Electric Dec £387 WTF?!

[Happycroc]

I can’t even fathom how this is so much, our smart meter went in on the 6th Dec and we’ve been away from the 21st Dec. Before we left I switched off all the plugs which have things on standby (TVs etc). This is just electric as we have oil (don’t even get me started on that). One day was £28, I can’t even think why now but it’s terrifying!

How the hell?!!

I'm curious - our monthly kWh usage was 1236.0 for December. Is that considered excessive, given that our house (4 bed detached) only has an electric supply - no gas or oil?

I guess in your situation, it is what it is.

A house needs to be heated and you need energy to cook and to provide hot water.

The price cap 'averages' tend to focus on houses with gas and electric.

Not if that’s your only form of heating/hot water/power

Definitely something wrong somewhere OP. We only spent £5 all day on Christmas day when we were home with everything on all day, including the oven and I had the tumble dryer on too. We have an American Fridge Freezer although it's new, not an old one.

I have E7 and my chart on suppliers website does not separate day and night use.

Is the converted garage on it's own supply, or is it really connected to yours? If you turn off your supply at your consumer unit, then look at meter reading... then look again 5 minutes later, does the figure change? If you have isolated your supply then the meter should not change.

@nannynick interesting, does the chart then give you £ usage without taking the E7 into account? I guess though, for us, it doesn’t change the fact that the kWh usage is still looking to be 20kwh per day whilst we’ve been away…

the garage is on its own supply, we paid for a new connection.

we’re nearly home now and I’m going to investigate this afternoon!

If you're on E7 I wonder if the water tank is wired with 2 immersion heaters (one for heating the whole tank overnight, and 2nd one for "emergency" use if you run out).

You say you turned off the immersion heater, but it's possible you turned off the E7 heater and that there's a premium rate heater you've missed which is gobbling up the electric maybe?

It gives the £ based on the unit prices that applied at the time and the kWh total. So gives total amount, not broken down in to day and night.

Was your oil heating in when you moved into the house?
If not it would suggest something like an immersion heater as otherwise it wouldn't make sense to be on a split tariff.

We are economy 10 and use about 10kwh of off peak and 4kwh or peak per day. Your 600kwh on previous month's also seem high.

I think you have a couple of different issues to tackle.

1. Check your useage in kWh over previous bills to see if this is roughly in line or likely a fault with the new metre if there's a massive spike.

1. Check the metre is showing the right rate at the right time of day. They transposed rate 1 and 2 on mine when first installed which provided a shock!

1. Check the smart metre has calculated the figures based on the two different rates (it is not uncommon for them to struggle with split tariffs)

1. Investigate why your useage is so high.

1. Check economy 7 actually adds up for you. It might but you need to run the figures against a standard rate if you don't have electric heating.

The above figures include an electric storage heater - meant to say you are above our all electric system but missed that part out!

@Happycroc any update OP?