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.

Still battling to find the cause. I ordered a power reader to calculate the cost and usage of electricity but when it came the instructions were totally inadequate. Could anyone recommend one they've used?

One advantage of going for a smart meter is that an engineer will come to your house who will probably have a much better idea of what might be going on. I know you said you didn't want one but the display and daily total is really helpful.

27kwh for one night is a lot!

Do you have a garage? Other outlets outside your house? Someone might be using your outside plugs at night?

3 bed house teen up all night, and we use 4/5 kWh per day

We had a new smart meter fitted recently and they do check everything. Our house used to be a shop back in the 80's and they discovered because of that I was on a normal tarif if but was still classed as a business. So we were being charged more!

A guy I know questioned his bills for several years as they were very high, landlords and letting agents say there was no issues. Many years later they discovered that they were also paying for the immediate neighbours electric. Both houses were owned by the same landlord. The neighbour was meant to be paying this guy each month or quarter for his usage. He had years of free electric. He refused all knowledge when it all came out. After being threatened with small claims court he finally agreed to pay £5k to them, and now pays for his usage!

Did you turn everything off, and see if the numbers continue to go round?
Have you got a overnight ish fuse box with switches? Flip the 'all off' switch, then keep an eye on the metre.

And don't open the freezer whilst power is off.

Nb it is things that heat or cool that use the most power, relatively.

But either way, stop leaving your TV on standby! Surely if you're still doing then you've not really looked at every appliance.

As a PP had, who had 'turned everything off' bit it was the immersion heater, which had been ON all the time.

Do you have a fish tank? Our large tropical tank runs to about 4kwh per day.

I am aware of someone who stole their neighbours electricity. It must have been going on for years.

@Epicstorm our charge has gone up from £80 a month to £404 a month (family of 4 - 2 adults, 2 kids). My next door neighbours with exactly same family age group, same house etc, is £180. It makes me feel sick!!

No-one has mentioned this - but before you faff around with turning stuff on and off.

Check the meter number on your bill actually matches your meter.

I bought a new build flat years ago and the electricity number got the meter numbers mixed up when setting up the accounts. My address was associated with the flat two floors down (the meters were outside our doors so it was really obvious when I looked at the meter number).

Bloke downstairs charged his 3 ice cream vans up overnight from his domestic electricity supply so the bill was MASSIVE for his flat and I got a huge rebate.

Sounds like you have a faulty meter!

If it is faulty do you get the £100 re funded - you certainly should!

Yes they have.

Have you tried turning everything off (including fridge and freezer) and checking the meter stops.

Then back on one by one every 1/2 hour start with the freezer! until you discover what is using so much

Don't discount the fact that old appliances use loads sometimes. So if your fridge is 20 years old it can actually save money over 3 years to buy a new one. We changed our fridge & freezer for that reason.

3 or 6kwh overnight is a lot. We average 3kwh per day with normal use.

A smart meter would be very helpful here. It would be much quickly to establish if usage still registers when you’re not using anything, and would enable you to track patterns. As with any problem, the more data you have, the easier it is to identify a solution

We got a smart meter recently and I turned off everything and then turned them back on one by one to find out how much we were using.

Heres some of the “ invisible “ things I found were burning it up

Wifi and router

Pump in our fish tank

TV and computer monitors left on standby

outdoor security lights that come on every time the neighbours cat walks past at night

an old sound system in our ceiling that isn’t used anymore but has a transformer that was still using nearly £1 / day

a floor lamp in one room that was somehow linked to the Alexa in another room, so every time DS turned on the lamp in his bedroom it also went on in another room downstairs. This explains why I’m constantly telling the kids to turn off the lights if they are not in a room but they never listen. We suspect this light was also staying on all night.

we were using the 30 min cycle on the washing machine because we thought it was cheaper but apparently it’s not, it uses hotter water.

I also discovered that DP had been using the “ machine care” cycle every time he turned on our new energy saving dishwasher because he thought that was the best one to look after the machine 😲. You know, the extra hot cycle you are supposed to run every few months to clean it all out .

Apparently fluff in the back of the coil things behind your fridge and freezer also makes it work harder and you need to vacuum it.

Also, do you leave an immersion heater on?

Blimey just turn everything off then switch on bit by bit monitoring your meter for 10 mins each time. One evening and you'd have this all sorted.

If you leave the TV on standy (dont, get a plug you can turn off remotely if necessary) are you also leaving an xbox or sky on? Do you have mains clocks around the house.

We had this issue for 3 weeks once , our usage was normally about 13kw a day then fir 2 weeks it went to 26 then for one week it was a 39 a day ! Nothing had changed then suddenly it went back to normal , it was so weird I spoke to my supplier ( it didn't come to light until they went into liquidation and asked for v regular readings towards the end of them being in business ) and they agreed it was odd but that's what my meter read so that's what I had to pay. One day at work some reps came in from another co. and I asked for their opinion, they were pretty sure my neighbour must have been stealing my electric ! Seemed unlikely, but that's what they thought .

OP this is the sort of plug meter thing we have. If you post a pic of yours someone who is paying attention to what you're actually saying might be able to help with the instructions?

www.amazon.co.uk/Electricity-Monitor-Consumption-Analyzer-Backlight/dp/B0B4R2PPLZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_4

Did you get anywhere, @Epicstorm ?

Not really. We've had a (reputable) electrician out to check the meter and they've said there's nothing untoward there. We have managed to get our readings down a lot by being really frugal, but they're still higher than anyone else's I know and really random. Very very variable especially at night, even though same items are present. Electrician suggested we have a couple of old appliances (dishwasher and outside freezer) that are older and might not be energy efficient but that's all.
We had decided to have a smart meter fitted but then there's been a lot in news about energy companies being able to switch people over to prepayment meters with no consultation. We are paying (an enormous amount) by direct debit monthly but although we haven't missed any payments the account is in debit atm and I don't want to risk that.

Can you use the plug meter on each appliance for 24-48 hours to get an idea of highs and lows? That does sound odd. If you can pinpoint when it is, that might help. Or even don't use the dishwasher for a couple of nights and check the meter as often as you can to see if you can rule it out.

I'm weirdly invested in this, having had similar! Our bills are so much better now. Everyone got absolutely soaked on Weds and DH decided to put that dehumidifier back on for a few hours... and we had the highest usage in weeks (only by a few kwh but since getting a smart meter it's more noticeable).