Electricity meter reading far too high

[starbrightstarlight8888]

I moved house last month and took a meter reading of 3957, I then took one exactly a month later and it was 8192. This can't be right can it? That means a monthly electricity bill of around £700.

We don't have gas, we are electric only. We've had new radiators installed so they are brand new and efficient. We've still got electric underfloor heating in the kitchen and lounge which could be inefficient I suppose but not to the tune of £700per month.

We live in a detached bungalow, not a mansion.

British Gas are useless. They say it could be a meter fault but hey can't send anyone round to check until lockdown is over.

What do I do? We are accruing a bill of £25 per day at the moment.

Heating is on in the mornings and evenings only. We don't use a tumble drier or dishwasher. Washing machine is on a few times a week, nothing excessive. There's nothing I can think of that is costing a lot of electricity and certainly not £700 per month!

We are taking hourly readings and the meter is showing as using between 6 and 20 kWh per hour.

@starbrightstarlight8888 we’ve turned ours off completely. It was on timed and cost about £3 a day. We only need hot water for doing the dishes and we boil the kettle for that as it’s much cheaper. If we want a bath, it goes on Boost for a couple of hours.

I switched everything off 15 minutes ago and it's still off now. The meter isn't going round . I'll turn things on one by one.
108 kwh in 24 hours is huge though, not just high. 2 days before that it was 158 kwh in 24 hours.

Do you take monthly readings and do you only get a bill every 6 months, I thought quarterly was the minimum?

It's a smart meter so effectively we can check anytime. I've been remiss I guess. But the letter is 6 monthly.

Can't offer any advice I'm afraid but I'm now invested in finding out what's causing such a high electricity usage. I'm putting my bet on it being your fridge or boiler.

@LadyGAgain

Just reading this is making my heart race. Our Bill just came through today. TWO GRAND in electricity since July. It's doubled since last year. I just don't know where to start. We have underfloor heating and have increased that by 2 degrees over the winter but it's off in the summer of course and is thermostat regulated. DH said that the only other thing we have done differently is he has a dehumidifier in an outside room but surely that's not £370 a month? We have a smart meter and it's attributing £8 to heating and £370 to appliances. We have a tumble dryer but it's the same as last year. Literally nothing else has changed. I feel sick. Good luck on your quest OP. Please let us know what you discover. DH has just been made redundant so perhaps we can use this 'spare' time to work out what's going on. British Gas don't give a stuff of course.

I would absolutely attribute yours to the dehumidifier- they're very expensive to run! When you say it's been in an outside room what exactly do you mean? And has it been running constantly? If it's been in a garage or similar then you've been paying through the nose to dehumidify the very damp external air thanks to the winter climate. Turn it off immediately if you haven't already!!

Things with electric heating elements are what cause high bills op. The combo of underfloor heating, electric rads and an immersion heater on top of normal usage (especially if wfh) can really add up. If you cannot have a smart meter, I would continue to use an appliance 1 by 1 for a period of an hour and work out the units used. So that for each big appliance and then add on a daily average of between 5-15 units per day for standard appliances. Ive seen absolutely huge bills in all electric properties. If the bill is correct you can ask your supplier to spread the balance over a period of time

Those of you finding suppliers unhelpful - complain! You dont have to be rude or shout but they are there to help you figure this stuff out, it's a huge part of their job. Ask if they have a head office complaint team, ask for the email address of thee ceo, mention citizens advice and ofgem. All complaint figures are monitored. If you are not getting the help you need go on to their social media and complain there.

@starbrightstarlight8888

I switched everything off 15 minutes ago and it's still off now. The meter isn't going round . I'll turn things on one by one. 108 kwh in 24 hours is huge though, not just high. 2 days before that it was 158 kwh in 24 hours.

Just switch the immersion on and nothing else - I guarantee that's what it is. Then switch immersion to 'timed' and adjust timing controls so you're not expecting it to be on. Bet the meter carries on going round...

It's a smart meter so effectively we can check anytime. I've been remiss I guess. But the letter is 6 monthly.

Are the readings the smart meter sent correct? I have a smart meter and for some reason unless I enter the readings myself it only picks up the electricity and not the gas. I'm Scottish Power and every month I enter the readings for electricity and gas to update my DD amount.

Are you also on the best tariff? If your deal runs out and you go onto standard, it can make a massive difference.

I've been on the phone to BG now for an hour. Very lovely person on the end of the phone. Apparently they can't send an engineer due to covid. I'm challenging that right now.

