mega electric usage at new house... doesn't seem right.

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Hi. We've moved in to a new house pretty much exactly 30 days ago.
I had my own semi before, and girlfriend had her own mid-terrace. We're now in a detached cottagey thing in Kelsall.

At my house previously, my electric was around £35 - £40 per month and gas was the same.
At my girlfriends, it was somewhere around the same.

This new house is oil and woodburner heated.

The first month's electricity is coming in at 600kWh, which is approx £95.

There's only two of us here! The only thing that's new that we've never had before is a dishwasher. We both had washer-driers before, and my cooker/hob was all electric. I used to run some big IR heaters when spray painting at mine, and had the air compressor running sometimes, and used an electric heater in my conservatory 'office' when it was cold. We haven't done any of those things here in this new house yet.. only been here a month, still figuring out where to put things.

There are outbuildings and things here, in total there are three consumer units. One for the house as original, one for an extension to the house/kitchen, and another small one in the garage. I'm just wondering if there's something fishy going on the meter is faulty or something. Does that ever happen?

Unlike my old spinning-disk meter, where I could actually observe how much it was spinning, this one is digital. There's a '500 p/kWh' red LED on there.. Is that supposed to blink once per half-kWh used or something? It would be nice to see if switching things off makes an obvious difference.

All the showers are non-electric fed by the oil-fired boiler too, so it's not that either.
 
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Unlike my old spinning-disk meter, where I could actually observe how much it was spinning, this one is digital. There's a '500 p/kWh' red LED on there.. Is that supposed to blink once per half-kWh used or something? It would be nice to see if switching things off makes an obvious difference.
No, that would be 500 flashes per hour when using 1kW.

So 3,600 / 500 = once every 7.2 seconds.
 
Immersion heater turned on ??

Good shout, I'm not sure. There is one in the loft but I thought it wasn't used anymore. The guy said it was there if we wanted to get it kicked back in though. Hmmm.
I have one of those clamp-type multimeters. I can't remember if I can measure AC current with that by just putting the clamp around the whole twin-and-earth, or if I have to use it on the live separately.

Also, there's this house at the bottom of our 'garden' (can't really call it that.. it's an overgrown bit of land that's going to need some attention soon), and I'm wondering if we're feeding them! Unlikely no doubt but just a thought.
neighbour.jpg
 
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There's a '500 p/kWh' red LED on there.. Is that supposed to blink once per half-kWh used or something?

read it again.

It is more likely to be 500 flashes per kWh.

This one (see pic) is 1,000 flashes per kWh.

436268.jpg


it flashes fast enough that if you stand next to it and turn of the CU's, one at a time, you will easily see where the power is going. having found that, turn off the MCBs one at a time.

you can put your clamp meter on singles, such as meter tails, but it will not work on T&E. You can get an Owl or similar electricity usage monitor quite cheaply on ebay, with a remote display that will save you going to the meter.

If you think there is an immersion heater hidden in the loft, you had better go and look.

There might also be a frost protection heater in an outbuilding or loft.
 
This one definitely says p, but I will try to observe it a bit closely later tonight.
meter.jpg
 
Immersion heater turned on ??

That could also explain why the main/old bathroom shower is blistering hot, while the newer en-suite shower seems to more closely reflect the heat output that I would expect from the Heatslave oil-combi.
 
The first month's electricity is coming in at 600kWh, which is approx £95.

Firstly, just to check, you have of course compared the bill with the actual meter reading you took when you moved in, and the latest meter reading you took?

Secondly, that is less than 1kWh per hour, which is not a great deal. Do you have energy-saving and CFL lamps? Or do you have wasteful downlighters and spotlights?

If you are paying around 14p per kWh, 600kWh should cost around £84, plus your standing charge.
 
blistering hot

an immersion heater with a faulty thermostat can overheat the water. As well as wasting money, this had led to some severe accidents, I know of at least two fatal and very horrible.
 
Firstly, just to check, you have of course compared the bill with the actual meter reading you took when you moved in, and the latest meter reading you took?

Secondly, that is less than 1kWh per hour, which is not a great deal. Do you have energy-saving and CFL lamps? Or do you have wasteful downlighters and spotlights?

If you are paying around 14p per kWh, 600kWh should cost around £84, plus your standing charge.

The lighting is inefficient, and this room that I am in for ~10 hours most days is on a 100w incandescent. I am still trying to find the right thing to change it to. The ceilings are low, so am looking for a flush-ish LED that's very bright but ideally RF controlled dimmable and colour temperature controllable.. there are a few, but trying to avoid obvious tat.

The rest of the downstairs is indeed GU10 downlights. I would say 60% of them are 5 - 6w LEDs, but some are still halogen. Do you think that could make so much difference though?
 
my house has (lets say) ten LED lamps running during hours of darkness, using a total around 100w, so costing 14p per ten hours.

If I had incandescents or halogens, I might use around 700W.

Downlighters and spots are particularly inefficient at lighting a room.
 
Incandescent or halogen compared to LED is a 10x difference in energy consumption, so yes - it will make a substantial difference.

That 100W incandescent on for 10 hours a day is costing you 15p per day, or £1 per week.
A 10W LED would only cost 10p for the week, saving 90p every week, or around £45 every year.
A 10W LED GLS lamp costs less than £2, paying for itself in under a fortnight. https://www.toolstation.com/led-gls-lamp/p39839

RF controlled dimmable and colour temperature controllable
Those features are unrelated to energy saving, and the longer you wait while searching for such things, the more it will cost you in wasted electricity.
 
I have one of those clamp-type multimeters. I can't remember if I can measure AC current with that by just putting the clamp around the whole twin-and-earth, or if I have to use it on the live separately.

Just Live separately normally so one leg from the Cut out
 
... This new house is oil and woodburner heated. ... The first month's electricity is coming in at 600kWh, which is approx £95. ... There's only two of us here! The only thing that's new that we've never had before is a dishwasher. We both had washer-driers before, and my cooker/hob was all electric.
That total usage is much the same as ours. Although ours is a very large house, there are also usually only two of us - our usage is primarily down to an immersion heater, the usual appliances (WM. DW, Dryer, Microwave etc) and lighting etc. We do not cook or heat by electricity (other than microwave, and very occasional use of fan heaters if it's very cold)..

Our immersion alone uses around 200 kWh per month so, as has been said, that's one thing for you to look for. Another question is whether you are using electricity for cooking in your new house, since that could represent a substantial usage.

Kind Regards, John
 
Something interesting going on with the breaker labelled 'loft power'. 700 - 900watts if the clamp meter (and my usage of it!) is to be believed.
The only other thing I can remember seeing up there is a satellite booster or multiplexer or something. The previous owner liked his Sky TV!. That's as well as the fibreglass-wrapped square tower thing with "No hands. Do not hold on to this. Not safe. Do Not Grab. No hands!" written all over it, that I assume is an immersion heater. I was pretty sure he said it was disconnected but was still up there if we wanted to have it plumbed back in, rather than just switched off somewhere. There are many switches that we still haven't figured out yet.

I've just checked and no outdoor lights that could be powered from the loft seem to be on, but the clamp meter shows almost a doubling of amps when the loft power is turned back on.

Here's a little video of the readings on the clamp meter anyway. In the video I say that not much is on except for lighting, but that's incorrect - I've just heard the washer/drier, so that's been running all the while.
 

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