To not understand how I'm "using" so much electricity?

[QuestionableMouse]

One bed flat. Gas heating. Live alone.

I wash clothing maybe twice a week. Have a small dishwasher that gets used once a day. Don't watch TV, do a couple of hours of Xbox or tablet time daily.

Only thing that runs constantly is my fridge and it's A rated.

I'm being charged more than my sister and she lives in a three bedroom house with two kids. I genuinely don't understand how it can be so high.

It could be a smet 1 smart meter (the first earlier type) which go 'dumb' if you change suppliers as they are specific to the company who installed it.

All smart meters installed now should be smet2 which can move suppliers with you.

So if op had the early type and changed suppliers her current supplier wouldn't be able to use it with smart functionality.

For info, most gas boilers use an electric pump to push the heated water through the radiators.

@OttersAreMySpiritAnimal thank you.

I pay £80/pm by DD which is what they said was correct.

I don't use a tumble dryer. Have a heated airer and hang clothes out as much as possible. I use the timer on my washer so it runs overnight.

@WomenInConstruction according to the page I was looking at, that particular meter is a Smets2 one, apparently,

www.ovoenergy.com/guides/energy-guides/landis-and-gyr-e470-smart-meters/amp

My brothers is the same livrs on hos own, had bill yesterday and its £68 every other month is around £36/38 per month EON

@QuestionableMouse once you get all this sorted, remember that if considering moving supplier (I’m not saying you should, at all) - all that matters from a cost perspective is cost per kwh and standing charge. Then use the number of kwh you use to compare costs if you need to. I’m with Octopus but actually prefer the experience I had with OVO, not least paying interest on the credit. Often things like the comparison sites compare your current supplier with cheapest available - but turns out if it’s a future compare they sometimes
use your current supplier’s basic tariff.

So now I just compare current kwh price and standing charge with the new quote.

I’m sure Octopus won’t quibble things but if they do the onus is on them to come and check.

Hmmm, that's rubbish then that octopus aren't getting accurate readings.

Unfortunately, although octopus are one of the better energy companies in terms of customer service, they are targeted on installing smart meters, but not fixing problems with existing ones... So those issues are bottom of their priority list.

That said a massively over charged customer is a massively over charged customer whatever type of meter they have, so if I was op I would be stomping my foot (politely), refusing to go away and using their complaints process as my personal Bible.

In this world it is the squeaky wheel that gets oiled.

When you email them send them the photos of your meters as proof. This is what I had to do as they were using estimated readings, unfortunately it took several app messages/emails but I did get a credit in the end. I think I was with Octopus too. Your bills are huge (even with running a dishwasher everyday which I originally thought was a bit excessive 😆) so god knows where they get the numbers from

Thats too much I think. I pay £70 per month for 2 people in a 1 bed bungalow.
You can go on the octopus website and reduce your payment amount.
As pp have said I think this is basically down to your estimated meter readings. You have a smart meter so there is no reason why octopus shouldn't be taking half hourly meter readings from it. Look at your account on the website and make sure that they have your smart meter serial number. Or email it to customer services.

That is a SMETS2 smart meter. Occasionally Octopus use the R01 rate from these meters and not the Total Import (particularly common when someone has previously been on a two-rate tariff like E7). Easiest thing to do is to send Octopus a photo of your meter reading and ask them to cross-check it with the data they have. Also ask them why it isn't sending readings and see if they can fix it.

It's a tabletop dishwasher so is really tiny! I say every day but thinking about it it's more like every other day ATM.

Take a photo of it on your phone then you can enlarge it.

@QuestionableMouse you're not using electricity excessively, it's the massive discrepancy in meter readings that's the issue. Don't worry about trying to work out how to use less electricity, it's not the issue here.

Thank you!

Thank you! Honestly when I saw that earlier I got really worried!

That's insane, I have no idea how you're using that much! We have 3 people in a 3 bed flat and our last monthly electricity bill was £62.

We also have a dishwasher and wash clothes more frequently than that.

I feel like there's something going wrong, you have an appliance zapping electricity or a fault with your meter.

@MrsSunshine2b if you RTFT you'll see that it's an incorrect meter reading that doesn't match what's on the OPs actual meter.

Checking the actual meter number against the bill is excellent advice.

I used to work for an energy supplier, and it was not uncommon for meters to be allocated to the wrong account, especially in new developments. And when a friend had a similar problem back in the early 90s, that was exactly what it was, in a block of flats that had been built 30 years earlier. I've also come across it in converted flats, including my late partner's.

The latter was a nightmare to unravel, there were 13 flats in a huge Victorian house and the meters were in an outbuilding in the grounds. The only way we could work out which was his meter was for one of us to turn the electricity off at the mains while the other was in the outbuilding to see which meter stopped running. With the gas, we had to do the opposite: turn the heating right up, and have everything on the gas cooker on. The conversion had been been done donkey's years earlier, nearly every meter had been allocated to the wrong flat, and there were a myriad of different energy suppliers involved. They still hadn't got to the bottom of it all when he moved out, nearly 2 years later.

They had also been told that they couldn't have smart meters. I can't recall now what the explanation was, but it made sense at the time.

We know the meter readings is wrong.

But it may be that the opening reading on moving in was similarly too high.

So the issue is what is the correct starting point?

You need to check that the meter serial number (under the screen to your left) matches the meter serial number on your bill. That reading is way off the one 'data collector' reading. I understand the meter is inside your flat however, it's common for meters in flats to be mixed up.
It's possible Octopus have someone else's meter on your account, especially as you say no one read the meter and there's the data collector one on your bill.

Take a photo of it with your phone and enlarge it.

I have this with EON who are useless. Absolutely useless. Every month they email me or text me and say please pay your outstanding bill of £546 or any random large number they choose. I send in my metre reading. They then adjust the bill. I pay the bill. I then owe them zero. Three weeks later please pay your outstanding bill of £624. They come up with an estimated figure which bears absolutely no relation to actual usage. Then relentlessly message me, threaten to send my bill to debt collection, threaten to add charges on a bill that they have just made up. It's dystopian. Pay us what we would really like to extract from you. I'm changing providers. When I told them that they were ever so apologetic but couldn't really explain their very peculiar working model. I know why, it's because I won't pay by direct debit. I will only pay then for what I have used and the standing charge. So in other words I pay the bill rather than some prediction if what a bill may be.

With Octopus I just submitted my own readings each month
There is no need to get someone out to read it, the OP can just submit her own reading and they will recalculate the bill.

Do you leave things plugged in? They can use as much power on stand by as they do when working.

Go to a price comparison site.

I'm with EDF so I get a certain number of hours free on a Sunday if I have not used lots in the week.

Check you are not on an economy seven tariff.

How are you heating water?

I'm in a 2 bedroomed bungalow and pay about £80 a month for gas and electricity.

Ask octopus to send you one of the displays that links to your smart meter as you will be able to see any spikes caused by certain appliances
if as per pp your meter isn’t working in smart mode ask them to replace it for you as that will also tell you your usage on an hourly/ daily basis so you can keep track going forward