HUGE electricity meter reading

jo.b_5

espresso wrote: »

They have a wattage rating on them somewhere e.g. a 2kW storage heater on for the standard seven night rate hours (E7 tariff) would use a maximum of 14kWh overnight.

Ah thanks for that. Ours are 2.55kw. Even so for just 2 storage heaters and the boiler for an hour, we are still using about 20 units over night. With another 20 for the day from oven, washing machine and dryer (if used) and general lights and tv, that totals about 40 odd per 24hrs.... I still think that's a really high daily usage when we're being careful...

Does anyone else use around 40units per day??

espresso

jo.b wrote: »

Ah thanks for that. Ours are 2.55kw. Even so for just 2 storage heaters and the boiler for an hour, we are still using about 20 units over night. With another 20 for the day from oven, washing machine and dryer (if used) and general lights and tv, that totals about 40 odd per 24hrs.... I still think that's a really high daily usage when we're being careful...

Does anyone else use around 40units per day??

Two 2.55kW heaters = 5.1kW so if on for seven night rate hours, they could use a maximum of 35kWh overnight. Electric heating is never cheap when compared to gas, even when using cheaper night rate tariffs!

sootypea

Hi i am with Scottish power and submit my readings when asked my last bill in October was £289.70 thought this was high as we are out at work all day and all our heating is gas. just the usual tv, shower lights. all energy efficient bulbs. just put my Electric readings in this morning and the bill is over £1000.00

sandiep

My sister had same problem and found that the imersion heater had been wired into the econmy seven sockets the wrong way round, so it was on ALL day, and off all night.

Cardew

sootypea wrote: »

Hi i am with Scottish power and submit my readings when asked my last bill in October was £289.70 thought this was high as we are out at work all day and all our heating is gas. just the usual tv, shower lights. all energy efficient bulbs. just put my Electric readings in this morning and the bill is over £1000.00

Well you cannot use £1,000 electricity between Oct and now if you use gas for CH.

Apart from the possibility of you misreading the meter(easy with the old type of meter) is it possible your last bill(and previous bills) was based on estimated readings?

I know you submitted readings in Oct, but did you check that those readings were used on the bill?

If the readings show a huge jump in consumption, the computer 'thinks' you have made a mistake and disregards your reading and uses an estimated reading. Thus the discrepancy can mount up over several bills.

Donought

Hi-
I've had the same problem with overinflated bills and now British Gas are charging me £130 a month instead of the £9 a month for the previous quarter because of the computer calculation. They are refusing to override the system to change this.

My question is though, how is the electricity used.....I am being incredibly stupid here but I decided to try to measure the usage of our halogen/ blow heaters so took a meter reading before they were on and then again 2hrs later, to see how much electricty was used - only about 6 units (well, the difference between the meter readings was 6). I then turned the heaters off and read the meter an hour later as I was about to put them back on and 21 units had been used but nothing was on in the house that wasn't on before!!

I am very confused.....why when the heaters are on is there not much electricity used, but once turned off the consumption went up. Any ideas??

Donought

Leeolly

For all with HUGE electric bills........

I live in a one bedroom flat, normal appliances tv, computer, washing machine, electric oven and gas central heating. I have lived in the property for 3 years and the electric bills had been getting increasingly more expensive.

I was with Eon to start with for the first 2 years but changed from them because everytime i rang them to question my bill i got the same old story telling me to turn things off, use energy wise bulbs and not leave the tv on standby! i questioned that the meter could be faulty but they kept saying that as it was a more modern digital type it was unlikely to be faulty and if i wanted it checked i would have to pay for it.

I changed to Southern Electric and as a new customer i got a electric monitor for free which proved very interesting. I got my first bill and again it was very high (2000 units above the estimate!!!) i questioned it and just like Eon their consumption people told me to turn things off, use the right bulbs etc etc. The monitor was telling me that i was using 6/7 units a day the meter was saying more like 25 units a day were being used.

After many phone calls i eventually got them to come and check the meter out, the guy came and made me turn everything off in my flat and then plugged in a 2kw heater to draw off the supply. He did not tell me exactly what was going on but just that he could not get a reading after many attempts so he fitted a check meter to run along side my existing meter.

The check meter has now been installed for 4 days, it indicates that i have used 17 units of electricty, the existing meter indicates i have used 79 units!
A ratio of 4.64/1

I plan to monitor it over the weekend then will begin my quest to get as much money back as possible. I urge everyone who thinks they are using less electricty than their meter suggests to get it checked out.

Regards

Lee O :j