any advice on my unbelievably high electricity bill

notbritishgas

suzyb19 wrote: »

Hi Cardew,
my reading on 30 Jan was 2689 my reading today is 6500 so I think that means I have used 3811 from Jan 30th to today. My problem though is the fact that my electricity bill for the last quarter was a masive £222.95.

When my parents was £95.00, they had used 700 kilowatt-hours used and we had 1765 kilowatt-hours used.

That is a massive difference, especially as we have mostly the same appliances, but they have a electric shower, we have a laptop and computer.

Thanks for your reply
suzy

I am afraid that your bill for £222 is high because your usage is high, and as Cardew pointed out as the 9 May reading was an estimate and could be an underestimate the bill could have been even higher.
The problem is that you have used 3811 kwh in less than 6 months taken from actual readings, that is more than double the average.The question is why?
Can you take a reading before you go to bed at night and one in the morning with only the fridge freezer left on. That may give us some clue.
Then during the day keep checking the reading say every hour and if you see a sudden rise check what has just come on.
Just a thought what was the previous bill like pricewise?

frugallass

saveallmymoney wrote: »

I think you need to get one of these household electric monitors.

I agree with the above post.....considering that energy prices are going to increase again you really need to monitor what you are using now.

How do they justify charging £100 to 'check' the meter? :mad:

I have just checked my meter and have used 207 units in 4 weeks which equates to about £25 - do let us know how you get on with switching it all off

saveallmymoney

I really think you're an ideal case for spending 30 quid or so on an electric monitor and saving far more than this would cost you.

frugallass

have a look at the maplins website - they have one that you attach to your meter for £40 which is half the normal price until 29th July - here's the site, look under Power / Mains Electrical.....

http://www.maplin.co.uk/

SwanJon

frugallass wrote: »

How do they justify charging £100 to 'check' the meter? :mad:

They don't check it themselves.
They may install another meter alongside the original one to see if it records the same amount over a period of time, then remove one, or they may have to swap the meter and take it away to be tested independently.

The cost is to cover the new meter, paying someone to swap the meters (maybe twice), and the cost of the testing itself.

If the meter is found to be faulty they shoudl refund the cost of the test, but if they did it for free think how many people would assume that the meter is reading high when in fact they are high users.

frugallass

Point taken - I wasn't aware that was what 'checking the meter' entailed

Cardew

frugallass wrote: »

have a look at the maplins website - they have one that you attach to your meter for £40 which is half the normal price until 29th July - here's the site, look under Power / Mains Electrical.....

http://www.maplin.co.uk/

You really do not need one of these expensive meters, as the much cheaper power measuring meters(which you plug individual appliances into) are much better for tracking down what is consuming all of your electricity(plenty of threads on this)

3,811kWh in under 5 months is certainly very high. roughly 3 times the UK average.

Almost certainly no single appliance is causing this.

Have you got an immersion heater switched on(that you don't know about?)

Fridge or freezer with faulty seal?

Is your main TV a plasma? That left on all day can use a lot as they can be up to 500 Watts.

rockingit_2

Hi Suzy,

having just done some rough and ready maths, basically you are using the equivalent of burning 10 x 100w lights, 24/7. An acid test to turn everything of will be to do as follows:

It will take a bit of time, so plan a slot in daylight hours, and also think about food in the freezer!!

1) Turn off your main incoming trip switch at the fuse board coming into your house.. Absolutely nothing should now be able to make your meter move, so watch it for a couple of hours and check.

2) depending on your type of fuseboard you will either have individual switched breakers or pull-out fuses. They all have different numbers on them as they look after different bits of your house wiring. With any luck, someone will have labelled them up. If not, then I would expect them to be something as follows - one or two rated at 5 - these are normally for the lights, one at 30 - this is your 'plugs' ring, another one at 30 for a cooker (whether you have one or not), maybe another one at 20 might be a feed to a garage socket and so on.... Turn them all off / pull them out, then turn the main trip back on.

3) In a sequence that makes sense to you, slowly turn them back on, with a couple of hours wait in between, and watch your meter each time. IF YOU HAVE PUSH-IN FUSES THEN TURN OFF THE MAIN SWITCH EACH TIME YOU PUT ONE BACK IN.

4) eventually you will get to a point where 'the next one did it' and you can at least start to have a clue about which part of the house wiring is using the juice.

Any questions then just PM me and I can talk you through it.

Farway

How about your fridge freezer, how old is it, is part of the door seal not sealing, damaged etc? So the thing is running forever to keep temperature down

Can you hear it when it runs? Does it run a lot?

Does it need defrosting [if not frost free of course]

bryanb

To answer your earlier quesstion, the wattage of an electrical appliance is usually on a plate on the back (Or a sticker) If not try the instruction book.