Our electrics gone from 28 a week to 70.

[Fluffycloudland77]

It’s been like this for about 18 months now, any ideas?.

"Chargers plugged in but not used still use a lot of electricity. The laptop the same."

No they don't.

"A lot" is an immersion heater, a tumble drier, or a fan heater, at 3kW each.

Chargers are imperceptible unless you have an accurate device to measure them. You wouldn't be able to tell from looking at your bill or even your meter.

I don't think you are bonkers. I work in the industry and deal with this type of query all the time.

I can't see your estimated annual consumption on that bill which is what you need to look at, or previous actual reads covering a year (or as close to as possible) and divide by however many days.

Energy usage will vary based on a number of factors, and may increase if there's been any new appliances, weather etc etc.

The bill you posted is summer usage, so won't really be comparable to bills from Jan Feb March April May. Where your usage will be higher than Jun-August. Which is why I'd suggest looking at your estimated annual consumption or two sets of reads that are a year apart from 2016-2017 and 2018-2019.

Is it warm weather and the fridge and freezer are running 24/7 instead of whatever they normally run.
Are you having longer or more showers because its hot.
Something in the garage - electric mower??

Maybe it should be a midpoint? Ours was 10 units a day so 7 a week. That's with 2 children and someone at home most days. And with a husband who always had tv etc on. It's dropped to 7 ish when he left as i am in bed by 9.30-10 and don't have tv and lights on as much.

But I am now wfh 3 days a week minimum so only 1-2 days a week when no one is in. So actually if you are both out the house all day and in bed by 10pm 70 would seem very high (although the low does seem very low)

Still I posted to get advice on what could suddenly make a house consume more energy for the last 2 years despite our lifestyles not changing. Throughout though you’ve been determined to tell me that for 4 years my bills were wrong but they are magically now correct. Your wrong. I live here, it’s my house, I do the meter readings & swap suppliers when I need to and I know something’s changed.

MrsLupin Green box, top left. 1800. The others are

I posted to get advice on what could suddenly make a house consume more energy for the last 2 years despite our lifestyles not changing. Throughout though you’ve been determined to tell me that for 4 years my bills were wrong but they are magically now correct.

Well actually I just suggested it was more likely that the 28 units was wrong. You haven't been open to the possibility. You were looking to see what caused the problem. The bills being too low previously could have caused the problem.

The 55 units you now say you use is not high. That is all.

Queen Petrol mower and thermostatic shower. The hedge trimmers are electric but dh usually manages to cut through the cable after 15 minutes so cost per use is low 😂 thank god for modern circuit breakers.

It’s more like 55 Toomany. Got my maths wrong. But still high.

I read my meters at the end of each calendar month, and divide the monthly usage by number of days since last reading, to find average daily use (this avoids being alarmed by an unusually high or low day).

Its about 5kWh/day summer; and 15kWh winter. Winter includes tumble drier and overnight small heater.

Others will have different figures.

Big usage will always be a heating (or cooling) appliance such as an immersion heater, fan heater, tumble drier, air conditioner.

A washing machine or dishwasher uses far less. Here in the region of 0.5 kWh per cycle. Almost entirely to heat the water. The motor is next to nothing.

Turn on a low wattage lightbulb for ten minutes. Now put your hand on it. Now do the same with a phone charger. Spot the difference. Anything that uses a lot of electricity will get really hot.

If you don't have a gas boiler, an electric shower will use in the region of 10kW, which is a lot, and adds up if if you like long showers.

Have you left your Emerson heater on by mistake?

This what’s perplexing me Piglet, I’m not using high drain appliances. I’m frugal with this stuff and it’s still going wrong. I’m the one in the family who gets asked to turn boiler water temperatures down, I’m good at this stuff. But it’s going wrong.

I can account for the drier, I thought it would cost more to run but I have a spin dryer to run it through first so it’s not on long. Plus the dryer only arrived this year.

It’s not like I’m ironing things all day long like mil. Much to my husbands disappointment.

Nope, just checked. The switch is off and I have it switched off at the circuit board too.

The only thing running now is fridge, freezer, alarm, smoke alarm, my iPad charger and the robo hoovers on charge.

The builders left the immersion on when we moved in, it was having the smart meter that alerted me to it firing up at 3kw every afternoon. This house used about a 1000kw before we moved in. I had to turn the stat on the tank down too.

Ah, you have a smart meter. So you can see your actual usage by time? Mine is currently 470Watts with several energy saving lights on, 2 x fridge freezers; cooker extractor hood, desktop computers, half a dozen chargers, burglar alarm power supply and trickle charger, and the porch and landing lights which are on all night.

When the lights and fan go out , it will be using 240W to 360W (I have a tool that records by the minute and draws graphs). looking at last night I can see it moving and holding a reading for periods of between 4 and 10 minutes, which is probably the freezers starting, stopping, or going to defrost. This is normal overnight behaviour. I can even see when the TV goes off, and the bedsight lights, though these are very small changes.

Can you get history or usage graphs off your meter? If not you will have to watch it and look at the usage and note it down. For example you might see it change by 100W or so, which might be a fridge, or by 10W, which might be a lightbulb (vastly more if you hava an array of halogen downlights) or 300W each if you have halogen floodlights outside. Halogens are very wasteful and are not energy saving.

Some people have frost-prevention heaters in the loft or shed. I have one in the garage, but it is thermostatically controlled to come on at 5C or below, and I know it is not running at the moment.

OP says the Smart meter went dumb after a utilities switch so cant get info from it

there are a couple of other instruments that will measure it. Either a Clamp meter or an Owl CM160 with USB connector. These are quite old that I use, often found on ebay. There may be better usage monitors on the market now.

Well we used 4 units in 24 hrs yesterday. We used to have one of those monitors when we lived rurally, 60units overnight to charge storage rads. Ouch.

Tuesday will be the acid test, both back to work.

at one time, electricity companies gave out free usage monitors, and there are always some of these on the second-hand market, quite cheap. They usually connect wirelessly so you can carry the display around if you want. The sensor does not have to be connected to your meter, it clips onto the cable without affecting the insulation

www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=electricity+monitor+-plug&LH_PrefLoc=1&_sop=15&LH_ItemCondition=4&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=electricity+monitor+-plug+-dongle&_sacat=0

the one I use is the Owl with USB, type CM160, which is white.

There is also a black USB Owl, which I could not get to work, possibly because its software is old and incompatible with my PC.

AFAIK the other monitors will not upload data to a PC so you can't graph and watch it or look up historical patterns.

Don't get the sort with a plug and socket, they work differently.