excessive electricity usage

[Jackie]

Hi I have a friend who seems to be using too much electricity. He lives in a

3 bed semi with gas central heating (radiators) and uses between 20 to 25 units of electricity a day. I live in a similar house and use 10 units of electricity a day.

He never used to pay attention to how much electricity he was using until his direct debits were not enough to pay the bill. He has phoned up his supplier EDF energy and they say he must be using all this electricity. He has been checking his meter every day and is even using

8 units during the night when nothing is switched on except clocks and a 15watt low energy lamp. He has used 248kw in the last 9 days.

How can he get them to come and check whether his meter is faulty? He lives in Scotland and used to be supplied by Hydro Electric or whatever they call themselves now. Any suggestions Jackie

[Bill]

In message , Jackie writes

Has he tried switching off every appliance he has, at the appliance not the consumer unit, and then checking to see if the meter is still clocking up consumption? It is not unheard of for people to leave things such as heaters in conservatories or attics on and forget about them?

[The Natural Philosopher]

start flicking off each circuit till the wheel on the meter stops turning so durned fast.

[Codswallop]

Sounds like the meter is faulty, it wouldn't be the first one. He could do a simple meter test, switch all lights and all electrical appliances off so that absolutely nothing is using any electricity and the meter doesn't show any use, take a meter reading, switch one light on light for a fixed time, then take a meter reading. As a rough guide, a 100W light bulb left on for

10 hours will use 1 unit, a 60W light bulb left on for 16 hours will use 1 unit, and a 40W light bulb left on for 25 hours will use 1 unit. So, leave a 60W light bulb on for 8 hours and it will use half a unit. Obviously, if after turning everything off the meter is showing power being used then either the meter is faulty and it isn't worth testing it as described, or a neighbour is stealing your friend's electricity; in which case either the meter needs to be replaced or the police need to be called.

[Dave Fawthrop]

|In message , Jackie | writes |>Hi I have a friend who seems to be using too much electricity. He lives in a |>3 bed semi with gas central heating (radiators) and uses between 20 to 25 |>units of electricity a day. I live in a similar house and use 10 units of |>electricity a day. |>

|>He never used to pay attention to how much electricity he was using until |>his direct debits were not enough to pay the bill. |>He has phoned up his supplier EDF energy and they say he must be using all |>this electricity. He has been checking his meter every day and is even using |>8 units during the night when nothing is switched on except clocks and a |>15watt low energy lamp. He has used 248kw in the last 9 days. |>

|>How can he get them to come and check whether his meter is faulty? He lives |>in Scotland and used to be supplied by Hydro Electric or whatever they call |>themselves now. |>Any suggestions Jackie |>

|>

| |Has he tried switching off every appliance he has, at the appliance not |the consumer unit, and then checking to see if the meter is still |clocking up consumption? It is not unheard of for people to leave things |such as heaters in conservatories or attics on and forget about them?

Also removing all fuses or tripping all the breakers to make sure that

*everything* is off.

[Matty F]

How is his hot water heated? Is that by gas too or is there an electric hot water heater somewhere?

[Guy King]

The message from Bill contains these words:

And if that doesn't work, switch off all the breakers one by one till you find where it's going. If /that/ doesn't work then someone's stealing it.

[mrcheerful]

towel rail element or immersion heater

[The Wanderer]

Step one, turn off the main switch on his consumer unit and make sure the meter stops. If it doesn't the either the meter's faulty or he needs to get an electrician in like quickly coz there's something amiss with the installation. I'm not suggesting for one moment it's actually the case here, but it's not unknown for a dishonest neighbour to mess around with the installation and steal electricity through another meter. I've known of two or three instances.......

Step two, turn of the CU, remove all circuit fuses except one, switch back on, and check the meter. Replace each fuse one by one, turning the CU off and back on as each fuse is replaced until he finds the one which causes the meter to speed up.

Step three, check out that circuit, see what he's left on somewhere and forgotten all about, that's what usually causes the problem.

[Peter Parry]

Immersion heater left on?

[nightjar]

When I was with the Electricity Board, theft was the first thing we checked if the consumption was abnormally high. It was a lot more probable than the meter going wrong. It usually involved some very dangerous practices, like nails driven into the meter tails to create terminals and, if the thief had not been cut off (the most common reason for theft), it could introduce two different phases into the thief's house.

Colin Bignell

[Peter Andrews]

When my consumption shot up I, eventually, discovered that the chest freezer control knob was broken and that the freezer compressor was running nearly all the time!

Peter

[The Wanderer]

Southern? The name has always seemed familiar!

