Expensive Electricity Bill

paulc · 2005-12-29T22:29:13+00:00

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this request for help, ifit isn't i'd appreciate being pointed in the right direction.I live in a 4 bed bungalow built in the 70's.The electricity bill seems extremeley high, about =A3400 per 1/4.I have had npower check the meter, they say it is fine, this was 4 or 5moths ago.Since then weve been careful to make sure that we turn off allunneccesary items when possible, but it seems that this has helped verylittle.I am running the following items :-48 inch TV, LCD type, gets used maybe 4 hours per day, on standby @other times.Sky Box.Small TV in the kitchen, gets used similar to big TV.One PC (security system), left running all day, three cctv (just themicromark type) cams running 24/7. PC has 3 monitors, but these areturned off when not in use, guess max 4 hours per day usage.Laptop also running all day.One newish fridge freezer, couple of chest freezers in the garage.Couple of printers in standby mode all day.Heating is by a combi boiler, heating is on maybe 12 hours per day atthis time of year.Kettle boiled max of 5 times a day (just with small amount of water in)There is 6 outside 500 watt lights, PIR activated, of these 4 aretrigerred maybe 6 times each per day (a guesstimate), theyre timed tooperate for just a couple of mins each.Three night storage heaters. Economy 7 is fitted.Now that ive written down everything, there does seem quite a bit. Ivetaken readings every morning this week, and overnight were using 34units (its a modern meter, blue button gives you night reading and dayone). Through the day were using 25 units, both seem excessive to me.Do others think that the readings are high or normal for this type ofusage ?.Thanks.

P

paulc 20 years ago

Just as an afterthought.

A few weeks ago the electricity kept "tripping out", i managed to isolate the fuse responsible, and eventually called the landlord, he sent someone out and managed to trace the fault to a nick in the mains wire that leads to the garage. We only noticed it as it was dark. This nick was maybe 6 inches above ground level so what he did was put insulating tape round the faulty part, he reckons its not dangerous. Any thoughts on that statement ?. It's still taped up.

During the initial search for the problem, i unplugged some items, and asked my daughter to turn the power on again, she did, and got a shock.

She insists she did not touch anything, and had just got her fingers close to the on/off switch.

We were told by the person who taped the wire later that it would have just been static on her, and she would not actually have received a shock. (He's not an electrician by the way).

Vote

D

Dave Liquorice 20 years ago

One of our meters is electronic. It has "1000imp/kWHr" next to the flashing LED. That is it flashes once for every 1/1000 of a unit consumed or 1 flash/hour at 1W, 1 flash/6mins for 10W, 1 flash/36secs for 100W 1 flash every 3.6sec for 1kW. Not much good for spotting low loads. Indeed I don't think our electronic meter can see the load imposed by the alarm or occasional use of lights as the "day rate count" doesn't increase for very long periods of time (months).

Yes but see above you may have to watch for a quite a period if the "forgien" load is low. If a whole house is taking your power then the base load, when people are in and it's dark outside is normally somewhere between 500 and 1000W so the LED should flash every 3 to 6 seconds. They could be being sneaky though and just using your power to charge their storage heaters in the wee small hours so you don't notice the strobe effect on the LED...

Whole units only, rather coarse, unless you switch off for a long time, 12 hrs or so hardly convient.

Vote

A

Andy Wade 20 years ago

It will tell you on the meter - so many flashes (or impulses) per kWh. From that it's easy to work out your consumption from the no. of flashes per minute (FPM). At low consumption it's more convenient to time the no. of seconds between flashes (seconds per flash or SPF).

E.g. mine's 1000 imp/kWh, so the consumption (in watts) is 60*FPM or

3600/SPF.

Vote

M

marb 20 years ago

If your 2kw heater is heating a whole house in the current weather then its probably on permanently - thats 48 units. I wouldnt use this heater at all during the expensive units time of day and use the calor gas instead.

Is the immersion cylinder lagged? If its not, and its on say 7 hours - thats 21 units (at worst case). Lagging this cylinder (if its not lagged), reducing the immersions thermostat temperature to 60 degrees and putting it on a timer so that its on just a couple of hours before the electricity gets into the expensive time could get the 21 down to maybe 5 off peak units.

Are you in a uninsulated drafty old house? Storage heaters are even more hopeless than usual in drafty houses.

I have a feeling that card meters charge more than other meters plus you pay up front.

You have some leverage over the landlord to get improvements or discounts as he would know he would strugle to let an unheated house this time of year. Obviously dont let him know you know this.

My last Q bill was £65 and have all the same things as you except I use gas for all heating.

Maybe you should move:(

Vote

P

paulc 20 years ago

Ive checked and mine has the same (1000imp/kWHr) as yours.

At the moment (21:30 ish) the led is flashing every 3 secs or so. Daughter is in the living room watching the TV, wife is on laptop in the kitchen, and im in my room on the pc, weve all got lights on, and i guess using your calculations were using close to 1KW.

Does this sound about right to you ?.

Vote

D

Dave Liquorice 20 years ago

About right, the CH pump could also have been running and/or compressors in any fridge/freezers.

Our disc meter is trundling round at about 10s/rev ATM. 250 revs/kWHr so 2500s/kWHr or roughly 1.5kWHr per hour. TV (150W), DVD recorder DSAT box (together say 50W), 3 PCs, 2 monitors, ISDN PABX, TAM (700VA UPS at 75% capacity approx 500W), ordinary lights (approx 300W), other things such as 3 lots of tree lights.

Vote