Very high energy usage - advice appreciated

[EdWard01]

Good afternoon,

Our electricity usage seems to have sky rocketed over the last 12 months and we have no idea how. We're using somewhere between 13-17kwh per day. Meter is a Landis gyr+ e470 with a SMETS1 smart meter. Smart meter is awaiting an OTT upgrade as its not currently sending readings.

We live in a mid terraced, 3 bed former council house. No pool, no hot tub, no loft plant cultivation or similar. During a chat with EON last year, they said that we are higher than their typical 'high user' in terms of kwh per day.

We did meter readings at the same time every day for a month, pretty consistent, weekends were higher because our son is home from school and I have weekends off. We turned the boiler off for 24 hours one day and usage dropped by a third. The immersion heater is not on, the boiler is now on a smart plug and is switched off around 17 hours a day via a schedule (2 hours in the morning, 5 hours after school for most of the evening). We have one fridge and one freezer in the house, both under two years old. We also have a freezer in a concrete shed which has electricity, this is also under two years old.

We do have devices like Echos and CCTV, etc. A number of things are on smart plugs to minimise obviously. We have a couple of lights that are smart bulbs but presently neither are on the Hue hub and operate as normal. One smart bulb is on for around 10 hours a day as its in the small bedroom where our parrot resides (don't ask).

Son has a PC for gaming and as far as I'm aware he's not crypto mining. He uses it for homework and gaming with friends for around 5 hours in the evening, 2 screens.

We used to live in the house next door, rented, before we bought the house we now live in. Our usage hasn't really changed aside from the PC and the outhouse with the freezer.

A weird thing happened a while ago, the other house next door had some workmen round when it was empty and when using a hammer drill, out electrics tripped out twice in a few minutes. Trip outs rarely happen if ever so either there's something connected or it's quite the coincidence. That house was empty for over 30 months until Xmas but our rampaging energy has been an issue since last September.

Tried a creep test today and switched off the RCCB for 3 hours, meter didn't change a single digit and the meter displayed a solid red light to indicate no draw or so little that it doesn't register. RCCB has been back on around half and hour and its increased by one unit.

My next step is to buy an energy monitor that will be compatible with my meter and has an in home display that will show £££ and pence. I could then spend a day watching usage in real time as I turn things off and on. Could anyone advise on an energy monitor that I can fit myself, if possible?

Also, could there be a fault with some of the electrics that is drawing electricity at such a rate? I'm getting to be at a loss as to how my usage is so high, especially with April fast approaching.

Much appreciated!

 

[ericmark]

We turned the boiler off for 24 hours one day and usage dropped by a third.

Is the boiler electric? It seems a lot if not an electric boiler, gas and oil boilers do not use much power.

My first house the gas bill jumped when next door was empty, we had never realised how much heat can travel through a solid brick wall, there is no cavity between the houses, only outside walls have a cavity. Our gas bill nearly doubled, as we would set temperature down low, and next door set hers high, so we were getting the house part heated from her.

 

[EdWard01]

Is the boiler electric? It seems a lot if not an electric boiler, gas and oil boilers do not use much power.

My first house the gas bill jumped when next door was empty, we had never realised how much heat can travel through a solid brick wall, there is no cavity between the houses, only outside walls have a cavity. Our gas bill nearly doubled, as we would set temperature down low, and next door set hers high, so we were getting the house part heated from her.

Combi boiler. Fuelled by gas and powered by electric. It's not hardwired into electric, it's on a plug so we've been able to smartplug it. Heating is rarely on tbf, I'd rather stick a jumper on

 

[Mr Chibs]

FWIW my monthly electricity usage is around 250 kWh, 3 freezers (2 old ones) and induction hob/electric oven, work part time so heating on those days I’m in.

Led/lcd screens don’t use that much... bit coin mining is not good on energy, read up on here... hope you find out.

 

[ericmark]

I have used smart plug adaptors a lot, but they do vary two of mine show usage on the PC, but most only switch on/off, can hardly call them smart, I know one of the smart adaptors will connect using IFTTT to other devices so if for example my thermostatic radiator valve reports temperature over a set point it can turn on the smart adaptor and run the air conditioning unit.

However never used it that way, as simply don't trust them. Saying hay google switch off, and instead of it switching off music it switches off lights, then when asked to switch them back on says I don't know how to do that, does not fill one with confidence, however asking it how to spell confidence works well.

But since I don't heat with electric no idea of how much used to heat.

Really my energy monitor smart switch plug in adaptor is a toy, I have rarely used it to save energy, however two items where it did show excessive usage were the sky box, seems it leaves the LNB powered so uses between 14 and 24 watts on stand-by, I thought they were limited to 1 watt, and the other was a freezer which used 67 watt and also 67 watt per hour so clearly was not switching off.

In the main to reduce power used step one is ditch all smart devices, be it a smart bulb or smart adaptor they must use some power to work, however personally I am willing to pay the extra to have smart devices, much easier for my wife to say hay google broadcast dinner is ready than for her to climb stairs and walk into room to tell me. Some times google does change the wording as says "come and get it" big brother is watching 1984 etc.

But if you have a smart device to measure the power used, why ask on here? To be frank the smart energy monitor is not as good as the non computer linked one, which also showed power factor and volts etc.

