What is the average electricity units per day?

tac2306

I moved into an older property nearly 2 years ago.
Meter is in the caretaker's flat next door building, so I can't monitor all the time. Had estimated bills for 18 months which were reasonable. Now Southern Electric have sent me a bill for £2000 for electricity alone - IN ADDITION TO THE ESTIMATED QUARTERLY AMOUNT I'VE BEEN PAYING SO FAR- saying I've been using on average 40 units a day. I have gas central heating, so heating is not an issue. It's a 3 bedroom basement flat, so lights have to be on most day, as are one desktop PC and 2 laptops.
Even so, the consumption seems well above anyone else's on this forum and I don't know how to beging paying a £2K bill just before Christmas.
Any advice on the above would be hugely appreciated.
P.S. Monitored the fridge consumption this morning - it's an old one but not the main culprit.

macman

tac2306 wrote: »

I moved into an older property nearly 2 years ago.
Meter is in the caretaker's flat next door building, so I can't monitor all the time. Had estimated bills for 18 months which were reasonable. Now Southern Electric have sent me a bill for £2000 for electricity alone - IN ADDITION TO THE ESTIMATED QUARTERLY AMOUNT I'VE BEEN PAYING SO FAR- saying I've been using on average 40 units a day. I have gas central heating, so heating is not an issue. It's a 3 bedroom basement flat, so lights have to be on most day, as are one desktop PC and 2 laptops.
Even so, the consumption seems well above anyone else's on this forum and I don't know how to beging paying a £2K bill just before Christmas.
Any advice on the above would be hugely appreciated.
P.S. Monitored the fridge consumption this morning - it's an old one but not the main culprit.

No, but surely you could have taken at least a quarterly reading to coincide with your billing cycle? 40 units a day is 14,600kWh pa, which is 4 times what would be expected for a property with gas CH and DHW-so something is seriously awry (and it's not your fridge). Is the bill based on an actual and correct current reading?
Do you have an immersion heater switch that has been left on 24/7?
If the arrears are correct, then you will be able to negotiate a payback time equivalent to the period that the arrears have accumulated over-18m.

shrekkiegirl

i have been reading this and am freaking out about my consumption.....i am all electric as we have no gas in the village. i have been looking at my consumption over the past 4 days. i have economy 7. day consumption is about 11 units......i am home all day with a little one and do on average 1 wash per day. but its the night consumption that is bad. i have 3 storage heaters and immersion heater that heat overnight and sometimes use the dryer although not every night. my nightly consumption is between 36 and 52 units (funnily enough the 52 was when i wasn't using the dryer) is it normal for storage heaters/immersion heater to use this much, my tv is on standby and my fridge/freezer is on overnight. i try to turn just about everythign else off. my night consumtion seems extremely high compared to day when there can be 3 tv's on along with computers, washing machine, kettle going etc. i live in a 3 bed semi with 4 kids.....

HappyMJ

shrekkiegirl wrote: »

i have been reading this and am freaking out about my consumption.....i am all electric as we have no gas in the village. i have been looking at my consumption over the past 4 days. i have economy 7. day consumption is about 11 units......i am home all day with a little one and do on average 1 wash per day. but its the night consumption that is bad. i have 3 storage heaters and immersion heater that heat overnight and sometimes use the dryer although not every night. my nightly consumption is between 36 and 52 units (funnily enough the 52 was when i wasn't using the dryer) is it normal for storage heaters/immersion heater to use this much, my tv is on standby and my fridge/freezer is on overnight. i try to turn just about everythign else off. my night consumtion seems extremely high compared to day when there can be 3 tv's on along with computers, washing machine, kettle going etc. i live in a 3 bed semi with 4 kids.....

That's not too bad. Each storage heater averages out at about £1 per night to charge with heat and that matches your figures. Is the house warm? Have you turned the output damper on the storage heater to low when you go to bed and only turn it up in the evening? You could consider only using 2 storage heaters instead of 3 if you were looking to save a little.

zorro10

you are using about 2.5 times more than the average

shrekkiegirl

hi thanks for your reply, the house isn't very warm and as the 3 heaters have to heat a 3 bed semi, i have 1 in the living room 1 smaller one in the hallway downstairs and 1 in upstairs hallway......haven't tried the turning it down at night as didn't know you could do that then switch it up in the evening will have to give it a go as normally by evening they are cold and we freeze......glad the consumption isn't ott and i know for these heaters that is normalish...maybe i will get a huge hamster wheel to generate electricity and make the kids take turns to run about in it x

HappyMJ

shrekkiegirl wrote: »

hi thanks for your reply, the house isn't very warm and as the 3 heaters have to heat a 3 bed semi, i have 1 in the living room 1 smaller one in the hallway downstairs and 1 in upstairs hallway......haven't tried the turning it down at night as didn't know you could do that then switch it up in the evening will have to give it a go as normally by evening they are cold and we freeze......glad the consumption isn't ott and i know for these heaters that is normalish...maybe i will get a huge hamster wheel to generate electricity and make the kids take turns to run about in it x

Should be input on max and output on min unless you manually turn it up when needed and remember to turn it down when leaving the room. They'll never be scorching but should keep the rooms about 18 or so during the times when the output damper is set on max. Hopefully you should now have enough heat stored to keep till late evening.

Personally I don't see the point of the heaters in the hallways. Too much heat will leak out of those rooms very quickly whenever doors are opened. I'd turn them off and ignore them concentrating only on the one in the living room and keeping the door closed.

shrekkiegirl

thanks for that will check there settings, and switch hallway ones off and see how it goes, thanks again

Lindagreenacre

We live in a 3 bed bungalow with gas central heating and our electricity is provided by Scottish Power, which we manage online. I looked at our account and printed out our usage for the last 3 yrs. It shows the daily average for each quarter. We average between 10 and 12 units per day, never more than 12. We have two fridges and two freezers, a dishwasher, electric cooker etc. I am pretty pleased to see that we are on the lower end of the usage among the contributors.

malc_b

macman wrote: »

No, but surely you could have taken at least a quarterly reading to coincide with your billing cycle? 40 units a day is 14,600kWh pa, which is 4 times what would be expected for a property with gas CH and DHW-so something is seriously awry (and it's not your fridge). Is the bill based on an actual and correct current reading?
Do you have an immersion heater switch that has been left on 24/7?
If the arrears are correct, then you will be able to negotiate a payback time equivalent to the period that the arrears have accumulated over-18m.

But even if the immersion heater was on the heat has to go somewhere. Yes, keeping water always piping hot will use more electric but not that much more. For information I use about 20 units a day, at the moment (no heating) but this is for water heating, cooking, electric shower, dishwasher, and washing machine.