Using too many units of electric. What on earth is the cause of this?

[user1488481370]

We’re in a small two bed house with four kids. We’re not often in the house during the day as my partner works outside and three of my four children are at school or nursery. We have a heat pump tumble dryer which is on occasionally we bought the heat pump version because we thought it will be more economical.

We only turn the immersion heater on as needed (We use electric to heat our water as opposed to gas) and are very limited in the way of electricals we only have one telly in the whole house and all of our main appliances are at least A rated.

We recently had our metres read and it turns out that we’ve been undercharged and have since received a bill for over £2000 which is extortionate. They reckon that we are using almost 30 units a day we were also out of contract which wont have helped. I will also add that that amount isn’t just for our house but for next door which is empty and a couple of sheds which are to do with my partners business put those bills are very small in comparison to the house bills. Any ideas what I can do to try and find out what is causing this because there’s no way that we are using more than a five or six bed house would use I don’t think it’s possible.

It’s the immersion heater for the hot water that’s the issue. Heating hot water for baths and showers is expensive. You have six in the house. Even if that’s only three or four baths or showers a day it’ll run up those bills. Try moving to an off-peak tariff and heat the water tank at night or get a heating/ plumbing specialist out to suggest a better way of doing things.

heat the cylinder with the boiler.

It will cost about a quarter what electricity does..

Just read that you’ve got a gas boiler that could be used to heat your hot water. Use it!

p.s.

I gather the boiler is outside.

For that, you need the thicker lagging "Bylaws grade"

Any that is exposed to the weather, you can get a suntetic rubber (black) variety such as Armaflex at higher cost. Plumbers merchants will have it.

@PigletJohn

p.s.

I gather the boiler is outside.

For that, you need the thicker lagging "Bylaws grade"

Any that is exposed to the weather, you can get a suntetic rubber (black) variety such as Armaflex at higher cost. Plumbers merchants will have it.

Thank you - yes we did use proper stuff for this! It is clearly going to need checking regularly though as honestly nothing stays as it should in this house, or outside of it.

I am sure there was a pertinent reason for heating with the electric (distance from boiler to bathroom maybe?) but it sounds like I need to be even more sure! It would be great know we’re doing every we can to knock our usage down…

Sorry OP for going off your topic; hope you mage to get to the bottom of it all as well!

Have you go anywhere with working out how your usage is so high?

I will also add that that amount isn’t just for our house but for next door which is empty and a couple of sheds which are to do with my partners business put those bills are very small in comparison to the house bills.

Are you saying one meter covers two houses? That's extremely weird.

Anyway, unless your gas boiler is total junk or doesn't exist, heating your water with gas will be way cheaper than using electricity.

In any case, you can dispute the bill. Energy companies are prohibited from back-billing for energy you used more than 12 months ago, provided you have not been obstructive or unreasonable. So if it has been more than 12 months since the last actual reading, and they haven't clearly asked for a reading or sent a meter round, they will have to write off some of it. (Which will I assume involve making a new estimate for the use 12 months ago.)

Immersion heater, watch the meter units escalate.

I had a huge 16 year old fridge freezer. I had noticed but really taken much notice of the fact that it was burbling and rumbling away noisily quite often - I checked the usage by turning things off in the house and only having one thing on and found that it was actually using quite a lot of juice - I am fairly certain this was due to the refrigerant having largely leaked out over the years - the compressor was often running - it's job is to turn the vapour back into a liquid - the liquid evaporating in the system is what causes the cooling effect - with little refrigerant in the system the compressor would have to keep liquefying the tiny amount of refrigerant to try and keep the contents of the fridge cool - frankly - the fridge wasn't really doing a good job of keeping things cool. If you have a smart meter that can tell you what the current usage is in watts I would have a close look at what the fridge and/or freezer uses when the compressor is working - I reckon half my bill was down to the fridge. I bough the cheapest Bosch one that John Lewis sells - I reckon it will pay for itself in under 3 years.

Alternatively - a neighbour may have tapped in to your electric - have you checked the wiring in the loft for anything suspicious?

Also I would check that they aren't charging you for usage past the last 12 months- they are not allowed to take money prior to 12 months before so clarify that before you pay!