Our electric costs have always seemed high....now they are insane!!!

[Woody2021]

I have always suspected our energy (electric) is wrong...way too high.

We have a 3 bed-semi - with 3 adults, me, my wife and my mother-in-law and two toddlers - nothing unusual - no electric car, hot tube, electric heaters etc.

But we have multiples of some household items - we have 3 tv's, 2 dryers (used sparingly), 2 showers, and 3 freezers...but I can't see it would equate to how much our energy company claims we have used in a year.

I've looked on a number of websites and they say the average electric consumption for a high usage family is - 4.3KWH.

But, our house has supposedly used 7.2KWH...nearly double a regular home.

This is why our regular monthly fixed rate was already £218 a month.

We have now finished our fixed term agreement and based on our supposedly 'normal' use habits - our current provider quoted use a fixed rate of £688 A MONTH.

This is obviously outrageous so I have had to shop around. I have found a deal, where we had swap/add other utilities in addition to fuel - its an odd deal, but I needed a new sim deal and swapping house insurance is fine too.

But the monthly tariff is still incredibly high - £460 a month.

I want to know has anyone ever looked into investigating whether these numbers are correct in the first place or is something using a crazy amount of energy or is someone just stealing it...because it feels like we're powering another house.

Any thoughts/advice?

Do you have a smart meter?
If you do, turn off as much as possible and monitor the consumption. If it’s still high with very little on I would ask your supplier to check your actual meter.

7.2kwh per day? This is fairly low usage. We use far more than that and have solar panels.
Are your 2x showers electric, as they basically eat money, especially if people take leisurely showers.

But you are effectively powering another house because you seem to have multiples of things most people only have one of?

I've just had a quick Google and yours sounds below average. I was going to ask the same as PP. My step daughter used our electric shower earlier (never gets used usually as she usually has baths and we use our ensuite which isn't electric) and I noticed (by accident I didn't purposely check!) that the shower alone cost £1!!!!! And she wasn't in it all that long x she'll be using our normal ensuite one from now on! 😂 x

You have three adults which will make a difference when you think of all of those one adult homes in the averages statistics.

Who is home during the day?

Are any of your freezers old? They can consume a lot of power if they go wrong. Why 2 dryers (I've assumed tumble rather than hair)? Condenser/ heat pump/ vented? Does MIL have a secret electric heater in her bedroom? Is your immersion switched on accidentally?

Anything which heats or cools = £££££££

Unplug the driers.

3 x freezers is MENTAL

Why the heck have you got 3 freezers?

I've just checked my bill and we average 7.2kwh per day. Three bed terrace, 2 adults WFH full time. So yours sounds reasonable to me. Your bill is high though, ours is £165pm for gas and electric (we've got a smart meter so this is accurate).

There are times in the day when my usage drops to 170 watts per hour... which seems to be my base amount for broadband router, clock radio, cooker and microwave in standby and things like that which are constantly plugged in.

If you have a smart meter, you can see the usage it records, so you can turn off appliances and within a few minutes see the current use figure drop, if the appliance was drawing enough power when plugged in for the meter to detect.

You have various things, but they won't be drawing a current all the time. Showers for example often have isolation switches which you turn on before using and off afterwards.

Is your usual consumption 7.2 kWh per day?

What are you being charged per kWh and what is the standing charge?

But you have the number of freezers and televisions that three houses would have? And 50% more adults and tumble dryers than most too?

7.2 is way below average. We use about 20 a day!

Our monthly usage is about 225 kWh (so 7.5 kWh per day) and bill is about £48 per month (fixed at around 18p per kWh and 18p standing rate per day).

I think the OP means 7200kWh a year?

Average for a large house is 4300 kWh per year.

Is someone a keen gardener?

We’ve already used over 5000 since January. I’m struggling to understand it.

yesterday for example I was the only person home.

I had my laptop plugged for two hours
phone on charge for a couple of hours
1 x new fridge freezer
1x small chest freezer
1x wine fridge
1x Wi-Fi router
3 x Wi-Fi boosters
2 x tv on standby and then in use for about three hours in the evening
1x skybox on standby
1x pond pump
1 x dishwasher cycle (new appliance)
microwave (convection) used for about five minutes
hoover for about 30 minutes
coupke of extension cables which have those annoying lights on them so are obviously pulling some electricity constantly.

Thats it. £6.42 apparently which seems like a lot.

Are you heating with electricity or do you have gas, oil or something else on top?

What's your unit rate and standing charge and do you have debt/credit on the account.

YY to checking if MIL has an electric heater in her room. These can be very expensive to run.

How old is MIL and does she contribute financially? Even if she's on a low wage or basic pension, she'll get winter fuel allowance if she's above pension age so she needs to contribute to the running costs of the household especially if she's at home with the heating on a lot.

I don't think it's massively out of step for five people in a house with tumble dryers and where people are showering every day etc. You could cut it back by not using the tumble dryer and limiting showers to a certain time. But it's not unrealistic usage.

Yes - sorry I didn't mean to cause confusion.

I should have written it differently.

Sorry - I didn't mean to cause confusion - that is what I meant.

Also, we have double/triple of things because my mother-in-law came to live with us so she has her own set of things - tv, own freezer, and dryer (though not used often). It's not totally a granny annex set up (theres not external building), but she uses our conservatory as her own living room.

In regards to the other tv's - we have a kids room, and theres a tv in our dining room/parents room. And all the freezer are only small under the counter ones - but one is a chest freezer - which is a bit old.

The dryers are both A+++ heat pump condensers (so they are meant to be 'cheaper to run) but aren't used much either & haven't been used at all due to the weather...but they are still plugged in so I guess they could be drawing electric passively.

Why would them being a keen Gardener be a factor?

My wife and mother-in-law actually are.

Growing (well farming) particular plants can use a lot of electricity.

Keen gardener = implication that someone is growing drugs with all the associated strong lighting it requires. Not entirely serious, but it is known that such people sometimes tap into their neighbour's supply to avoid having to pay for their own electricity.

Most things don't draw electricity passively, that's a red herring.

MIL isn't heating the conservatory is she? Electric heating is very expensive.

The other big cost could be electric showers. You can fairly conservatively estimate that if everyone in the house has a daily 10 minute electric shower, it can cost around £70 pm just on showering.

Also be aware that fixes currently on offer are far above the current price cap and that companies are setting direct debits high 'to prepare for winter' but that doesn't get away from the fact that your electricity use is very high, but you don't seem to have said whether this covers your heating, which could explain it, or if you have gas (or oil) heating on top.

We probably use about 9000kwh per year, as average 25 per day, but with solar panels this is reduced by half. 4300kwh billed last year.

I have a big family with 2 full size freezers, and 3 fridges myself (only 1 full size), but they are all efficient.

If you don't have a smart meter (I don't), you can get a plug adapter that plugs into the socket to test how much electricity an item draws. I'd certainly want to test the freezers first.

Heat pump dryers are efficient and cheap to run, so I'd look elsewhere for the cause.

Things that produce heating or cooling will be the likely culprit. How is the conservatory/living room heated? If electric this will likely be very expensive. Electric underfloor heating anywhere? Electrically heated water - showers/ immersion?