Hi

I recently changed electricity/gas suppliers from british gas and just got my final bill for elctricity. the last quarterly bill was £172-which seemed immense-but my latest one for less than 6 weeks was £130! Now I try quite hard to be energy efficient-at any of my previous homes electricity was never much more than £90 per quarter (and usually much less) so I am wondering if I could have a faulty meter? I know prices have gone up but by that much?

Is there any way of getting it tested? or checking to make sure none of my appliances are eating electricity?

Hope someone can help-am tearing hair out at thought of electricity bills alone of £1100 per year!

You can have your meter tested BUT if it's found to be faulty it is free of charge.....if found to be serviceable and correctly recording there is a charge of £60 (I think it's that much now.)

thanks- is there any way to tell if something is eating electricity prior to risking £60 for checking it.

In new house have intergrated fridge/freezer and tumble dryer so not sure if they dreadful. I have always had these sort of appliances- and older that the 3 years old they are here, but i just cant figure out the electric bills 3 times more than previous (and last house had electric heating and immersion heater rather than gas-still only 100 per quarter!)

You might try asking round friends / colleagues to see if any of them has an electricity usage monitor that you can borrow? You can get monitors that tell you how much you're using in total at any time, or plug-through ones which will tell you how much an individual appliance uses.

We got a wireless monitor for Christmas and it's fascinating to see what appliances are eating our money!

An easy way to check your meter is correct is to sw1itch off all your appliences. Then you should be able to see the meter wheel is completely stationary. Then plug in a 1 kW heater, you should see the wheel move round at a slow/medium rate and after 1 hour the dials should show 1 unit had been used, i.e the digit that corresponds to units would advance by one. If you don't have a 1 kW heater then a 2 kW or other apllience could be used. by obseving the numbers for varius appliences being on you can see if the meter is roughly correct. NB a 100 Watt light bulb would use 1 kW in ten hours.Most appliences have a label stating their wattage. If when you switch everthing off the meter wheel is still turning the you might have loft lights left on or a heater somewhere!

I have a similar problem along this vein...

I have some tenants in a property who end up spending over £100 per week in electricity (they only have this utility for heating also). They have done the test where they turn everything off at the mains switch (the big one which kills all the power in the property) but the meter was still clocking up usage...this meter is on a key by the way - is this significant?

I have sent a trusted electrician round who is very thorough (the tenant is not charged for this; the Landlord is by the way) but could find nothing unusual on his tests.

The tenants have had British Gas out to check the meter who have said there is nothing wrong with that!

I am tearing my hair out as they are in my office every day asking about it and I cant take it anymore!

Please HELP!

Key meters are more expensive im fairly certain of that.

Im wondering if they key meter has a service charge built in which makes the wheel move a minimum amount to cover service charge?

I would hope it was that simple...but not to the extent that its nearly £100 per week in electric...

Does anyone else have a key meter who can perhaps give me an idea of costs? The house is a 2 bed modern, mid terrace place. 2 adults and a toddler so a fairly normal set up...heating is electric throughout. There is no gas there.

Any ideas?

i know my partner used to have a key meter and it was MUCH less than i'm paying now on a regular one. but moe than I used to have to pay-I think he said about 10-15 per week-but that was with gas heating/cooking-electric heating costs a load so that may be it...

with regards to my meter-there is no spinny dially thing-just a flashing light which seems to vary in speed of flashing-so if I turn off all appliances should the light not flash at all? or just very slowly-sorry am not used to this type of meter.

quote:

Originally posted by Blondieboo:
I would hope it was that simple...but not to the extent that its nearly £100 per week in electric...

Does anyone else have a key meter who can perhaps give me an idea of costs? The house is a 2 bed modern, mid terrace place. 2 adults and a toddler so a fairly normal set up...heating is electric throughout. There is no gas there.

Any ideas?

Sounds like they're growing ganja under the stairs to me.....

Rob

£100 per week is £5,200 per year, that cannot be correct.

I just dont know what to do anymore...

I totally despair of this. The Landlord is now in my ear and I cant handle it anymore!

Do you think my tenants are telling porkies i.e. havent switched everything off at the mains.

Can't remember if I mentioned this...

When my electrician went and turned off everything at the main switch, nothing happened i.e. the meter stopped going round,

tenants are convinced that it stil does when all power is turned off.

IIRC electricity is about 13p per unit when paying on a credit meter (cheaper than a key meter). £100 per week is 769 units a week or about 110 kwh per day = 4.5 kwh per hour. If they have two or three electric heaters on all day, plus water heating and cooking this is easily achievable.

oh my god!

Blondieboo, do keep us updated about this matter. I'm interested to know whats causing that. I'm thinking of having tenants in our property and paying their utility but I'm scared now.

Thanks daveyjp. Does this explain a sudden jump in usage in Feb. 06? It all suddenly went up at this point. They had a new immersion fitted - would this have made a difference? Bearing in mind when the electrician checked it he said there was nowt there which was strange!

I have asked the tenant to take meter readings for me every 2 hours so I can see if the usage jumps, stays constant or whatever...

She is hopeless! My electrician had already asked her to do this when he first went there and she never did!

Birdybird - dont pay utilities. Its too much hassle (unless its on an annex type flat which is easy to manage via sub-metering or charging a flat rate to cover all expenses) - just contact the utility people yourself each time you change the tenant - when they enter AND when they leave - giving meter readings etc.

Boyfriend & I live in 2 bed semi detached and have gas central heating and elec oven (gas hob)and elec pay meter and we end up paying about £30 a month. My brother lives in 2 bed flat and spends about £50-£75 a month I think and that includes heating.
If thats any help!
A friend of mine recently had excessive bills (not on pay meter) and eventually supplier agreed it was faulty as if you gently tapped the machine the numbers rolled over!

we've got a key meter. 4 bed bungalow, no gas, oil heating, but I'm quite extravigant with electric, ........dry everything in tumble dryer, leave lights on, have washing machine on most days, never turn pc off.All cooking done by electric. This includes all outbuildings and stables where we leave a light on all night, security lights too, and the bill is about £25 per week.

I'm back...

Tenants have now moved out. Have done some tests myself.

Turned off all power - and guess what?! Nothing happened. Tenant 0 - Me 1.

The cleaner was in after that weekend of shutting off the power. Guess what? Not much usage. The cleaner uses high powered hoovers, steam cleaners, carpet shampooer etc etc. She also had to have the hot water switched on (boost was used to get it hot)

Reading when she started - £11.12.

Reading when she had done and when I checked the next morning - £7.89.

Would this be normal?

That sounds about right to me Blondieboo. We were on a prepayment card meter when we first moved into our house and used about £3 a day (not including heating as that is gch).

Thanks very much everyone for all your help and advice.

If anything else happens I shall let you know!