Any device to measure household leccy consumption

willhub

willhub

willhub

Caporegime
Joined
3 Jan 2006
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Location
Chadderton, Oldham
As above, obvious answer is a smart meter however we can't get them in the flats we live so wondering if there is a device that can measure?

We've had ongoing energy issues with out one bed flat using 135 worth electric a month, heating or lighting isn't on all the time either. We had a check meter installed on our meter and the readings were accurate.

It's quite stressful especially when you get people in 3 bed houses paying half this!

Any ideas??
 
I guess by mentioning that heating isn't on all the time, that implies you've got electric heating?
It's probably quite easy to rack up £135 per month at this time of year with electric heating.
We're in a 1 bedroom bungalow with electric heating using £80-90 per month and I like the house cool. We're both out working all day. The heater in the living room is probably on about 2 hours a day and the heater in the bedroom hasn't been turned on once all winter.
 
Smart meter. It shows usage per day/week/month etc, but also your current usage. So baseline usage could be something like 200 watts, then when you put your kettle on, it goes up to 3 kw for a few minutes.
 
willhub said:
As above, obvious answer is a smart meter however we can't get them in the flats we live so wondering if there is a device that can measure?

We've had ongoing energy issues with out one bed flat using 135 worth electric a month, heating or lighting isn't on all the time either. We had a check meter installed on our meter and the readings were accurate.

It's quite stressful especially when you get people in 3 bed houses paying half this!

Any ideas??
Click to expand...

Feel your pain, one thing I have observed is whenever I had read online about people about having high meter readings, the common factor is always that they in a some type of multiple occupancy property, this cant be just coincidence.

135 a month deffo seems way too high.

Here is my theories as to why these issues may be prevalent in "some" properties.

1 - Think that PC psu's are not 100% efficient right so the power taken at the wall is more than the hardware demands as some is wasted, its logical to conclude that power delivery components in a building also arent 100% efficient and also waste power, it wouldnt surprise me if there is variance in the level of efficency from property to property, depending on when it was wired up, corners been cut etc.
2 - Tapping by neighbouring flats.
3 - Errors made when flats wired up, so different power points end up been routed to wrong meter. I have seen tests done when someone hit the off switch on their meter, and half the lights went out in the neighbouring flat as well as their own.
4 - Communal area been wired to flat meter.

There was issues found when I pushed the issue with my own meter, and my landlord to fix it needs to rewire the entire building which is obviously a major task, so he agreed to actually pay part of the usage as a separate bill every month to my supplier, I dont know how long he will tolerate this for tho, but it was a lot of hassle for me to even get this far. My bill was overly high like yours.
 
willhub said:
As above, obvious answer is a smart meter however we can't get them in the flats we live so wondering if there is a device that can measure?
Click to expand...

Pawnless Endgame said:
Smart meter. It shows usage per day/week/month etc, but also your current usage. So baseline usage could be something like 200 watts, then when you put your kettle on, it goes up to 3 kw for a few minutes.
Click to expand...

Always nice when someone reads the OP before replying.
 
willhub said:
As above, obvious answer is a smart meter however we can't get them in the flats we live so wondering if there is a device that can measure?

We've had ongoing energy issues with out one bed flat using 135 worth electric a month, heating or lighting isn't on all the time either. We had a check meter installed on our meter and the readings were accurate.

It's quite stressful especially when you get people in 3 bed houses paying half this!

Any ideas??
Click to expand...

I had a customer a while back, none of the hallway lights in the block worked, turns out tenant in flat 1 moved out and had pay as you go meter. Emergency credit ran out just so happened that flat was doing the lighting.
 
Smart meter would be no good for this situation in my opinion, if its cross wiring issue , tapping etc. then it wouldnt be picked up on as it measures at the meter point not inside the flat.

Ideally you measure the usage of individual wires in the property, then compare that to the main feed, and if its largely different you would see there is a problem to be fixed. Problem is what I found is the power companies have no such testing method to do this. Their policy is to test if the meter itself is faulty, if it is they fix it and compensate you for previous bills, if it isnt, you have to pay for the test.

Getting wiring all checked out in a building of flats is perhaps what really needs to be, obviously far easier said then done.
 
What sort of heating do you have?
Do you have economy 7 and storage heaters?

Electric heating is very expensive so could well be the problem.

If I exclude any electric heating my normal usage is 5-9 units a day. The upper end is when I do washing/tumble dryer. So approx 175 kWh a month or @ 0.153405p = £26.85 + Standing charge so £33.17 for electric.

But I have GCH and a gas oven. My gas usage in the last 30 days is 1421 kWh. Now this is a 1930s 3 bed semi so a 1 bed flat probably would be half that usage.
Electric heating is a tiny bit more efficient, but costs x4 to x4.5 per kWh. So even 750 kWh would cost £112 in electric.

As already suggested turn everything off and see if you are using anything.

Then just turn things on that you are actively using and check your meter every hour.
 
willhub said:
We had a check meter installed on our meter and the readings were accurate.
Click to expand...

Why do you want to buy another meter? You already have a meter, and it's been confirmed functional.

Do you have led lighting in place?
What type of heating do you use?
What type of cooker do you use?
What kind of hot water system is it?
What type of shower do you have?
What type of glazing/doors do you have?
Is the building drafty?

The above are the usual suspects.
 
So I live on 2nd floor with car park below.
We have an immersion heater I think? Boiler you switch on, I generally switch this on one night, then on morning turn it off totally and the hot water lasts a couple of days. Sometimes if GF wants a bath she switched it on but also switched the boost on, not sure how much extra that uses?

We have leccy cooker

The heater we use is a portal oil leccy oil heater, usually on half so that's 1000W but only heat the room we're in if needed and to be fair the last month we haven't used it half as much!

Shower just connects to the bath and uses that tank no power shower.

Mainly for lighting have 2 Yeelight in living room which are in standby for remote control. 1 yeelight in bedroom.

Ceiling lights are standard halogen but we don't use them much.

The electric cupboard is about a hundred meters down the corridor and up on a different floor, if I get a loop energy saver will it work or would I have to configure it to connect to my phone hotstop so I can get readings near the cupboard?
 
The water heater sounds like the main culprit, your heating is not very efficient and you should change the halogens as not only do they use more electricity, they run far too hot.

I think you'd be wasting your money with smart meters as they can only provide the same information in a fancier way.
 
Personally I would be looking at installing some sort of smart heating control, so you're not leaving the boiler on all night just to get hot water in the morning. If it's lasting a few days this would suggest to me that it's being heated to an extremely high temperature, way beyond what's required.
 
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