[Brian Sharrock]

Does your friend (?) have no modern appliances in his 'North Britian' wee-croft? No freezer, no fridge no dryer, no dish washer, no washing machine? Just a wee 15W lamp to huddle around ... no electric pumps to circulate his gas-heated water through his radiators? Sounds like ' t'was the night before Christmas and all through the hoos ....' without modern comforts. How much electricity does his 'gas-fired' heater consume? depending on when a 'night' starts and stops he(?) seems to using roughly a unit (KwH) per hour .... now lessee, Sky+ box ..., fridge ...., freezer .... central heating gubbins .... soon adds up/

[Then theres' the hydroponics and day-light lamps in the loft ... :) ]

Follow the advice to isolate items and verify their consumption ... :)

[Dave Liquorice]

That covers the range we use. Leck trickery used for cooking, lighting, (3 x 58W florries and 6 x 9W CFLs on most of the day), computers (3), fridge/freezer (1), fridge (1). Also a 3 bed house.

The quoted lighting accounts for about 3 units/day. Computers the best part of 5 units/day.

The small loads on for a long time catch people out when it comes to power consumption. Just timed our 3kW kettle, full, 8 cup (1.5l?) and heating from cold, 3'40" or 0.18kWHr or the same as a single 60W bulb for

3hrs.

They should come and test but do the basic tests already mentioned. It might not be practical with just a lone 100W light bulb due to the time but if you have a heater (room, immersion) that will speed things up.

[Ron]

Hi my friend did some testing this morning. Everything was switched off except for a light. He used a power usage monitor which recorded the power consumed as 120 watts. At the same time I watched the meter dial going round and it took 1 min and 16 seconds. The meter states that 200 revolution is

1KW. I worked that out as 1KW every 2 hours 20 mins.if the dial takes 78 secs to do 1 revolution. Could someone check my figures. Also using the power monitor his central heating pump is using 130 watts. Is this about correct for a central heating pump?

Also he has been in the house 30 years from when it was built and his meter reading is 77725 which gives an average yearly reading of 2590 assuming that the meter started off at zero. Yet in the past 205 days he has used 4150 KW. This is when he change supplier that is why he knows the reading. And there has been no drastic change in his electricity usage in that time. He is getting nowhere with EDF at the moment I told him to phone up and tell them he was changing supplier unless they came and changed his meter. Thanks Jackie

[Andy Wade]

What sort?

If the meter does 200 revs per kilowatt-hour (kWh) then 1 revolution is

5 watt-hours (energy).

A revolution in 1 min 16 s (76 s) means consumption of 5 Wh per 76/3600 hr i.e. the power being drawn is 5 * 3600 / 76 watts which is 237 watts. At that power it will take over 4 hours to clock up 1 kWh.

237 W is a lot more than 120 W, so either one of the meter or the monitor is wrong (the cheap monitors are not usually that bad on a resistive load), or something else is still switched on.

Repeat the experiment with a higher load (such as the proverbial one-bar fire) and zero load.

A touch high perhaps, but not a million miles out.

If he's had the same meter for 30 years it's well-overdue for re-certification! Now would not be a good time to change supplier as there'll be endless confusion about what the present supplier's final bill should be. Isn't there statutory right to have your meter tested? Have a look at the Energywatch site.

[Codswallop]

Ofgem has statutory responsibility for gas and electricity meter testing:

[Codswallop]

Agreed. If the meter is faulty and he is due hundreds of pounds rebate it would be best to sort it out with the current energy supplier, then change suppliers if appropriate.

[Jackie]

Everything was switched off except for a lamp with 2 X 60 watt bulbs in it hence the 120 watts. The power monitor is the same as the Maplins one it has been to a few houses checking power consumption and always seems to be accurate. Various things were measured and the electricity meter always went faster than what the power monitor showed.

Also as stated he has been in the house 30 years from when it was built and his meter reading is 77725 which gives an average yearly reading of 2590, assuming that the meter started off at zero. Yet in the past 205 days he has used 4150 KW.

Also he has no immersion, water heated by gas, no electric fire, does not even have one in the house and I searched for it :-)again heating by gas, fridge freezer that has been checked by power meter and the night he used 8 units of electricity he switched everything off including sky box, video etc, and it was not cold enough to have his GAS central heating left on all night. So where did the 8 KW of electricity come from? Conclusion electric meter must be at fault but try persuading EDF about that.

Did you know that when you switch everything off at the consumer unit it can take a few minutes for your electric meter to slow down? I did not know that but that is what my friend was told by the person he was speaking to at EDF.

SHEESH!!!!! or whatever any quick and easy way to check what user my son has left the computer in as I keep finding that sometimes when I post I am 2 different people/

Jackie