£100 per month DD for my electricity only...

Cardew

schoolrunmum wrote: »

Aha, the plot thickens....the previous poster mentioned Economy 7.When we moved into our semi derelict house in 1990 one of the first things we did was rip out the old storage heaters and put in gas central heating. So, I called EDF just now..and surprise surprise, we have been paying for Economy 7 rates for 19 years!!!!!!I didn't notice as the bills don't mention economy 7,and even though I have called them over the years to query why our bills were so high and to ask them to check the meters etc they never once mentioned E7, or queried why we had no night usage.so,almost 20 years of excess payments down the drain...anyone reckon I can ask for the over payments back???!!!!ed off of Sussex................

However your bills will show the different rates for daytime and night use; and you give those meter readings to EDF yourself.

You must have some night usage - fridge - freezer?

£100 a month is approx 3 to 4 times the average UK usage for a property that does not use electricity for heating.(3,300kWh pa)

However are you an average household?

As espresso states earlier in this thread, it is absolutely pointless to speculate without knowing your annual consumption in kWh for daytime/nightime units.

Lots of things can contribute to high consumption:

When you ripped out the storage heaters, what happened to the immersion heater? That could possibly be on 24/7.

Faulty fridges/freezer. etc etc

Post your consumption in kWh on here and we can look at it further.

schoolrunmum

Thanks for all your help chaps- I think we are an average family, 2 adults/ 2kids...1 adult works abroad a lot though so often only 3 here. Are KwH the same as units?? Looking on some old bills, from aug07-Nov07 we used 2340 day units,and 195 night. Does that help???? Clare x

btr30

Your quarter consumption is around 2,500 kWh. As a comparison my consumption is around 900 kWh for a quarter. We also have a household of four. I suggest you want to try and pinpoint your profile use, e.g. lots of tumble drying, halogen lights, immersion heaters, etc and see if you can work out what is causing the difference. One example is to take a meter reading at night and then again in the morning, which will give you an idea of your base load, and then readings at regular points in the day.
Hopefully this will help to reduce consumption, and if you can move to a standard meter this might reduce the unit rate too.

Good luck

JPSC

That is a very high usage for three months, the average is about 3300 per year. I would suspect an immersion heater left on, though it cannot be on all the time if the night unit reading is correct.

A further thought, you say the NSH have been out of use for 20 years, so it could be an old fashioned installation with two separate meters rather than a two rate meter, in which case the immersion heater would be connected through the standard meter and that would explain the high usage.

Cardew

schoolrunmum wrote: »

Thanks for all your help chaps- I think we are an average family, 2 adults/ 2kids...1 adult works abroad a lot though so often only 3 here. Are KwH the same as units?? Looking on some old bills, from aug07-Nov07 we used 2340 day units,and 195 night. Does that help???? Clare x

Yes an Electricity unit is the same thing as a kWh.

It is little wonder that you are paying £100 a month as your electricity consumption(assuming 2,535 units for the Aug-Nov quarter is typical) is over 3 times the UK average.

You pretty obviously do not want to be on Economy 7 as you are using only 7% at night. However that is not the major issue.

You now need to investigate why you are using so much electricity.

Your nightime consumption(for the 7 hours at night) is actually quite low; so that rules out the immersion heater being left on overnight or faulty fridges & freezers.

To use that amount of electricity it will usally be something involving heating be used a lot - electric fires? Tumble dryers? Plasma TV left on(not standby) can also use a lot

schoolrunmum

Thanks for all the suggestions, I can confirm we only have 1 meter, with 2 readings for day/night. We certainly have no electric heating on over night, we do have an immersion but only use it very occassionally ..maybe once a month if all the hot water from the central heating boiler has gone....there is 1 light left on at night(on the landing in case kids need a pee!) and I usually put dishwasher on when I go to bed. I make sure I turn tv etc off completely.. like I said, I have asked Seeboard several times over the years to help me get to the bottom of our massive bills, to no avail. They were adamant its correct, but I never could see how!!! I have approx 50% energy saving bulbs etc too. I used to suspect the farm next door was somehow being supplied from our meter(it turned out their water bill was going on ours-but thats another story!)but Seeboard say not. Having said that, during a New years eve power cut, they turned up at my door for permission to access the transformer box they said was in my garden. I pointed out THEY had removed it approx 10 years ago, but they insisted it was still on their plans.Fine, says I..you find it then.....sure enough they couldn't.....any more bright ideas guys????

espresso

You need to make a list of all of your electrical appliances and make a note of when and for how long you are actually using them. Many people do not realise that using a tumble drier for an hour uses many more units of electricity than a table lamp for the same time period! You only seem to be using approx two night rate units daily, so it's obviously high consumption during the normal day rate which is accounting for your three times the average usage.

LynnJ

Could I please ask for some advice - on the same lines as Schoolrunmum.

I am presently with Scottish Power and they are about to increase their prices. Thus I am looking for an alternative but unsure who to move to as Atlantic E&G come up as a favourite but they have such bad reviews, plus E-On don't seem much better. I don't want to go to a worst supplier. Plus I understand that Atlantic will be putting up their prices in March so no use moving yet.

I have a 3 bed semi, 2 adults, 1 child. Annual consumption Electricity 3548 and Gas 29149. Have been paying £75 per month for dual gas/electricity and Scottish Power now want to increase the monthly DD to £104 per month. I feel very high. We do not have an economy 7.

Does this new DD seem high for dual usage?
Any good suppliers you could recommend to move to?

Many thanks

Cardew

LynnJ wrote: »

I have a 3 bed semi, 2 adults, 1 child. Annual consumption Electricity 3548 and Gas 29149. Have been paying £75 per month for dual gas/electricity and Scottish Power now want to increase the monthly DD to £104 per month. I feel very high. We do not have an economy 7.

Does this new DD seem high for dual usage?
Any good suppliers you could recommend to move to?

Many thanks

You use slightly more than the UK average electricity(which is 3,300kWh) and 40% more gas than the UK average(20,500kWh)

Given the average UK household now pays over £1,000 a year for gas and electricity, it would appear that £104 a month would be about right - even a little on the low side.

Cardew

schoolrunmum wrote: »

I used to suspect the farm next door was somehow being supplied from our meter(it turned out their water bill was going on ours-but thats another story!)but Seeboard say not. Having said that, during a New years eve power cut, they turned up at my door for permission to access the transformer box they said was in my garden. I pointed out THEY had removed it approx 10 years ago, but they insisted it was still on their plans.Fine, says I..you find it then.....sure enough they couldn't.....any more bright ideas guys????

It would be very simple to see if someone else was 'stealing' your electricity.

Shut off everything in your house, including fridge/freezers(it won't harm for an hour or 2) and check your meter.

It is possible(but very unlikely) that your meter could be faulty but from what you say about your usage, something is clearly wrong.