Sudden leap in electricity use, seemingly after power cut

victor2 wrote: »

Fridge freezer could be causing the additional usage - maybe it has developed a fault and not running as it normally would.

That's possible. After we left, we wondered if a break in power had caused it to switch on a quick freeze setting or something. Can't just check that until we next visit, which unfortunately, will be a couple of weeks now.

If you're there for a day, take a meter reading, switch off the fridge/freezer for a few hours and take a reading again. Then switch the fridge back on and take another reading a few hours later. See how they compare.

Not sure I can get to the power source for it at the moment to try that. We'll look at it after we've eliminated other sources. That particular appliance will be going soon as my sister is taking it as hers has died.

As already suggested though, getting a plug in monitor, which tells you the electricity used by a specific appliance plugged in to it might help track down what uses the most electricity.

Sorry, I forgot to address the suggestion earlier when it was made. That's something we'll look at if we can't identify the cause easily. I was hoping it was something stupid we just hadn't realised - I was hoping for a light bulb moment (low wattage, obviously). It's a little more tricky with only visiting every few days and not being resident. And also not being totally familiar with the property, as you are with your own.

11kwh is what you might expect for a house occupied 24/7, so either the meter's lying or something is eating the juice.

That's rather my point. In fact, when it was occupied, usage was averaged for the previous 14 months as 5.55 KWh per day. It's been around 3 KWh per day whilst it's been unoccupied, but with regular items on daily and visits from us.

Not sure how local you are but if you can call in, read the meter, kill all breakers on the consumer unit and leave for several hours

Not an option I'm afraid, as we aren't local, if I'm there at all, it's to work. And there's a lot to do. If we can't get to the bottom of it in a timely manner, we might have to try that, as something is clearly amiss.

In an empty house, 11kwh must be generating heat, light or noise in significant amounts!!

It's not an empty house. It's an unoccupied house, but we're operating it in a manner to make it look occupied. It's furnished, with lights on timers, the fridge freezer and another freezer working, telephone answering machine, broadband router etc. etc. Heat was my first thought - but the only thing that would gobble juice is a fan heater that wasn't plugged in and is now here as I'm borrowing as the place I'll be next week is cold. No oil filled radiators, no immersion heater.

The daily rate you quote of about 3Kwh before the unexplained increase also seems high to me, given the figures you quote for the lights/appliances left on.

It's the daily average - so when it's unoccupied, I'd expect it to be lower, but we will increase the average on the days we're in attendance, running cooking appliances, vacuums, power tools, extra lights etc. I'll have to do some before and after readings on the days we're there, to see how much we use, so I can extrapolate the use when we're not. I tend to read the meter as we leave and lock up.

No smart meter installed, my numbers are from the actual meter. It's a simple affair with a numerical digital readout, nothing flashing or spinning to indicate the rate of usage. Which would be useful, as you could boil a kettle or something to see if it increased the rate.

What else was raised - oh yes, the boiler is on - operated via a thermostat, as required under the unoccupied insurance policy endorsements. It's almost new, with a new thermostat and controller, but it appears to be running okay. The gas use has increased a little as it must be clicking on periodically. When I arrived on Friday morning, it was off, but the radiators whilst cold, weren't totally cold, it had clearly been on earlier that day.