I bought a monitor to self check my electricity usage last year and have been staggered by how much we seem to go through - but put it down to being at home a lot with two small children and doing lots of washing / drying / cooking etc, but having been on holiday last week for the first time since having the monitor I am now completely at a loss as to why our bills are so high.

In the seven days we were away our unoccupied house consumed 127kWh. Before we left I made sure all TVs, computers, printers, chargers, baby monitors etc were turned off at the wall. Our gas boiler should not have required any electric for its control panel as I had set the heating and hot water so that they wouldn't come on. The only thing still on were a fridge and freezer.

Our usual usage is between 180-190kWh per week - but I am amazed that it seems that only around a third of this is something I can control. On this basis I am paying nearly £1000 a year before I even turn on a light - does anyone have any suggestions / explanation for this? I live in a nearly 100 year old detached house which had the wiring and meter completely replaced around 2 years ago.

A fridge plus a freezer should only use ~ 2-3 kwH per day unless you have a faulty thermostat in one of them - if you do then the compressors will run continuously and use a lot more power - have you checked that they are both switching correctly?

Also a fridge or freezer can use much more power if it hasn't been defrosted recently.

Was the water stone cold when you came home? If not have you got a back up immersion heater that has been left on?

However your usage still seems astronomical cf with average annual usage of ~ 65kWH per week - I live in a 5 bedroom detached house and we use a lot of gadgets ie computers,video recorders,TVs,stereo systems etc and have an electric oven and several fridges/freezers but we're only using ~130kWH per week on average this year including the cold Winter.

I presume you are quoting the usage from your monitor - does it agree with the actual meter?

Thanks for your suggestions. The monitor I have tells me how much electric is being used at any given time, and I've tried switching the fridge and freezer off completely this morning and it seems to make very little difference to the usage - so they don't seem to be the culprits.

There is an immersion back up for the boiler, but it was definitely off - we've made that mistake before!

I initially bought the monitor because I was convinced our new meter was faulty as our monthly payments went up from £40 to £160 in the space of about a year, but worryingly the monitor agrees with the meter - I just can't figure out what is using so much power.

taftan,

If you feel you have checked all possible culprits then it would be worth asking your energy supplier to come out and check the meter.

I would take meter read every day for 7 days at a similar time and call your supplier and give them this.

They can tell if your meter is running fast and do a usage check list with you.

Also the meters you are talking about to should you how much you are using, some of those need to be configured. You may want to ask your supplier about that too!