How much electric is "normal"

[Pumpkinsarenearlyhere]

New to here but really looking for advice.
We moved into new house in Jan 25. Have now found the seller hid a lot and we have had to do significant work in the house. The seller was a DIY fan and had done most of his electrics- not well and left a lot of C1 fails. We have just had the top of the house electrically rewired because of the green goo coming out of the lights.
The new house also has a SMART meter, which we didn't have before (a SMET1 if that means anything). Our electric bills/usage have quadrupled and the electric company have been worse than unhelpful.
We are now at the point of paying for a check meter (£320) or switching suppliers (but could end up with the same issue)
We are 2 people with basic appliances. Washing machine on 4 times a week (and clothes dried outside in the summer). Oven on for about 20mins at night. Kettle boiled a lot! Electric shower for 3 mins in the morning. Have taken out lighting and replaced with traditional drop pendants. No hot tub and not growing anything unusual in the loft.
Current electric use is 280KwH/£85 per month

House is a bog standard 3 bed terraced house in the SE of England.

Are we using a normal amount or does this seem high for 2 people?

Were you on an old fixed tariff before. Your old prices look very low, the electricity standing charge is more than £15 a month for a start.

We're a similar set up to you in that we cook and shower with electricity and our bills for the last few months have been £55-60 so a lot closer but still less than your current bills, but way over your 2024 ones.

On our last bill, the standing charge was £20, the total bill was £59 and we used 185 kWh. This is all just for electricity on a fix that is currently a bit less than the current price cap tariff.

@tanstaafl the readings are from the online bill. We dont/wont use the App so have been monitoring usage via our online account. Still have access to old account, although this gives monthly use/bill rather than a daily monitor as was not Smart
Can see the peaks when using things like shower. Were concerned each use is too much. We know we have to pay for what we use, but how can we tell if each use is too high? Not even sure how a check meter would do this.

We can't see using the box. The In House Display thing is broken (big black dot over the front so unreadable). Because it is connected to a SMET1 they don't replace the IHD now. We can only look online

@sixeightfive the supplier wont change the SMET1 without reason, so we are stuck with it.
The plug sounds good. Where would we get one of those? Attach it to the appliances or to the meter?

You plug it into the socket then the appliance into the Tapo plug, the app is free and you can see actual usage in time, so you can see your oven if it is a plug in. I did it when I got a new washing machine and tumble dryer just to see what they were costing us rather than guessing.

Sometimes it is a fridge freezer that is drawing more than it should. Mine are from Amazon.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-Tapo-Monitoring-Required-Tapo-P110/dp/B0B82ZQZS8

Sadly I think regional companies can dictate their price because they own the meter and they are the only ones who can change them. I am with Octopus who I think are brilliant as an energy supplier having worked in the industry both before the market opened and after it opened.

Thank you everyone for your help and advice. Much appreciated xx

It does sound like your oven, it's not an electric aga is it?. If your on-line account is like mine, after a couple of days, once it's updated you can check usage in 30 minute periods, so if you know when the oven was in use you should be able to see how much it's used, obviously don't confuse the issue by having a shower and using the tumble drier at the same time, Three bedroom house, but only me living here, no tumble drier, i usually the bathroom shower (water from the boiler) rather than the electric in the en-suite and the smaller oven (hob is gas) I normally use about 3kwh/day on average,

Placemarking. As our bill is always higher 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️and I want to compare later.

Electricity has to go somewhere.

An appliance can't use excess above normal operation unless it gets really hot.

What KievLoverTwo says is correct though, if you have a fridge that has to be on all the time because of inadequate venting, or an oven that is on all the time because of a broken thermostat then that can consume more power. For both it should be kind of obvious that it is happening though (the fridge will be noisy all the time and the over will get really hot).

A final possibility I guess is if it is leaking to earth via a faulty appliance. But this would almost certainly lead to an RCD trip for any significant current. That is if you have RCDs ....

It isn't always blindingly obvious with the F or F. They are both brand new. I got a FF thermometer and put it in there when I noticed water running down the back and then freezing. It regularly goes between 0 and 12 degrees (which is food poisoning level - 8 degrees plus). Extreme kitchen heat from S facing makes it far worse. Then in winter UFH, because I don't imagine for one second that my LL was smart enough not to put pipes under devices that need heat regulation. Frozen veg also tipped us off before I bought the thermometer. Brand new freezer kept freezer burning stuff within 2 weeks.

OP - range cookers and induction hobs are also v costly to run.

We use 2-3 kW a day. (Like OP we are a household of 2 adults, 1 works from home) That sounds incredibly high for on holiday - we use about 1 kW when on holiday. You must have a very inefficient fridge freezer?

@KievLoverTwo I don’t find my induction hob expensive to run at all. They are by far the most energy efficient type of hob. Gas hobs are only cheaper at the moment because gas is so cheap, they are actually very inefficient. Induction is the second cheapest, and the cheapest option for those that don’t have a gas connection. Ceramic and normal electric hobs are much more expensive to run.