To think wtf is using all this electricity?!?

[Porthia]

Just got our monthly energy bill. It was £958!
Of that £737 was electricity.

I have been making a real effort recently to switch lights and appliances off, reduce energy usage, turn down the heating etc.

But what the actual fuck?

We came off our fixed rate in November, our supplier went under and then the last bill was £600 which made me fall over so I have been making a conscious effort to reduce things.

I am actually in tears. How is it this much? It’s going to go up again in April. How can we pay £1000 for energy each month?

We don’t have any crazy appliances that I can think would be eating this much energy, in fact our washing machine has been broken so I haven’t even been using that the last month.

We have a tv, computer, oven, lights - and I try to switch off as much as possible. What the hell could be drinking that much juice???

And yes it’s based on actual readings

I hate this because I feel like this money is just being sucked out without anything I can do about it!

That does seem high. I've just looked at mine and compared like for like. You used 866kwh from 14 Jan to 14 Feb, I used 413kwh. And that's with two of use working from home, dishwashers and washing machine on every day, DS playing PS2, etc.

Have you checked to make the immersion's not accidentally been switched on? This happened to my friend and she got a massive bill.

You can get an energy usage monitor that tells you how much electricity each device is using.

I suspect bills are wrong far more often than we know - if they look about right we pay without thinking. We once (due to a faulty meter) got a bill for something ridiculous like £19,000 and I remember thinking I was glad it was out by such a bonkers margin as it made it easy to ring the company and say '3 bed house- does that seem right to you??'

I suspect we will see lots of posts like this as we progress through the year

Halogen lights use a lot of electricity. Do you have any?

Good point
My bills reduced significantly when I replaced halogen spots with LEDs. Whole house is LED now and my electric use is much lower.

@Knockoneofftheshelftowin

Halogen lights use a lot of electricity. Do you have any?

I think I need to replace mine with led.

@Moonmelodies

Imagine if you had two or three electric cars in your household.

Looking at the usage in KWh from the actual readings 14 Jan to 14 Feb It looks as though you are averaging nearly 28 Kwh per day.

This is during the period when you say you are watching your usage and that figure is nuts. I run an EV and medical equipment (which involves heating) daily and my usage is 10-20 KWh per day. The car isn't charging everyday and can take about 20-30 KWh (@ 7KW per hour from the pod point) to charge. The medical equipment is around 6-7 KWh every day.

We are a therefore a big electric user on top of the normal 3 bed detatched house and we are not near your usage. We do have modern house with gas CH, I use an oven daily and washing (old machine) about 3 X weekly at 30*C and tumble maybe 1 hour 2 X weekly. Don't use dishwasher.

I think you need to check your meter using various appliances to see what is using how much and if you can't find any particular large drain items, ask for a meter check too.

As other PP have said you can buy an energy monitor to clip on your tails which will give you a reading which you can use for accurate usage for each individual item as you test it. I have had to do this to get usage reading from the medical equipment as this is paid by the local HCT.

Same situation as you with shell, first bill the starter readings were lower than our April readings with Green both for gas and electric!!! How many people don’t figure this out and pay, absolutely shocking! Luckily I had downloaded all my green bills when they went under and had it corrected and new bill created but we are still paying horrendous amounts and they often “misplace” our readings! I am now photographing meter every month and going through bills with a fine tooth comb.. Will be switching as soon as it’s possible!

We got a Bill similar to that recently and my heart stopped. Only four of us in the house! I've just had a smart meter put in and you really can see what costs what in your house for both gas and electric. Too early to tell yet but I'd highly recommend you get a meter fitted.

Check your fridge and freezer door seals - if there’s the slightest chance they don’t form a full seal or there’s a small crack in the rubber it will absolutely eat your electricity

@jellyfrizz can I ask how you discovered the issue with your underfloor heating please?

Check you don't have a weed farm in your attic?

We use 3,500-4,000 units a month during the winter months and pay around £750. That's with an air source heat pump and solar panels which were meant to be more economical 🤔

Are you wfh? It makes a massive difference- heating and lights on, computers on, phone charging, cooking 3 meals etc

Agree with other posters, think you need to check if your neighbour's are croppers.

And fan heaters are right little electric suckers

@mumoftinyterrors

We use 3,500-4,000 units a month during the winter months and pay around £750. That's with an air source heat pump and solar panels which were meant to be more economical 🤔

That's an insane amount! 10 x my monthly consumption, and I have teenagers. Are you sure that's right? .

[quote UnCivil]@jellyfrizz can I ask how you discovered the issue with your underfloor heating please?[/quote]
There was a patch on the floor that was ridiculously hot, it was under a sofa and the heating only came on when cold so it took a while to find. We found it by chance - I guess you could do a test by switching it on and checking for hot patches or watching your meter.

We had had huge bills for some time, once we turned the UFH off we saw a big difference.

[quote Porthia]@neamchimpsky current supplier has only been with us since November because our old supplier went out of business. So I don’t think they have access to our useage history.

The prediction they have put on my bill is for a total cost of £2000 per year for electricity. Yet they are charging me almost £1000 in one bill.

I actually feel sick.[/quote]
Did you definitely pay was fully outstanding from your old supplier? Is it a quarterly bill?

I've had so many issues with closing readings not matching open readings when I've switched suppliers. Which sounds like it's possibly your issue.

From memory, there's various industry tolerance levels to allow them to ignore differences between opening/closing reading. It's taken me months of back and forthing between the two suppliers to agree them. Raising it as a formal complaint seems to help. And not paying either bill (so stopping the direct debit) until it's agreed.

Since then, I keep a note of all my meter readings and try to do a reading on the day the switch goes live. Not that it will help you on this occasion but I hope you can get a resolution.

Same happened to me when I moved to British Gas although mine was £600 but triple the gas bill, I had PAYG meters installed when they refused to believe the readings were wrong and they are back to normal useage now I would guess it's a faulty meter

People Posting how much they pay a month without how many kw is about as much use as saying "I only put £50 of petrol in my car a month"

OP has posted her usage, a screen shot of her bill and established it was estimated at the initial reading.

You can select to read just the Op's posts .....

I had a £12,000 elec bill from npower a few years ago..