1 hour 20 mins later they want me to
Pay £200 for a meter accuracy test. After March due to Covid. The bloke on the end of the phone was proper decent and polite. He could see exactly where I was coming from but BG has us by the balls don't they.

Fgs it’s not rocket science. Turn everything off at the fuse box. Check it’s stopped. Turn one circuit on at a time an see if any have a crazy load. Then isolate each item on that circuit.

Turn the rads/immersion on while you do it... it will only take 5 mins to see if that’s the problem circuit.

LadyG - your problem is the dehumidifier.
10 years ago we were flooded. Company drying out our property set up 1 dehumidifier- it cost about £400+ a month to run (at prices then) - fortunately our insurance company paid.

Sorry if someone has already asked, but is there an electricity supply to the garden? We had to get everything rewired for safety reasons and found the garden had four different plugs and a live wire to some broken garden lighting. We pay high electrical bills even with gas heating, because we run a large pond pump.

OP - it’s the immersion heater without a doubt.

It honestly isn't more efficient to have your immersion on continuously, whatever your plumber says. To be fair, it's not a plumbing thing to know this, it's a physics thing.

Have you left lights on in a garage/shed/outbuildings/attic?

"Underfloor heating is cheaper than normal heating."

nonsense.

I turned everything off on the fuse board, the meter stopped running.
I flicked each switch one at a time to see what made it go round quicker. The immersion is on a timer and when I flicked that switch the meter didn't move so it appears that the timer is working on that.
Everything else looked OK apart from a switch that says lounge underfloor heating. That's also on a timer which is timed to come on at 4pm but the meter was running then stopping when I flicked this switch. I turned the underfloor heating off at the actual switch in the lounge (rather than the fuse board switch) and the meter was still running for some reason so that might have something to do with it.

I left that fuseboard switch off and turned everything else on and I've still used 3.5 kwh in 2 hours with no heating on. It still doesn't make sense.

There is an electricity supply to the garage but that switch is off on the fuseboard.

The previous owners paid £150 per month and we've done nothing different to them.

It won't be lights, ot TV, or phone chargers.

It'll be heating elements.

There is a slim chance you have a faulty immersion heater thermostat, but they heat water from cold at the rate of about 1 litre per minute. So if you have a 100 litre hot water cylinder, it's thermostat will turn it off after 100 minutes. Turn it off if you want, to see if there is a fault. What colour is the hot water cylinder, and is the tapwater scalding hot?

Most people who have electric UFH use it until they get the first bill; then, never again.

A tumble drier is the most costly appliance in your house.

Turn off each electric heater at the wall, then go and look at your meter. you only need to turn things off at the consumer unit if that fails. You might have a loft, garage, shed or pool heater that you don't know about.

Photos of your consumer unit could be useful (lid open so we can read the labels).

While you are experimenting, read or photograph your meter frequently.

Have a look on ebay for an Electricity Usage Monitor. There are lots around because Electricity companies went through a fad of sending them out free. I use an Owl CM160 which can be connected to the PC to store and display usage but there are plenty of others.

@starbrightstarlight8888

The previous owners paid £150 per month and we've done nothing different to them.

You've got new radiators, and you deal with the immersion differently. One of those is likely the culprit.

You need to turn the electric back on a room/area at a time and then see how much electric you use in 30 minutes or an hour.

@starbrightstarlight8888

I turned everything off on the fuse board, the meter stopped running. I flicked each switch one at a time to see what made it go round quicker. The immersion is on a timer and when I flicked that switch the meter didn't move so it appears that the timer is working on that. Everything else looked OK apart from a switch that says lounge underfloor heating. That's also on a timer which is timed to come on at 4pm but the meter was running then stopping when I flicked this switch. I turned the underfloor heating off at the actual switch in the lounge (rather than the fuse board switch) and the meter was still running for some reason so that might have something to do with it.

I left that fuseboard switch off and turned everything else on and I've still used 3.5 kwh in 2 hours with no heating on. It still doesn't make sense.

You need to turn everything off then turn that underfloor heating switch on for an hour and see how much it uses.

If ti's faulty that could be your culprit.

" I've still used 3.5 kwh in 2 hours with no heating on."

that suggests there is a small heater running somewhere (assuming you don't have herds of costly downlighters and spotlights).

My house, with 2 x fridge freezers, and the usual PCs, phone chargers and low energy lights, uses 300W to 500W when there is no heating on. Late at night, with most lights off, it drops to around 240W (my Owl tells me this). Heaters, cookers, tumble drier put it up. The dishwasher and washing machine have heating cycles but they only last around ten minutes each.