Think I'm paying for someone somebody else's electricity and I'm not even joking.

[Epicstorm]

Our fuel bills have always been very high and I've long felt something isn't right.
Obviously the current hike in prices has brought this to the fore. I've contacted my fuel provider who say they aren't responsible for what's being charged to the meter. Our payments are twice what our neighbours pay (identical house, two retired occupants so circumstances very similar). Fuel provider says they estimate a much lower reading bases on the house size but the actual readings we give are much higher. We (like the rest of the country) have been very frugal with our energy use and I can't believe what they say we're using. Everyone I know pays a lot less than us even bigger families in bigger houses.

I wondered if anyone else has experienced anything like this and what you did? Did you find you were paying for something you shouldn't have been? Were you able to resolve the issue? I'm at a loss to know what to do. It isn't a smart metre by the way . I don't really want one and it would still presumably register any usage that wasn't ours. I'd be so grateful for any help.

You can ask for a check meter to be installed to verify that your meter is recording correctly, but you will have to pay for that if no error is found.

1. Read your meter twice a day and see if you can notice any patterns. Do you iron a lot? Do you run the oven more than once a day? Can you see any spikes?
2. If this doesn't show anything, then get one of those energy meter plugs, and put it in sequence on your appliances, to see how much it uses. Ideally you want one that keeps a record of how much is used over a period (lots of appliances draw different amounts at different times, so on a fridge you want a 24 hour reading, for instance; likewise on a washing machine you want to know what a cycle uses).

Turn everything off, except the fridge and freezer for 24 hours, see what your usage is then.

There's no short cut. Read your meters as pp said. Write down every single thing connected to electric in your house and estimate the daily kWh. Particularly anything that lights or heats: shower, tumble dryer, immersion.

Bills can vary hugely depends on how a house is heated or insulated, whether people are still on a fixed rate, correction of earlier over or underpayments.

Smart meters are really helpful in getting accurate usage data by the way.

Can you turn everything off at the fuse box or plugs and see if your meter is still moving.

Make sure you don't have your emersion heater on as that uses loads.

What's your annual usage in kwh for gas and electricity?

Your neighbour's costs could easily be half of yours. We are high users and have cut our daily use to an average of 13kwh. That's just electricity for lighting and appliances - heating (not on yet), hot water and cooking by gas. And that's after cutting back!

I echo PP's idea. Read your meter when you go to bed and when you get up in the morning to get your night time hourly use. Then have a low use day - normal lights, TV, whatever. You can then see what difference it makes when you do laundry, do a lot of cooking or whatever.

Yes! Rented a house next to the owner… wondered why my bills were so high. 🤬

What sort of house do you live in? I have seen it happen in houses converted to flats etc but never in individual houses. Turn everything off (even fridge freezer it will stay cold for a couple of hours) when you know your neighbours are home and see if the meter moves on.

Turn off your power in the middle of mealtime. Knock on the next door and ask has their power gone off too (be all innocent like your wondering if it's street wide or just you) If there's went off then they are connected to your meter.

Do you have any outside lighting or lighting that may have been left on in an outbuilding?

That would only work if they were connected to your supply after the fuse box which is very very unlikely. If it were to happen its more likely they are connected between the meter and the fusebox. In all likelihood unless they are happily not paying a penny for their electricity they are not connected to your meter at all.

Can it be turned off at the meter then? That would switch of anyone connected

Have you got a smart meter and does it correspond with others in the locality?

Turn everything off (at the fuse box). Take a reading. Wait 30 minutes, take another reading. Wait 30 minutes more, take another. Do it at a time when all your neighbours are in. (Freezers etc will cope fine without power for an hour).

If your meter is running whilst nothing is on you have an issue.

I had this with water: mine and my neighbour’s meters were muddled up. Had to switch my water off for 24 hours and note meter readings before they believed me. You need evidence! But also as pp said - work out what and when you are using. We have a smart meter and I discovered how expensive the oven is (!). And the kettle!

Turn absolutely everything off and see if the meter is still going round.

Without knowing what your actual usage is in kWh (not ££) it's impossible to comment

One person's high might be everyone else's normal

How much do you use?

I had such a nightmare for a 2 year period. I bought a showhouse in a development which was on a long street. Had a similar type house in the past before moving in and expected bill to be on par.
The bills were crazy, coming in at hundreds of euros every two months where I would have paid about 200 per 2 months prior.
I called and called the energy provider. I became so aware to turn everything off. Yet the bills were crippling and the energy co. didn't care.
One day just 2 years short of living there I answered the door to a council official who was responsible for the upkeep of the estate, so street lighting and grass cutting etc. He enquired if my bills were high. It seems the developer had rigged the street lighting to the electricity supply in my garage so I had been lighting the streets for 2 years!!
I disconnected my garage that night, but it took another 2 years and a mediator to get my money back.

My smart metre sometimes registers high usage while nothing is on. In the end we worked out the electricity was the immersion heater which we the turned off. But occasionally the gas usage goes up with nothing on ( only gas boiler and gas oven) I haven't quite worked that one out yet

We found a housemate was turning out immersion on without asking and leaving it on most of the day.

LekkiGate.

fishing around for popcorn, what happens when OP turns everything else off.

this

that All said though people’s usage hugely varies.

we (family of 4) use about as much energy as my MIL does living on her own.

Is the summer usage double the neighbours as well? If its more an issue in winter it could be your house loses more heat than the neighbour?

It can usually be disconnected by the meter, but it's not a job you can do yourself. There's usually a chunky fuse about the size of your thumb, but it's always live. An engineer can pull this fuse out to isolate the supply. They had to do this to ours once when we reported a dangerous fault on the supply.

If you turn it off at your fuse board, the meter should stop turning. If it doesn't there's something going on.