Energy bill - looking for advice

[BDW1097]

I am looking at my energy bills for the past few months and haven’t even clocked how bad it was as I not long moved into a new place and it took me a while to get the energy sorted.
This is for people on an economy 7 tariff, with a day and night read for electricity. How much day and night electricity do you use over a month. I think my one is way to high with it being around 20kWh a night.

Do you have storage heaters?

Yes but they’re turned off at the wall. Haven’t been using them

We used 82kwh at night in April. Our water heater heats our water overnight.

What about during the day? Also are you a large or small household?

Nightime usage is about 25% of total usage. Small household. 2 bed modern flat.

Lol. Mine at the moment is about 75% night usage. Even though everything is turned off at night.

A couple of thing to check (which should be easy):

A) are rates the right time around? I.e. whatever you're inputting as "day rate" is definitely going up during the day?

B) time on your meter is broadly correct? Depending on the age of the meter and if the electric board meter reader has bothered to check, you might find the clock has drifted (so "day time " cycle is well off true).

That said, is your total usage where you think it should be? Assuming you don't think (in total) that your usage is off, all this means is your getting a greater proportion on the cheap rate!!

My annual usage is 4000kwh night and 3000kwh day.

I pay 29p per kWh for day and 10.5 per kWh for night

I have no gas. I’ve been taking meter readings weekly to get a handle on things.

im now down to 8kwh per day across the two now that the heating is off. 3 bed house with water heating overnight - usual amount of appliances and kids always using some electric device.

it was 27 when I had the heating on, so decisions will need to be made for next winter.

ive stopped using the tumble dryer and 90% of the time use the eco cycle on the dishwasher/washing machine.

I think 20kwh at night for storage heaters wouldn’t be particularly unusual at all unfortunately.

So you say the meter indicates 20 kWh at night and this is about 75% of your daily usage? So it says something like 7 units in the daytime?

27 units a day for 365 days is about 10000 units a year, which is probably correct for an all electric household.

Like a PP says, check that the clock on the meter is correct, has am and pm been mixed up for example?

I wouldn't just think 'bonus, we're getting our daytime electricity at the night rate' because it could be that they'll work out later that your actual usage was different to what the meter is showing and come after you for the difference.

Years ago, we had the same problem, it was either that the meter clock was wrong, or that the meter was incorrectly wired, so it was showing the daytime use on the night meter and the night use on the day meter. I can't remember which, whether or not we built up a debt that they chased us for or how it was sorted out, but it means that this is something that can happen.

Check the clock on your meter and if it is wrong, there's your answer. If it is right, or there isn't a clock you can see, spend a few days recording the readings on both meters first thing in the morning and last thing at night to see if it looks like its the wrong way round. Either way, talk to your supplier to get them to sort it out.

@BarbaraofSeville that's a good point about possibly building up debt.

I think (no direct experience) they would need to be able to justify the charges though. So if the rates have got swapped this could happen, as they could work out the difference if they had been put in the other way around. However, if the clock is wrong (so peak rate happens at dome completely differenttime to when it should) I don't see how they could justify what they would charge as a debt/difference, as they'd have nothing to indicate what usage should have been at what rate.

Would be interested to hear if anyone has had this happen though!

We used 278kwh in total for April - 3 bed end terrace house, family of 2 adults & 2 toddlers; and about 72kwh of that was at night - the only thing we have running on our night hours is the immersion heater for 1 hour between 5-6am then the usual fridge/freezer, router etc. No heating as the 2 night storage heaters in the house are totally inefficient and not worth using. We generally use 6.5-9kwh per 24 hours unless I’m doing washing and a roast when I might go up to 13.5kwh.

The rates are the correct way around. I read track it day and night and it’s fine. In the day I would say the amount used is about where it should be, but at night, it just somehow gets eaten up even when we’re in bed with nothing turned on. Seems like the night reading is just messed up

Yeah but you’re down to 8 per day and I’m using 15 per night with nothing turned on. It’s insane.

This sounds like what I’d expect. We’re just a 2 bedroom house with two people that are not using anything at night. Yet our night bill is more than your total

Total usage I would say is maybe 3 times as much as it should be I think, based on what I’ve been using in previous places.

Whereabouts are you? I'm on economy 7 and I dread this sort of thing happening. I think it's a ploy to get everyone on to a smart meter, which can more easily be hacked.

Well, I have wondered this. I’m Coventry

Are your storage heaters actually cold. I found that two of mine were not even though they were switched off at the wall. I had to actually switch them off next to the meter.

They’re cold