# Unusually High Electricity Bills



## cavanman2015 (3 Oct 2018)

I moved into a newly built house about 1 year ago (4 bed semi) that is A rated. I am having what I consider to be unusually high electricity consumption (averaging about 1000KWh every 2 months). I live in the house on my own, no kids, rarely use the electric cooker (gas hob), gas heating, use the dryer about 3 times a week, use the dishwasher 3 times a week. All appliances are A rated. House has MVHR which uses 24 fan and the water system is pressurised. Never use electric immersion. Even energias website shows my usage is in some months much higher than other average users. Any ideas? Is it possible my MPRN relates to another property? Not running a spamspamspam grow house!! Phoned energy and got some vague answer that esb networks can check my MPRN matches the correct house but that this costs almost 200 euro..


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## RichInSpirit (3 Oct 2018)

Semi detatched? Maybe some of your electricity is going to the other house in the semi. Either through a mistake in the wiring or an intentional stray wire. They might have a grow house next door.


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## Blackrock1 (3 Oct 2018)

What is your average electricity bill working out per month over a year


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## RETIRED2017 (3 Oct 2018)

You should be logging meter readings also  checking by eye how fast meter is running on low loads , checking meter reading before you go out and when you come back into house ,
are you in urban or rural area,some charge  extra for posting out bill,


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## cavanman2015 (3 Oct 2018)

thanks for responses yes I'm now looking at it regularly and its about 500KWh per month over the last year higher in winter.  My bill is about 160 per two months (can be a bit higher or lower) I'm on about the lowest rate with energia


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## Andrew Murphy (3 Oct 2018)

Verify your Energia bills are not based on estimated readings. If they have been take a current meter reading and deduct 16kWh for each day since the last reading (this is the approximate daily average based on 6000kWh/year), and compare that to the reading on your latest bill. It should be immediately apparent if your consumption has been overestimated, in which case your will need to advise Energia (or [broken link removed]) of the correct reading, and depending on the amount involved ask for a refund or run down the credit over time.


cavanman2015 said:


> Is it possible my MPRN relates to another property?



If your Energia bills are based on actual readings and there is a big mismatch between your last billed reading and your current (adjusted) meter reading then this could indicate you are being billed for the wrong meter and MPRN and may need to investigate this further.

If everything stacks up with your readings then you will need to determine/identify which electrical items are consuming most of the 6000kWh/year and take steps to reduce your consumption in order to reduce your energy spend.


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## Blackrock1 (4 Oct 2018)

80 a month doesn’t seem extreme but I suppose it depends on what the gas bills are like


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## Laramie (4 Oct 2018)

I come in at about €80 summertime and €120 wintertime every two months. 5 bed house.  Heating and cooking on gas.


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## odyssey06 (4 Oct 2018)

Laramie said:


> I come in at about €80 summertime and €120 wintertime every two months. 5 bed house.  Heating and cooking on gas.



How much of your bill is fixed standing charges etc? You're probably being hit for €40 per bill just on standing charges.

If you aren't using the electricity for heating the house, or heating water, it seems hard to account for a 50% increase between summer and winter. You'd have to be using floodlight bulbs or something!


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## Monbretia (4 Oct 2018)

I also have/had high electricity bills, averaging like that around €160 every two months.  Now the house is reasonable size bungalow but I have no dryer, dishwasher,  no electric kettle (which I thinks eats electricity if you are one of these who flicks on a full kettle a dozen times constantly forgetting to make the one cup of tea. long story!), cook on gas hob and would be very careful turning off lights etc.

I spoke to electricity provider who confirmed my bills were higher than average for house occupancy size and was advised to do the turn off every single thing test and back on one at a time to see what was using the electricity.

I did it and the only major user as you would expect were heat producing such as the immersion, now I wouldn't be using it excessively as I have electric shower and gas heating so hot water in tank for shower a lot of the time so mainly for washing up.  I also have a radon fan which goes 24/7 which I am convinced uses up more than they say it does but it was the only thing I could not switch off while doing my check and the dial did not move quickly but it is on 24/7.    My outside sensor lights seemed to be heavy enough too and come on a lot especially on a windy night so they are actually turned off at the moment until I get them adjusted and better bulbs as they would be fairly old.

The sensor lights off and cutting down as much as possible on the immersion use has seen my bill drop about €20 a month which is not bad, I'd be happy enough with it at that but it makes me wonder what on earth would my bill be if I had all the other things like a dryer etc that most houses have


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## cavanman2015 (4 Oct 2018)

Thanks for all the replies. I have physically looked at the electricity consumption over one year in kwh and its about 6000 kwh a year versus average of 4200 kwh per year for average 4 bed irish semi. Its not estimated. Have pressurised water system, rainwater recovery system for loos, heat recovery system so 24 hour fan. In the house most of the time on my own. Dishwasher / washing machine/ dryer at most 3 times weekly all A rated, gas hob, gas heating & water, no elec shower or immersion, elec cooker rarely used. I do have energy efficient spot lights in kitchen on at times in daylight hours as kitchen is dark.Wonder if it is a wrong meter or else some kind of "power drain" within house or consumption is real due to various A rated house ancillary systems?


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## RedOnion (4 Oct 2018)

cavanman2015 said:


> House has MVHR


Do you have the details of this system? It could be adding 10+ a month to your bills.


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## jpd (4 Oct 2018)

Google "power consumption" and you will find energy consumption calculators or use an Excel sheet to calculate your usage.

Power consumption meters can be had for € 25 - € 40 which will measure how much power each appliance uses.


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## Zenith63 (4 Oct 2018)

FWIW I bought one of these a year ago - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00G5DZK8I/ref=pe_3187911_185740111_TE_item and stuck it on the incoming feed to the house (it's a very simple clasp that you just clip around the incoming ESB cable in the meter box).  I was doing it just out of interest and to see whether the likes of solar panels might make sense for me, but in your scenario it will quickly show you where your problem is I think.  You'll see live from the app your consumption, so you can go around the house unplugging devices (or flick them off from the fuseboard in the case of your MVHR) and within a few seconds see how much your power consumption drops by - this will catch the issue if it is something running constantly in the background.  If it's something that is happening periodically but drawing lots of power, you'll see that as a spike on the historical graphs and can try to see what happens at that time of day.  You can also move the clamp around to a certain device to see its consumption specifically, so if you suspect the MVHR you stick the clamp on the wire feeding it for a few days.

FWIW here is the consumption on my house so you can compare to yours.  This is 4 bed detached, two people (both working from home at least half the week), no electric showers, C-rated, heating/hob on gas, no immersion usage, LED lights throughout, two electric cars charging form May onwards.  Based on this your consumption does look high.






PS. can you see the fan in your MVHR to read the wattage rating off it?


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## Palerider (4 Oct 2018)

I dont't think your bill is not that excessive but there is room for trimming for sure , the standing charges, levies and vat amount for a chunk of this, do check out your hidden items, for example outdoor halogen security lights, you'd be surprised what a electric power shower consumes.


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## Leo (4 Oct 2018)

Given that we have the average usage of 500kWh per month, we can focus on what might be using this electricity rather than the resulting cost. So we can ignore standing charges etc..

Forget about the energy rating of the house, that is a (very rough) measure of the heat energy required. As you have gas heating, this has no relevance. 

You're using just over 16 units (kWh) per day. If you can't get access to an energy meter, or get a plug-in variety to measure individual appliances, you should still be able to work out a rough idea of what is consuming this power. An appliance drawing 1000W for a period of 1 hour uses a single unit, so look at your lighting and work out the combined wattage for each room, and estimate how long they are on for on average each day. Follow the same approach with your other appliances.


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