Absurdly high electricity bills - faulty meter?

[billswaytoohigh]

Our electricity direct debit is over £500 per month - this is in part paying back arrears that accumulated when our direct debit was lower - but it has crept up steadily from £150 a few years ago to where it is now - for a while it seemed that every month we got a letter saying that our direct debit was being increased.
To give a bit of context: we are in a detached 3 bed cottage, with no mains gas / oil fired central heating, so I would expect our usage to be significantly higher than average - just not this high. We have solar panels for hot water, so we are not using the water heater a great deal (maybe 4 hours a week in the winter months). We have wall mounted electric radiators in main living areas (convection heaters in bedrooms, but don't use these much). We also have multifuel stoves in living and dining room without which the house is freezing (lately we have cut back on coal / wood as we were paying another £100 per month for this, and using the heaters more, and they really do not warm the house adequately, so it is not as if we are paying through the nose to superheat our home).

This does sound ridiculous, right? I can't believe that we are really using so much, but part of me is wondering whether this is just what it costs when you live in a poorly insulated stone cottage.

We are having our meter checked in a few weeks, so I am hoping that they will find that it is faulty and they owe us a massive refund - but I am not really expecting this outcome. Does anyone have experience of particular faults etc causing excessive usage? Can electricity 'leak' from a building? and how could we go about getting this diagnosed and dealt with?

We're desperate to get this under control - any advice would be massively appreciated.

storage heaters are basic physics which doesn't get old. But they do have obvious inconveniences and it is questionable how long economy 7 will last. Plans seem to be to force all gas users eventually on to electric and then the fun will start...

things that use the most electricity are things that generate heat. Most other stuff uses watts, not kilowatts.

21,000 kWh is huge for domestic usage. It sounds like something is on that you can may not know about - do you have a well with an electric pump? Other big users are electric showers and cookers, and electric heaters are never a good idea (heat pumps are good) . You're using 3-4 times the normal consumption for a house of that size.

Is your cottage on a farm estate with other cottages nearby, ie could there be just the one meter for more than one house/building? You could be paying for someone else’s leccy! It happened to my friend with her water. The farmer had turned buildings into houses (all legit with planning etc) but only had the one water meter for all. One property was paying for three homes water use!

It is more likely either that your meter is being read incorrectly or you are on an unsuitable tariff for your meter type.

I have electric for everything, no solar panels, and heat a 3 bed house on about £120 a month using an E10 tariff.

I have however only recently resolved a huge dispute with my provider which went to the ombudsmen because they were assigning the peak rate and off peak registers to the wrong rates.

If you have electric heating you should have an Economy 7 or Economy 10 meter or something like Heatwise/Warmwise. Electric heating not using off peak electric will be hideously expensive.

To help you we need to know more about your tariff and your meter.

There is lots of help on billing issues on moneysavingexpert forums.

Can you get more solar panels for your heating? Even putting on the heating during the day would possibly keep the house warmer with the stone retaining the heat

We thought ours was high at around £150/160 a month but in winter we have to run an electric Aga. We're on lpg gas for heating and I did investigate other ways of heating the house, the best solution I found was the v modern design electric flat panel radiators. They may be worth a look as they're much more efficient
I also find in the wind our old house is like living in a wind tunnel. I've stuffed up as many gaps as I can but...

How much of the bill is paying arrears and how much is actually going towards your usage?

We are electric only. I will stress it is a brand new build so well insulted etc. But our DD is around £60 per month.

How many electric heaters do you have?

Look for a nameplate with a rating (typically 1.5 - 2 kW. If there isn't a nameplate you can probably Google the make and model), then estimate the number of hours the heaters are on per day x no of days/year. For example 5 heaters x 8 hours/day for 170 days/year @ 1.5 kW each = 10,200 kWh annually - half your electric bill. If the heaters are old, look no further - they'll be using a lot

A faulty fridge can result in huge electric bills.

We are in an all electric house, heating is wet electric central heating, water is electric, 3 bed, 300 year old house, double glazed and insulated (as well as it can be...), use the tumble dryer all the time, water heater on permanently, and we're using about 15,000 units a year, so something seems to be draining yours.

Have the digits from the last meter reading been reversed? (Say 3972 instead of 3792).
Is it an old imperial or new metric meter? (We had a gas meter measuring in imperial from the year dot but the gas company was taking readings as metric).
Have you got lights left on in a garage or outbuildings?
Are you also supplying a neighbour's house? Turn off the supply at the consumer unit and see if your neighbours electric goes off.

Forgot to mention there is a government scheme that gives you free gas boilers. I don’t know if that will be possible where you are or how much longer this scheme will be run now we are all supposed to be electric or renewable energy users, just mentioning.

no mains gas!!