Very high electric bills, is this a problem with my meter
Hi,
We began renting a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom all electric flat July, but didn’t move into the flat until midway through August due to the notice period on my job etc. Our July electricy bill was £130 and the flat used a total of 641 units, the only electric item in the flat at this time where the fridge and the freezer. We hadn’t moved any other items into the flat until the end of July.
In our other flat (which was exactly the same) we used around 100 units a month. This flat is using over 6 times this when we’re not even here.
We only use one of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. The immersion heater is on 2 hours a day. We haven’t used our radiators yet. We’re both at work through out the day so only use the tv and cooker at night time.
I have began taking daily readings this week. An example of how bizarre these readings are: I left the flat at 12pm on Friday and took a reading. This was 27242 when I arrived back at 6pm 60 units had been used and the new reading was 27302- again for these 6 hours the flat was empty and only the fridge and freezer where left switch on.
What is using this amount of electric? I do not know what we can do to reduce this as we are already incredibly stingy with our electric use!
We would appreciate any helpful advice on what this could be
Thank you in advance!
We began renting a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom all electric flat July, but didn’t move into the flat until midway through August due to the notice period on my job etc. Our July electricy bill was £130 and the flat used a total of 641 units, the only electric item in the flat at this time where the fridge and the freezer. We hadn’t moved any other items into the flat until the end of July.
In our other flat (which was exactly the same) we used around 100 units a month. This flat is using over 6 times this when we’re not even here.
We only use one of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. The immersion heater is on 2 hours a day. We haven’t used our radiators yet. We’re both at work through out the day so only use the tv and cooker at night time.
I have began taking daily readings this week. An example of how bizarre these readings are: I left the flat at 12pm on Friday and took a reading. This was 27242 when I arrived back at 6pm 60 units had been used and the new reading was 27302- again for these 6 hours the flat was empty and only the fridge and freezer where left switch on.
What is using this amount of electric? I do not know what we can do to reduce this as we are already incredibly stingy with our electric use!
We would appreciate any helpful advice on what this could be
Thank you in advance!
0
Comments
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Hi,
We began renting a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom all electric flat July, but didn’t move into the flat until midway through August due to the notice period on my job etc. Our July electricy bill was £130 and the flat used a total of 641 units, the only electric item in the flat at this time where the fridge and the freezer. We hadn’t moved any other items into the flat until the end of July.
In our other flat (which was exactly the same) we used around 100 units a month. This flat is using over 6 times this when we’re not even here.
We only use one of the bedrooms and one of the bathrooms. The immersion heater is on 2 hours a day. We haven’t used our radiators yet. We’re both at work through out the day so only use the tv and cooker at night time.
I have began taking daily readings this week. An example of how bizarre these readings are: I left the flat at 12pm on Friday and took a reading. This was 27242 when I arrived back at 6pm 60 units had been used and the new reading was 27302- again for these 6 hours the flat was empty and only the fridge and freezer where left switch on.
What is using this amount of electric? I do not know what we can do to reduce this as we are already incredibly stingy with our electric use!
We would appreciate any helpful advice on what this could be
Thank you in advance!
Is the immersion left on?
Does it have a boost button you may not be aware of?Be happy, it's the greatest wealth
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Even leaving the immersion could not use 60 units .
Are you sure you are reading the meter that is actually connected to your flat ?
Are you sure there is not a decimal place on the meter you are missing ?
You need to turn off the main switch on the fusebox and see what the meter does. Then turn back on and unplug / turn off everything you can find and see what happens.0 -
Yes, each meter has the flat it relates to stuck onto the meter. There is no decimal places on this meter.
I’m an hour and a half in after turning the main switch off and the meter hasn’t moved.
I will start turn everything back on and see what happens
Not a clue what could be using that amount of electric0 -
You need to do some investigating - turn everything off including the fridge & freezer (they'll be fine for a couple of hours) and make sure that the meter stops incrementing or recording. If your meter doesn't stop then shut off the main switch on your fuse box and see what happens.
After half an hour or so turn on your electric kettle and makes sure that the meter records that you are using it.
Check that your bill does correspond to your meter (check the MPAN and serial numbers on both the meter and the bill)
It's not unheard of (in fact quite common) with flats, especially if the meter is in a shared cupboard with other meters, that you are paying for someone else's leccy and someone is paying for yours. It just takes a bit of patience to see whats going on.
You may need to turn one thing on at a time to see what starts using lots of leccy.
What sort of heating have you got - you mention radiators, are they electric or water from an electric boiler unit.Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers0 -
I’ve turned everything off, by the main switch for 2 hours today, my meter hasn’t moved since before I switched off.
My bills do correspond with my meter MPAN
The radiators are electric heaters. But we haven’t had them turned on yet.
My fridge and freeze couldn’t possibly be using this much electricity could they? They were the only electric appliances on for the whole of July which the flat used 641 units. And the only items on this Friday when the flat used 60 units.
I must also add that from Monday to Tuesday 20 units where used, from Tuesday to Friday only 20 units where used until suddenly 60 units were used when we weren’t in. Could my meter be broken?0 -
Hi, just wanted to say mateldave makes very gd points, and I've seen a mixup happen years ago, so it can and does happen sometimes.
Perhaps you need to repeat the 'turn everything off' test and watch the meter, just like mateldave describes, and then the kettle really makes the meter move (as you should see) at least several times, and at varying times of the day, just in case the one time you try to do this, your neighbour is out too, and also using nothing! which is not impossible, if you only try it once, and conclude "well that can't be it, then..." And GL0 -
Yes good advice from materlo but there is no need to switch the kettle on more than once.Just watch the small red light on the meter start to pulse faster then abruptly slow down the second the kettle switches off. You don`t even need to let it boil. Any high using appliance will work but a kettle is convenientearlywormgetsthebird wrote: »Hi, just wanted to say mateldave makes very gd points, and I've seen a mixup happen years ago, so it can and does happen sometimes.
Perhaps you need to repeat the 'turn everything off' test and watch the meter, just like mateldave describes, and then the kettle really makes the meter move (as you should see) at least several times, and at varying times of the day, just in case the one time you try to do this, your neighbour is out too, and also using nothing! which is not impossible, if you only try it once, and conclude "well that can't be it, then..." And GL0
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