137	388	525
Oct-25	128	384	512
Nov-25	152	504	656
Dec-25	418	458	876
Jan-26	1236	465	1701
Feb-26	1406	468	1874
Mar-26	1049	413	1462

molerat

How did they do a meter check ? Did they install another meter in parallel ?

If you don't have storage heaters why is your night use so high ? Your use was 3 times the national average pre meter change.

What does your IHD show for "at the moment" consumption ?

Is the serial number on the meter the same as that on the bill ?

QrizB

I see molerat has already asked most of the key questions!

Answers to those will help us help you.

IHD readings (or half-hourly data from your on-line account) should give some valuable insights into what's going on.

victor2

Read your meter daily for a while and try to identify what your heavy users are.

Do you have storage heaters, and are they now on constantly, rather than just charging up during the E7 cheaper period?

If you have a working IHD with your smart meter, what does it show as your daytime usage? Switch things off, (heaters, immersion heater) during the day and see what makes the current reported usage drop significantly.

Keep_pedalling

Your usage is high even in the summer months where you don’t need heating. There does seem something wrong with your daytime consumption with your old meter, I would expect much higher use in the winter where your main heating load is going to be in the daytime.

Ildhund

It would be helpful to know (a) the make and model of the smart meter - a clear photo of it would be best; (b) who the supplier is. There are people in this forum with experience of many different suppliers, often with detailed knowledge of their strengths and (particularly) weaknesses.

Is your account set to retrieve half-hourly usage data from your meter? It should be by default, so you may be able to see not only day-to-day variations in consumption, but also at what times all that usage is taking place.

In midwinter until the meter exchange, you were using around 20kWh each night, the sort of usage one might expect for a couple of small night-storage heaters. This dropped away to ~15kWh per night this last winter - can you identify why? The fact that nighttime usage apparently falls while daytime usage rockets even though "there have been no changes to the electricity usage" suggests that the smart meter is recording the two quantities in the opposite direction to what the old meter was doing. We can't say which was the right way round …

Meanwhile, how is the property heated? What does your Villavent do? …

QrizB

Villavent seem to be (or have been) a brand of SystemAir, a HVAC company.

Their products include MVHR, air conditioning and heat pumps.

The OP will have to confirm exactly what they've got installed.

Reed_Richards

over and over again we were told it was storage heaters(We dont have storage heaters)

So why do you have day and night usage figures? The inplication is that you are on an Economy 7 tariff or similar; most people who are on that tariff do have storage heaters.

Newbie_John

Intresting.. by fully electric house I would imagine - immersion heater for water running at night - hence high night consumption all year round but I would also expect to see signs of electric heating?

If you tell us you have storage heaters then it looks like the issue was with your old meter not recording it somehow, and if that's the case you'll need to move it to night rate to lower bills.

If you heat the house with fireplace, oil etc. then something odd is happening now - espeically when it's only the day consumption that is affected - no changes to night usage.

Matt99Islands

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81973690#Comment_81973690

The way the engineer explained it to us. Came in. Turned all the fuses off. Turned on the oven only. Put it on 300c and then went back outside to time the flashes on the meter. Sent the data off to Utility Warehouse and said wait a week.

We dont have storage heaters, that is a very good question.

The heating system is called "Elnur Gabron" "RDW WiFi Programmable Eco Fluid Radiators".

The IHD at the moment 20:38 is 1.42kWh

The Serial Number is the same on the bill as the Smart Meter.

Please find the photos taken of the Meter Below. cc

Elec Meter Close.jpg

WiserMiser

Is the bungalow detached?

Is the meter inside the property?

Do the meter readings on the bill have S next to them?