can you help us??

since we moved into our new house our unit usage of electric was a little high!!


So over the last 5 days we've turned underfloor heating down to next to nothing (so it doesn't turn itself on) turned off the 240w pond pump that was on 24/7.

since we did this our daily usage went from 20units in 24hrs to about 7units (Kwats)


Now, this morning I did a reading at 7am and we seem to have used 15units since 7am yesterday!!!

Now, why have we used more yesterday to today, when the 24hr period the day before we only used 8units.



do you think our meter could be faulty.. if so how do you tell and what can we do?




we have two rates, normal and the low night time rate.

what do you use on the normal rate between 7am to 7am?



Phil

 

on the off peak I do my washing, dishwashing and heat the economy 7 water for 15 minutes..

I would check your water heater (if elec) to make sure it's not running full time..

 

I second that, check the immersion on your hot water tank - could be the previous owners used to leave it on all the time to keep a supply of hot water.

There should be a switch somewhere near the hot water tank - follow the really thick cable coming from the top of the tank to find the switch. If this is on then you are constantly heating the water and immersion heaters use a lot !

 

I keep weekly readings of both gas and elec just to keep a track - we only have a single meter reading though.

Elec (approx 8k units per year)
4 bed detached with triple garage
normal week in winter uses between 170-200 units a week
normal week in summer uses between 120-140 units a week

We have 1x500W pond pump/1x300W pond pump on 24/7
Also have 4 tropical tanks with heaters/filters on 24/7
3 battery chargers on in garage 24/7
Elec heater for the cats if it is cold (that guzzles elec) !!
Wife works from home.

Recently our weekly elec was way over 200units/week - worked out that one of our outside lights was knackered and coming on on a regular basis therefore screwing the elec a bit. It has now been disconnected and the readings are back to around 175-180 a week which is where I would have expected it to be.

I would very very suprised if the meter was wrong but you never know.

 

WTF! Where do you keep your cats? If they are inside, they sure as hell dont need an additional heater!!

 

The cats live in the conservatory at night, +40deg during the day and can get blimin cold overnight i.e. down to ambient plus a few degrees. There is no heating in it and anyway the wife says so ..............

 

Fridge/freezer, perhaps? Every time you open the door it has to pump out the heat that got in. Have you put anything in that needs chilling or freezing?

Have you done a load of laundry, or run the dishwasher?

Do you have an electric shower? Or oven?

Incidentally, at 10p per kWh, it works out that every Watt that's consumed 24 hours a day costs nearly £1 over the course of a year. So that 240W pond pump will be around £200 for the year, and I'd guess that's probably one of the most energy-using appliances you'll have.

 

use about 11 Kw a day in winter and 8 in summer.

4 bed flat.
Only 2 of us though so only the fridge/freezer on during the day.

Regarding the meter. I don't know, we use the amounts above but I checked for a week and one day we used 0 units the next 20. Worked out OK but no idea why there is a 24 hour delay on a digital meter.

 

live in a big country house with electric everything, easy consume 50kw a 24 hr day in winter, nice and warm though, clothes all dry from twin tumlbe driers

 

That makes us feel a bit better.


we havea combi boiler so not using electric

rang N/power today and spoke with customer services, they put me in touch with their energy saving department and the woman says everything i have done so far is what she would tell us to do, (turn stuff off/down etc and do meter readings) so she couldn't help me.
She then put me trough to the 'Meter' department, spoke to a nice bloke there.

he said tat with the readings I gave him since Monday 7am till Friday 7am our average daily usage is only 11kw per day. which isn't excessive.
he made a valid point in that we are on economy 7, but he said unless you have an immersion heater or storage heaters E7 won't be worth it to us. as E7 power is cheaper than the day power BUT the day power is 5p a unit more expensive when you have E7.
He said to take readings for another month and try and use dishwasher / washer/dryer at night when e7 is on (12am-7am)
If our E7 usage is more than the normal day rate it's worth us having E7, but if only a few units a night are being used there's no point having E7 as we're not making the most of it.

He also said, lights, TV on stand by and general plugged in stuff hardly makes much difference o the high usage, its stuff that uses electric to produce heat that pumps the Kws up.


We'll now do weekly readings (and divide by 7) to get an average daily Kw usage and see how we go.

 

I run my 3000 gallon koi pond with 1x110w pump.

Either you have got a huge pond or you got the wrong pumps.

 

we have a Nautilus 1200 pond pump and I think thats 250w

and we're suffering from blanket weed at the mo too



todays Kw/unit usage from 7am yesterday to 7am today...... 5 units/kws, yep FIVE, so why did we use 15 the day before!!??



Phil

 

i found an easy way to save money, and be lazy, was to put all the stanby machines on a timer, so after 12pm, they switch off at the wall anyway!

same with the washing machine, timer at the socket comes on at 12pm, runs for 1 hour 10 mins and then switches back off

what lighting do you have?

the low voltage lighting i had consisted of 8 x 20 watt bulbs in the living room so they were removed and LED replacements were fitted instead (1.5watts each iirc)

 

Anyone tried any of these??

Energy Monitor comparison chart from Electricity-Monitor.com

Chip

 

since last friday o this friday at 7am, we've used 53 units/kwts in the day rate time band

 

Bigger pond and I think you have the wrong pump.
I would guess your pump is something around 6-7k litres an hour, therefore your water is circulated every 2 hours which for me and my quantity of fish is not enough.