Is my energy usage excessively low? Or meters just not working?

I'll try and keep this brief. Bought our house in Dec 2020, did some work to it and moved in June 2021. Minimal electrical usage between Dec and Jun (construction work only and even then most of it was cordless tools etc) and 0 gas usage. Since June, our electricity usage has been around 140kWh per month and gas usage has been about 138kWh*. We live in a 60's mid terrace, haven't had the heating on yet and are very fastidious with turning lights off etc. I work from home 90% of the time. It's just my wife and I and we only use one bedroom & bathroom. No electrical car etc, the thirstiest items will be my valve amps but they aren't generally run for more than an hour or two!

Our typical monthly bill since we moved in has been around £40. I had a quote from Octopus and they told me their best monthly quote would be around £150?! Something doesn't seem quite right and I am now worried my meters aren't working properly.

Not to mention British Gas are a pile of excrement and I cannot report any meter readings to them nor actually contact them in any useful form.

*I had to manually report a meter reading of approx 550kWh and then averaged the usage over 4 months.

Any words of advice?

I live in a 3 bed mid terrace house on my own
My last 12 months usage was 1300kwh for electric and 450kwh for gas
I do have a wood burner and only a shower(no bath)

That does seem low. I too have a 60s mid-terrace and my annual statement showed:

Elec.: 1,985 kWh
Gas: 9,843 kWh

That’s for a 3 bed house, two adults full time; two teenagers half the time; pretty well everyone working from home for the 12 months of that statement.

To complicate things I have a small solar plant (but it was only in place for part of that 12 month period) and a wood burner. My guess is that my elec consumption from the grid will drop to about 1,200 kWh/year once the solar has been in place for long enough to see the full effect.

I imagine if you try to contact your supplier they will want you to have a smart meter installed (I am assuming you don’t have one from what you say). This may not may not be a good thing from your perspective?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tertius

That does seem low. I too have a 60s mid-terrace and my annual statement showed:

Elec.: 1,985 kWh
Gas: 9,843 kWh

That’s for a 3 bed house, two adults full time; two teenagers half the time; pretty well everyone working from home for the 12 months of that statement.

To complicate things I have a small solar plant (but it was only in place for part of that 12 month period) and a wood burner. My guess is that my elec consumption from the grid will drop to about 1,200 kWh/year once the solar has been in place for long enough to see the full effect.

I imagine if you try to contact your supplier they will want you to have a smart meter installed (I am assuming you don’t have one from what you say). This may not may not be a good thing from your perspective?

---

My most recent statement shows an estimated annual usage of 720kWh for gas and 725kWh for electricity.

We do have smart meters but they aren't reporting the readings and i'll eat my hat if I can report them on BG's website or app, chat bot or phone line. It's a joke.

I use 1300 KWH, 3 people in house with 2 freezers running 24/7.

Solar pannels pay a chunk of it thank god

That level of usage does seem extremely low, but it’s a nice problem to have, we have the opposite!
With the increase in bills I have been paying a lot more attention to the energy we used than I used to. We pretty consistently use about 25kwh electric per day except when charging the car. For the period from last October to April we were using an average of over 40kwh per day though and 47kwh per day in April. I haven’t been able to figure out how we used quite so much yet as I didn’t notice at the time.


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stuie-t

That level of usage does seem extremely low, but it’s a nice problem to have, we have the opposite!
With the increase in bills I have been paying a lot more attention to the energy we used than I used to. We pretty consistently use about 25kwh electric per day except when charging the car. For the period from last October to April we were using an average of over 40kwh per day though and 47kwh per day in April. I haven’t been able to figure out how we used quite so much yet as I didn’t notice at the time.


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

---

47 KWH in a day seems off the charts.

My average is just over 3 and a half KWH a day with 3 people in the house, 2 old freezers that suck power 24/7 and a 55" TV, computers and 2 other TV`s.

We live in a large four bed detached, between June 20 and June 21 we used, 24,230 kwh Gas and 7,036 electricity

I bought one of these things that you plug into the socket then plug the device into that to measure the energy usage and went round the house testing all the devices. I was able to see where about 16kwh went on things that are on all day. The American style fridge freezer used the most at 2kwh per day, another 2 for the drinks fridge and the freezer. Nearly 2kw for the pond filter, 2.7kw on 3 computers with ancillaries, 1.5kw on the air purifiers and then lots of small amounts. Only about 8kw was actually on things that we consciously turn on/off like lights, tv, washing machine, cooker etc.

On the days I charge my car our usage can be over 100kwh in just 1 day, thankfully that’s only once or twice a month!


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

That usage sounds a bit low for a house but not impossible, I used about the same on average over the last year but that is living alone in a 2 bed flat and even during Covid, being out during working hours a fair proportion of the time…

Must make a big difference living in a mid-terrace compared to another house.

4/5 Bedroom house, 2 freezers, tv’s on standby and a wife who likes to use the washing machines/dishwasher every day, but off set by LED lighting - 13Kw/day.

Central heating is oil, but supplemented by a Wood burner (used Nov-Feb typically).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by stuie-t

I bought one of these things that you plug into the socket then plug the device into that to measure the energy usage and went round the house testing all the devices. I was able to see where about 16kwh went on things that are on all day. The American style fridge freezer used the most at 2kwh per day, another 2 for the drinks fridge and the freezer. Nearly 2kw for the pond filter, 2.7kw on 3 computers with ancillaries, 1.5kw on the air purifiers and then lots of small amounts. Only about 8kw was actually on things that we consciously turn on/off like lights, tv, washing machine, cooker etc.

On the days I charge my car our usage can be over 100kwh in just 1 day, thankfully that’s only once or twice a month!


Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app

---

That sounds like an extraordinary amount of electricity! My house on standby consumes about 100-150 watts, so about 3.6kWh per day. No pond or air purifiers mind you, but all the usual stuff like fridge, freezer, electronics that don’t ever fully turn off etc.

Winter and autumn Nov-March we can use as much as 1500kw per month, during spring summer it drops to around 500kw per month even with solar panels.
I’ve been in my house 2 years and have used nearly 20000kw but then again we have a 14kw electric boiler that munches through it like no tomorrow.
This year I’ve overpaid my monthly bills and have around £400 credit waiting for the colder months, I liken it to buying 2 bags of coal through the summer.

I would not worry about it - they cannot back bill more than twelve months...