Smart metre already over £1.75 on waking up at 7.30 pm with no heating on

[IncessantNameChanger]

Just that. It's 16 degrees in my house. It's no less bearable at 16 than 19 last week btw but of course I can't keep the heating off forever. I'm going to do two loads of laundry today so it will be interesting to see what it is tonight but I share my standing charge has doubled this week. I must check.

Does the £67 come off your monthly bill or applied as credit to it?

The £67 varies depending on your provider.

Octopus took ours off our direct debit. So where we'd usually pay £85 we paid £18. But then British Gas made people pay and then refunded it (so people paid in full then got a £67 refund a week later) Other providers were adding it as credit onto the account.

If you check your suppliers website they'll be able to tell you which way they're doing it.

I have a British gas smart meter and mine is the same i wake up with about £1.70 standing charge. My gov money was put directly on my meter for the electricity.

Well if you don't get up until the early evening, it's no surprise

Ours is on about £1 by the same time. It's the standing charge plus the fridge freezer, wifi etc.

Your heating isn't coming on overnight is it? Eg if it's set to come on if it drops below 17 C it might come on for a bit while you're still asleep.

Yesterday was our first day at touching 4 pounds for the day as I had done two loads of laundry and one tumble dry. Usually it is about 3.75 since the price increase on 1 October. In the morning mine will be about 1.40 consisting of standing charge plus a dishwasher load plus the usuals. We're with Eon and they are taking the Gov amount off at source.

To clarify that was electricity only. We haven't put our gas heating on yet.

What happens if that takes you to a minus with Octopus
My bills are rarely £67

I'm Npower which I think is now Eon so from what I can gather the 67 is deducted from my bill and if it falls below zero its rolled over.

I'm hoping the heating didn't come on overnight. I have turned it down to ten it was 15. I still don't think it's needed right now as its OK in a long sleeve type top of a day inside and a Oodie at might. Im trying to save the cash for heating when it's unavoidable and once it comes on, it's hard to live without it. None of the kids are complaining (yet!). Still got my immersion off too. There's no hot water just a electric shower. I'd love to change to a combi boiler.

Does it add the standard charge on each morning?

I hope so! It's normally 97p when I get up. I will look closely at midnight tonight I think but from memory it does go to zero at midnight? I presumed the standing charge goes on some time early morning?

I clearly need to research more. It's never really bothered me until all these rises.

Zero at midnight on mine then within minutes the standing charge is showing.

@CentralLondonLife Octopus put you on a payment holiday, and continue to credit your account with 66.

What time did you all go to bed? If someone was up watching tv until 2am then that would be on today's bill.

What have you got plugged in? DO you turn everything except the fridges and freezers off? I have a drinks fridge and an undercounter fridge in a utility room. They cost 40p a day to run. Is your tv on standby? Phones charging?

Standing charge and fridge/freezer? Also is the smart meter itself plugged in?

Yes everything is left plugged in on standby

One fridge freezer, one old under counter freezer and a billion other things plugged in never turned off like TVs, teens PC, washing machine and drier etc but I don't think those things draw down much on standby. Or do they? Smart metre is always on but that goes onto standby by itself over night too

Try switching the PC off standby and see how much power it's using. If its a fancy one with a liquid cooling system etc it might be using a fair bit.

I’m with Edf and they charged inflated DD then a week later sent me £66. I’d much prefer they knocked it off the bill.

I will ask the teen to turn it off when he goes to bed in future, see if that helps, thanks. It's just an old normal PC, not a fancy gaming one so no special cooling extras just one standard fan

Worth giving it a go and seeing, if it doesn't use much then at least you tried.

The fridge uses the most power in the home. Because it is on all the time. Maybe check what energy rating yours has?

Is that gas and electricity? I know you say you don't have the heating on, but do you use gas to heat up hot water? Is that set to go on in the mornings?

Noon & our smart-meter only says 85p so far.

No heating & water was heated up by oil-fired boiler.
We have two elderly under-counter fridge-freezers running, the radio TV & PC have all been on a few hours.

@IncessantNameChanger that’s just the in home display, not the Smart Meter. I’ve unplugged mine (the meter is still sending readings half hourly so I can check the account to see what we use if I like)

@IncessantNameChanger meant to say I’ve unplugged mine in case it adds much on the bill, LOL (I’m sure it doesn’t). All the bulbs in the house are LED as well so they’re cheaper (especially as we had loads of mains spotlights and they were all 50w halogen!)

We've been away this week. Tv on standby and fridge/freezer running. Our electricity has been £2 per day without us even being here!

Nope. It's an immersion heater so unless I press the boost on the boiler there's no hot water at all as the immersion is off since April. I was just thinking that my parents lived off one wage and we wasn't by any means rich but the house was warm. Now I'm aiming to keep mine cold!

It's only £3.15 now and I'm on my second load of washing, so I suspect the standing charge has gone up again. I'm washing whatever I can on the shortest most economical wash.