SMART meter installation - now very high energy bills

Our SMART meter was installed in April 2023. The meter was broken with no numbers on it from January 2024 and despite the meter reader letting ESB Networks know they didn't send out someone to fix the meter until I rang really annoyed and asked to make a complaint in May - they said someone would get back to me within five days of making a complaint, but no one ever contacted me.

They said that we now need a new box for the meter as rain is getting into the old box, and they have to have their engineer on site with my electrician - which is going to be a little difficult. However, the meter seems to be working now, but our bills are huge. There are only two people living in a four bed house, with gas heating which heats the water, yet SSE Airtricity are charging me 319 per month for gas and electricity.

The gas heating is only on once per day in the morning from 06.30 to 07.30 for the water - rads are off. Their estimates are correct from looking at the gas meter. However, they estimate 70kw this month for usage but we seemed to have used 160kw in a month of electricity. One person in the house is working at home, the other is out working all day. The house is C! rating, timber framed and terraced.

Last year the electricity and gas plan was only 216 per month. I know there are gadgets which measure energy usage from different appliances in the house - how can I get hold of one of these/what are they called?

Does anyone else have any other suggestions.

Electricity and Gas is still very expensive, you could easily use 319 per month with two people.

Are you on some sort of plan that is averaged out over the year so you are paying a set amount roughly per month?

Can you go back on old bills and see roughly what is your kw usage to compare, I'd consider 319 per month a bit on the expensive side, that would be over 600 on a two monthly bill, you'd want to be using a lot of juice for that sort of bill!

Now my gas is separate so can't compare that but my last electricity bill was around 450 units for 66 days usage so don't know what the 70/160kw amounts relate too. I average around 7 units per day, now that is for just one person in fairness but I bake a good bit so oven used more than normal I would say. I have made huge efforts to bring this down, all led lights, got rid of old appliances which were heavy on electricity etc.

You can get plug in things that you plug the appliance into to record how much power it is using over a set time but I'd say have a look at previous bills first if you can to try and see what pattern of usage is normal for you.

How did they bill you for the period when the meter was not recording any numbers?

Mothergoose said:

The gas heating is only on once per day in the morning from 06.30 to 07.30 for the water - rads are off. Their estimates are correct from looking at the gas meter. However, they estimate 70kw this month for usage but we seemed to have used 160kw in a month of electricity. One person in the house is working at home, the other is out working all day. The house is C! rating, timber framed and terraced.

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Take cost out of it first, look at usage and see if they seem sensible - my assumption is the 70/160 refer to estimates/actual usage for electricity. 70kwhr is 840 a year - their estimate appeared particularly low (I'll take winter in to account in a min). 160 is 1920 a year.

Winter: This link suggests a 36% higher rate for winter. https://www.*****************.com/m... that electricity,than this for average usage.

So taking a worst case scenario, I'm going to take 1.36*1920 = 2611 (ie increase you're higher amount by 36% for whole year) units per annum for electricity. This is well within norms. The average home in Ireland apparently uses 4200KwHr, there are lots of references to this on Irish sites. Personally we used about 1000-1200KwHr electricity a year where we had gas heating/cooking and both of us out of the house nearly all day - its gone up with someone at home (but I've a heat pump now so can't give direct comparison). You're annual usage is probably less than the 2600, I've added on a winter multiplier for the whole year.

Do a similar exercise looking at your Gas usage - This will vary much more between winter and summer.
NB: for gas the units have a conversion factor to convert the units to KwHr.

The energy rating of the house will not impact on the Electricity use, or at least very little (light bulbs), it will/may change how much you've the gas on for colder months.

Assuming your usage looks sensible (which it does), then its what you're being charged - looking at the different plans / different suppliers. figuring out if you've got good standing costs / per unit charges. Confirm as suggested that some of the payment isn't average costs - this would make summer more expensive and winter cheaper. Or when the put the new unit in, the previous one may not have been read in a while, which can mean the first bill after putting in smart meter adjusts for this and may be higher.

there's been a few threads about this and the explanation seems to be that the old analogue meters run slow over time, so under-report your usage. My usage also seemed to go up when they swapped the meter, so I put a wireless energy monitor in my meter box and it was reporting roughly the same usage as the smart meter.

shweeney said:

there's been a few threads about this and the explanation seems to be that the old analogue meters run slow over time, so under-report your usage.

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I've read reports on that where the old analogue meters were tested. 5% were found to have inaccuracies, but only in the region of 1-2%.

I don't have gas so will just concentrate on lecky bills. My summer usage (one person with heating off) is 5 to 6 units a day. This includes Immersion for hot water heated every second day at night. When I WFH during covid it was up to 7 or 8 sometimes. I'm guessing a house with 2 occupants should be minimum 10 per day or 300 per month or 600 per billing period (every 2 months). Form your posting it appears you're paying a level amount per month so no shocks when you boost the heat or go mad cooking. You need to go back over your bills. They are available online once you register with SSE.
Some tips to try and improve
1) Check is your fridge fairly new and is not guzzling as it's 24hr
2) Don't leave computer on when not working, hibernate is your friend.
3) Only heat water to the amount you use