High electricity consumption and no idea why!

[AllTheChatsAboutTea]

I live in a 3 bed semi with 2 teenagers, one of whom has just left for uni. Our annual electricity consumption for the past few years has averaged 6000 kW which is really high. I’m paying Octopus £250 a month for dual fuel.

The house has GCH on a timer and a log fire used in winter. Usual devices - TVs, games consoles, laptop, echos. I turn off anything left on standby and turn off lights as I leave a room. Big America fridge freezer which is full. Electric oven but I tend to use the air fryer. I do perhaps 4 loads of washing a week. Very old tumble dryer used once a week for towels and bedding. Heated clothes airer for everything else. Electric blankets and sofa throw used in winter to avoid putting heating on unnecessarily. Layz spa hot tub but only used a handful of times in the summer and we turn it off in between. No electric vehicle.

Just had a smart meter fitted to try and figure out what’s going on. Our “live” consumption at 09.00 on a Saturday morning is rumbling along at 700W. Already today we’ve used 6.93kW! I’ve boiled the kettle and had a shower, that’s it.

Anybody got any ideas why our usage is so high? I’m wondering if we have an electric fault somewhere. It’s not a problem with the new smart meter as the readings have been high for a long time. Would I need to get an electrician out or call Octopus?

Octopus labelled our American fridge the culprit. But replacing the old dryer will be more economical...

Can you turn the fridge freezer off for a couple of hours and see what happens?

Try turning different things off for short periods and see how it affects the readout.

You have to turn everything off - start with the main board perhaps

the fridge freezer will be fine for a couple of hours - if you get data in half hour chunks then leave it an hour then switch back the kitchen circuit and leave for another hour then turn on the fridge and basically work round the house adding stuff back

I am struggling with your watts and your kwh

What else was running in the background while doing this? If the shower is electric, how long where you in there?

As the fridge has been mentioned, you could try turning that off for an hour and see how much difference it makes.

Do you have a (back up) immersion water heater that has been switched on accidentally?

You have high electricity consumption. Everything you've described except your heating is electric.

£260pm average (which is what your direct debit is, your year averaged out) is very reasonable based on what you describe.

You can make some economies such as changing all light bulbs to LED. Timer plugs for things like tv's, lamps and other items. Replacing your tumble dryer for one more eco friendly (could be costing £3 per tumble and if very old, more)
Hot tubs use shit tonnes of energy, particularly if your "only using it a few times" and cleaning, heating from scratch each time.
Electric showers are energy guzzlers

Your smart meter IHD should tell you when your energy use spikes. Start paying attention to when it does and you will start to see where you can make changes.

1000watts in 1 kWh. If the op has a constant 700watts being used that's a lot of kWh across the day.

Is your shower electric, what KW is it and how long. A 30min shower in a 10kW model is 5kWh straight away.
One of our teens was king of the 45min shower until he got a talking to.

The worst culprits are things that heat or things left on all day.

i meant she used kw for all things when I think she meant kWh ?

If the smart meter gives a running readout then turn of everything you can.

Put things back on one at a time.

I'd say 700wats idling is high. Ours is around 120/130 with just a few lights and PC's, printers etc on standby. Around 300 if the compressor for the fridge freezer is working. Obvs much higher if anything like kettle, washer etc are on. Modern tumble dryer is rated at 1kw.

Electric shower, probably 8kw, bends it against max stop.

Biggest saving we had was only boiling enough water for a couple of mugs when making tea.

Your use this morning is really high considering its mainly background use.
In comparison I'd just checked mine and have used the same amount as you this morning but have boiled the kettle 5 times, had the dishwasher on and most significantly had the heating which is electric ASHP on for two hours. So should have used much more than you have at this point. I also have a American fridge freezer.

We use slightly more than you over the year, however we're in an all electric house.
The freezer may be the culprit, but you think really need to turn appliances off and on to get to the bottom of it. Is the 250 just for electricity costs, or does that include gas too? Are you overpaying (i.e. building up lots of credit)?

The american fridge freezer should eat IIRC 1.5kwh a day.
You do need to go and switch fuses off room by room to find room with culprit. This is high even for what you named especially looking at just this morning

It's something with a constant draw if you have used that since midnight (unless you set your dishwasher etc).

Have you checked the seals on your fridge freezer?

Could you turn it off for an hour with the doors shut and monitor your usage? If it drops then you have your culprit and food will be fine for a short period.

Our house runs at about 0.2kwh as basic background with a TV on.

You mentioned a hot tub which although doesn't apply now, isn't the big usage in heating it up then you maintain it (rather than use occasionally). Unless I've misunderstood what you meant by this.

How long has it been abnormally high for? Yy to swtiching absolutely everything off and keeping on switching off until meter stops moving.

We had an issue many years ago with some people tapping into our supply and running their caravans off our electric through an outbuilding. And another friend had an attached neighbour tapping into the back of one of their plug sockets and using their supply (apparently this was an "accident" but the neighbour was an electrician and quite unpleasant in other ways as well). Both were a headache to sort out.

I had a huge electricity bill for three months. Could not understand it. Turned out our immersion heater had been put on my mistake permanently. Do you have one? Check that first!

If your shower is electric, it could be that, they are usually around 10 kWh rating, which means they use a unit every 6 minutes.

It could also be the fridge, especially if it's older. A year ago we replaced a 25 YO fridge freezer. It still worked but all the freezer drawers were starting to degrade and when I googled the annual consumption it was nearly 4 times what a new one said it used on the energy sticker, so a new one would pay for itself in saved electricity in about 2/3 years.

I was slightly disappointed to make the decision because I was curious as to how long it would last, left to it's own devices but we wanted a bigger fridge section and the high electricity consumption and the fact the drawers were falling apart meant it made sense.

Energy saving light bulbs everywhere? Buy everyone small torches and remove some light bulbs?

How long is the heated clothes airer on and what is its consumption.

The fridge/freezer is a likely culprit, if they get low on gas the compressor has to work harder to keep it cool. Or is there a gaming pc, or several consoles running all the time. A powerful pc could be drawing 700w, maybe 250w for a playstation/xbox. Not a lot of help, but think positive, all that electricity is being turned into heat somewhere, so you won't need the central heating as much.

No immersion heater or electric shower. We have a combi boiler.

We’ve got energy saving bulbs. Haven’t yet resorted to torches! 😂

I’ll turn off the fuses on the mains board and see if I can narrow it down to a particular room before I start switching all the appliances off.

I bought it specifically because it said it was 9p an hour to run, and as a cheaper way of drying clothes compared to the tumble dryer. It’s on for a few hours four times a week.

@AllTheChatsAboutTea what does the rating plate say its power usage is?

300 watts

I don’t think it’s the airer. I’ve only had it a month or so.