To ask for your electricity usage for last year? Possible weed grower!

[buddhasbelly]

We’ve just moved house (2 bed detached bungalow, 70s construction, gas & electric) and got our predicted energy bill - we have a sky high fixed kWh rate but that’s just the way things are at the moment.

However the annual predicted electricity usage is 5300kwh - our old house we used 1700kwh in a year!

Our bedroom has a strong smell of weed. Could the predicted usage be down to the last owner possibly growing weed? I’m sort of hoping so as the predicted use seems crazy. The gas usage is about the same as our old property.

aibu to ask for your average electricity kwh for last year? I’m trying to gauge what others are using, particularly interested to hear if you have a bungalow!

FWIW I live in a 4 bed house but in 2005 when I had a 2 story extension built we had 6" Kingspan insulation sheets put in the extension roof but also into all the other parts of the roof - (it meant dropping plastered ceilings and re-plasterboard - horribly messy) including the existing flat roof extension so the house is reasonably well insulated - it's cool inside when it's hot outside and vice versa.

I'm on my own in an old four bed extended end terrace, I work from home so I'm here most of the time, and my predicted electric use use is 2543kWh. I have gas heating and the shower runs off the hot water (new combo boiler) so the gas is more. I do have led bulbs in all my lights, but there's a lot of things on standby (tv, smart speakers, laptop etc) which I don't turn off.

The average used to calculate dual energy tariff of £1971 is 12000 kw gas and 2900kw electricity.

I'm retired, use a tumble dryer, old cottage in Cornwall, electric cooker, smart phone, TV, Internet, fridge, washing m/c and I use about 2200 to 2400kw annually.

thanks @larkstar we could put in a wee bit more insulation in the loft - there’s one bit of walk/crawl space which lines up with where the strong weed smell comes from.

yes @SwelegantParty thats probably what I was expecting here. Not double that!

@BarbaraofSeville yes this exactly it. If we or the previous occupants had dependents that might explain it a bit more but as they didn’t it’s v confusing

still on hold. The hold music is far too cheery for my liking!

Similar property type. Here’s ours

We had a new boiler fitted in 2019/2020
hence the sudden drop.

We have our own water well and last year a pipe burst and our electricity bill shot up. Could that be a possibility? And the previous owners were just so used to the high consumption they didn't investigate?

The pipe that burst was not causing damage in the house hence I didn't notice until our electricity bill (from pumping the water) was really high! Took about 6 months for us to figure out it was the water pump

Either way, if how you live our lives within the house hasn't changed, you're annual usage shouldn't increase that much. We moved around eight years ago and our electricity bill came in exactly the same despite the fact we'd moved to a much larger property.

Unless the other posters who happen to see this thread use the same appliances and heating for the same amount of time as you do in the same house what they use doesn't have any bearing on what you use. The overall UK average is just as useful.

The obvious thing to do and I see you are doing it now is to have a conversation your supplier and discuss a reasonable estimate. I don't think telling them that user121454852 on mumsnet only uses 2000kWh is going to have much sway 😁

Is it a smart meter or the traditional kind? I wonder if their last meter reading was particularly high - perhaps they had been billed on estimated readings that were lower than actual usage, but then submitted an accurate reading when they moved out and that has loaded a lot of 'usage' into one billing period.

We're around 2,000kWh per year for electricity (2 people, end of terrace, gas central heating and hot water, quite low usage on appliances).

We have the same usage as @dementedpixie Also in a 4-bed detached with two kids. We both WFH on computers.

Not necessarily. Depends how many plants you want on the go... Add in movement fans, intake and extractions fans and your electric starts growing too.

Roof space sounds like it was used for growing percy if you ask me.

@Irishfarmer thanks for this - no well but am checking where power is being pulled.

@Damnautocorrect yes that’s what I was expecting!

yes @Madmog going to keep a close eye and check where power is going to see if we can pinpoint anything if it is stubbornly high.

our old place was rented (bills in my name not the landlords) and was fairly good at checking what was using the power. What a fun thing to be doing for the next while.

spoke to a friend that used to live in a property built by the same builders as this place. Said wall insulation was the only thing that made it a bit inefficient but not to the tune of 5300kwh electricity a year.

1700 is low, 2900 is average, so 5500 is high.

Mine used to be 5300, in a modern flat with gas heating, and I could never work out why it was so high. It's fallen to maybe 3500 with the number of people living here decreasing from 3 to 1, but I still feel it's too high, without being able to pin down where it's going.

We have a 4 bed and our predicted use is 5323 kW. Gas heating. Our use last month was 319 kW, both wfh so the usual computers/lights etc.
But if you are paying by DD you can set it to what you like.

Is there anything that either heats or cools that could be using a lot? We have a portable air con unit that absolutely guzzles electricity and I hadn't realised how bad it was still we got a smart meter!

@IcedOatLatte damn you finding holes in my perfectly reasonable quoting mumsnet posters strategy! I was sure this option was built into energy supplier contracts!😁

@theemmadilemma this was my thoughts but all we found was a single vhs tape. As we don’t have a video player we are still none the wiser as to its contents

ah @SmiteTheeWithThunderbolts yes it is a smart meter - this could explain it! (I’ve never had a smart meter so wasn’t sure how they worked in terms of estimates)

Can you check the electric immersion? My grandmother had an insanely high electric bill and it turned by out to be her electric immersion going crazy and draining power before it burned out the fuse!

@getoff yes slightly worried there will be some mystery usage that I can’t work out

@SpiderinaWingMirror thanks - am keeping the direct debit as it is for a month and then submitting the readings over the next two to hopefully get a more accurate picture - if it builds up a bit of credit for winter then that’ll be ok. And in the meantime finding out where the power is going if it does seem to be v high on our own daily use

The energy company's predicted usage isn't based on historical records for that property, as far as I know. It'll be their own calculations and probably based on wanting to build up lots of credit from you.

The advice is still to be on a variable rate btw. You should ask for a variable direct debit too, so you only pay for what you have actually used.

But to answer your Q, we use approx 2,500kwh electric in our 4 bed semi; 2 adults, 1 child, gas for heating & hw.

I’ve never had a smart meter so wasn’t sure how they worked in terms of estimates

The point of smart meters is that you don't need to estmate anything

The issue here appears to be that for whatever reason the previous occupants used more electricty that you did in your old house. The energy supplier computer doesn't know that so is going to assume the same usage as a starting point

The good thing is that you will know exactly how much you've used since you moved in, obviously not representative of the year as a whole but what is your daily average so far?

@ThreeLittleDots thanks Had gone onto fixed but in cooling off period and asked for variable instead this morning. A bit of a gamble but the fixed rate was 47.5p, even with hikes in October and jan this will still be cheaper (just). Energy company advised predicted rates were based on previous owners.

@IcedOatLatte thanks re smart meter info, we’ve been here a few days so just starting to watch daily usage (should’ve done so from first day!)

Energy company advised predicted rates were based on previous owners

Hmm, that seems very unusual. I'd insist on a variable direct debit then (paying for actual us), or for them to accept my own annual estimate. You can double-check by doing a daily meter reading anyway. No need to wait a full month.

We use about 5000 a year. But out house is 100% electric. We're a family of 4 in a 3 bedroom semi and I WFH. The tumble dryer is on at least once a week and there is always a laptop/phone/Nintendo on charging somewhere. Oh yes and there is lots of gaming going on too! No weed though.

You don't know for certain the previous occupiers circumstances, so stop jumping to wild conclusions.

@ThreeLittleDots yup that’s what I’ve done - thanks for all the advice - will post a v boring update in a months time with actual monthly usage. Riveting I know!