Is my electricity being stolen?

[nabby68]

My mother in law opened a small arts and craft centre in April last year. The premises is rented and used to be a sunbed shop. There is no gas to the premises.
After a long running dispute with the elec supplier which resulted in the energy ombudsman getting involve with disputed meter reads and possibly mis selling of contract we have now come to an agreement on the amount of electricity used and owed for.

My issue now is that this usage seems too high. In the centre we have 13 x fluorescent lights which consist of 4 x 18w bulbs each. These can be on for a max of 12 hrs per day 6 days a week. We also have 3 x 2kw thermostatic wall heaters which have not been switched on since April. We have 1x 2kw water heater which is used to wash up 1 x fridge 1 x freezer and 1 x kettle.

Our usage for last month (with no heating on at all) was 685 kwh which resulted in a bill of £130 . Does this seem too high for the appliances we have.

Any help appreciated

 

[EFLImpudence]

Just to clarify - do you mean one month?

Bills are normally three months.

 

[nabby68]

We are billed monthly for our usage via a smart meter. The amount used is then taken out of our account via direct debit

 

[EFLImpudence]

Well, the lights could easily account for half that usage.

So, it may be a bit high.

Check that the meter does not register anything (does it have a flashing light?) when everything is off.

 

[nabby68]

There is a flat above the centre which has recently been vacated in the last day or so. The letting agent has agreed to go there today and put the lights on in the flat for me to then switch everything off in the centre and then see if the meter turns over any usage

 

[EFLImpudence]

Just to add:

It doesn't make any difference to your query as you have stated the actual usage (685kWh) but it works out to 19p per unit which is quite high.

Are you perhaps on an Economy 7 tariff which you no longer use?
That is cheap at night but dearer during the day.

 

[Nozzle]

It doesn't make any difference to your query as you have stated the actual usage (685kWh) but it works out to 19p per unit which is quite high..

There's likely to be a standing charge too which the OP should take into account if divi-ing up the bill per unit

Nozzle

 

[EFLImpudence]

Yes, of course.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Ignore. I'm getting muddled. Doing it the wrong way round.

 

[stem]

My nephew once rented a flat above a shop and had a similar problem. When I investigated, the flat above had once been part of the shop, but was now let out separately. To avoid having the whole building rewired, the existing sockets in the shop were fitted with blanking plates, but the wiring left in situ. then a new consumer unit and meter were installed solely for the shop feeding new sockets.

At some point, presumably whist the flat empty, one of the shop tenants had removed the blanking plates and reinstalled sockets which were now fed from the flats electricity meter. Because both consumer units were in a common passage with the separate meters they were easily accessible to isolate the circuits.

 

[nabby68]

Just to clarify
The usage for last month was 685 kWh @ 15.4p per kWh. Standing charge was 17.7p for 30 days

 

[EFLImpudence]

That doesn't quite compute. It comes to £116.34 with 5% VAT.

Is this a one off high bill which could have been over-estimated or is it about the same every month?

 

[nabby68]

Sorry. When I made the original post I was looking at the wrong total on a different bill. The kWh's and standing charge are correct

 

[JohnD]

We don't know how many hours the water heater was turned on, or how old the fridge and freezer are (old ones are wasteful)

As you have a smart meter you could spend an hour or so taking frequent timed readings, while you turn things on and off. Look at your consumer unit and identify what circuits are fed by what MCB, and turn off everything that is not essential while the premises are empty. If you turn off all your MCBs for a test, metered usage should cease. Sometimes in a conversion, downstairs lights feed a landing or some other lights, and sockets are sometimes connected to a circuit on another floor.

If you turn off the MCB and someone is using your power, ask them if they had a power cut. Do it and night and you may see their lights go out, or hear them cursing.


Look for an outdoor light or sign.

If you have fluorescent tubes, the metered usage can be greater than the rating suggests.

It is possible to track usage minute by minute, and save the file, if you have a sensor that can be connected to a PC or a memory stick.

 

[JohnW2]

Sorry. When I made the original post I was looking at the wrong total on a different bill. The kWh's and standing charge are correct

As EFLI said, the lighting could account for about half of the 685 kWh/month total. How old are the fridge and freezer? If they are fairly new they would probably only use around 60 kWh per month between them. However, if they were old, they could use 3 or 4 times more than that - which would go a long way to taking the total to 685 kWh/month.

Kind Regards, John