 

[JohnW2]

Our electricity usage seems to have sky rocketed over the last 12 months and we have no idea how. We're using somewhere between 13-17kwh per day.

What was your consumption previously?

My total usage is around 24 - 25 kWh per day, but about 40% of that is down to an immersion heater (on cheap E7 electricity), so around 15 kWh per day relates to 'everything else' - which is similar to your present consumption, with your immersion switched off.

Kind Regards, John

 

[EdWard01]

But if you have a smart device to measure the power used, why ask on here? To be frank the smart energy monitor is not as good as the non computer linked one, which also showed power factor and volts etc

I don't have anything that will monitor energy.

My smart plugs don't do it and would only monitor devices plugged into them, if they did. My smart meter is missing the in home display, taken by the previous owner I assume.

I was looking for advice on a monitor that sits at the meter and monitors electrics, lights, shower, everything. Energy monitoring smart plugs can't do that.

Also wanted to know if there's any potential for faulty wiring to raise the electrical usage.

 

[EdWard01]

What was your consumption previously?

My total usage is around 24 - 25 kWh per day, but about 40% of that is down to an immersion heater (on cheap E7 electricity), so around 15 kWh per day relates to 'everything else' - which is similar to your present consumption, with your immersion switched off.

Kind Regards, John

In all honesty, I never had to monitor my usage by kwh as our £££ bills were never so high.

 

[JohnW2]

In all honesty, I never had to monitor my usage by kwh as our £££ bills were never so high.

Electricity has progressively become more expensive.

Don't you have any old bills you can look at? As my own figures perhaps go some way to illustrating, I don't think that your current usage is all that far from 'average' (for a house without electric heating).

Kind Regards, John

 

[flameport]

My smart meter is missing the in home display,

Ask your supplier for a new one.

any potential for faulty wiring to raise the electrical usage.

Not without very obvious and dangerous effects - any wasted electricity due to defective wiring would end up as heat, and eventually smoke and fire.

We turned the boiler off for 24 hours one day and usage dropped by a third.

That makes no sense at all, a gas boiler uses very little electricity, and would barely be noticeable. It's just a few electronic devices, a pump and possibly a diverter valve, typically 100 watts or less when operating, pretty much nothing in standby (as no hot water demand and not heating the radiators).

 

[oldbutnotdead]

CCTV can be moderately hungry, specially if you have infrared lights on the cameras. Could be running as much as 24w for each camera- if you have 4 then there's up to 2.4kw per day (be less than that cos IR shouldn't be active in daylight but just an illustration). Not sure on the draw on Echo etc, lets say they are 5w? So another 120w per day for each of them. All the little bits and pieces add up.....
Do you have (long shot but worth a go) a 1 bar electric fire or 1kw fan heater kicking around? If yes, shut everything else off, run the 1 kw device for 6 minutes and count the flashes on the LED on the meter- if its usual 1000 flashes/kwh you should get 100 flashes. 101 would be within margin of error, 105 would warrant further investigation.

 

[JP_]

My gut feeling is that it must somehow be connected elsewhere ... how can neighbour using powertools trip your circuit?
Could they have nicked a feed into the garage where that fridge is? Some people do weird things ...

We used to live in the house next door, rented, before we bought the house we now live in.

Was this house owned by the same person? Could the boiler circuit be hijacked? Again, people do weird things! If both were rented a landlord might have done something weird on the cheap ... or just been dodgy and knew he was getting the neighbour to pay for some of his juice!

If you can, maybe turn everything off, but leave the consumer unit on, and see if it moves. If everything is off and the dial moves, it's going somewhere ...

 

[EdWard01]

Ask your supplier for a new one.


Not without very obvious and dangerous effects - any wasted electricity due to defective wiring would end up as heat, and eventually smoke and fire.


That makes no sense at all, a gas boiler uses very little electricity, and would barely be noticeable. It's just a few electronic devices, a pump and possibly a diverter valve, typically 100 watts or less when operating, pretty much nothing in standby (as no hot water demand and not heating the radiators).

New supplier, Ovo, are out of stock of in home displays. I'm happy to buy a new one for the purpose of saving money. It'll probably pay for itself in a month or two.

I've concerns over the CCTV. 4 cameras all with infrared lights running 24/7, wife is addicted to them being there (smh).

Good to know there's nothing in the wiring, had a worry about that. It's starting to look like it's our usage somehow.

Can anyone recommend a good energy monitor with in home display?

Or an energy monitor smartplug that reads the energy of anything plugged in?

 

[JP_]

I've concerns over the CCTV.

Is there an HDD box running? What sort of cameras? I have 3 cameras powered by USB cables, so unlikely drawing much juice, but I guess others might be very different.

A fridge + 2 freezers must use a fair amount. Thisismoney says "Running a fridge-freezer costs around seven per cent of your total energy bill,", so what you have must account for at least 14%, maybe more as they are separate.

 

[oldbutnotdead]

The Owl things are OK, definitely better than nothing (they're not 100% accurate, they do well on tungsten lightbulbs, ovens and immersion heaters, less well on fridge/freezer pumps and switch mode power supplies. Dunno how much they are now (bought mine about 20 years ago on a special offer from CPC)...