Electricity usage in the house has shot up. Hugely, about 5 times the normal. I’m suspecting that there’s something wrong with the meter, or there’s something in the house about ready to burst into flames.

Nothing extra is being used in the house.

Maybe the neighbour is nicking some? I jest..

Anyone else had a dodgy meter? Ours has been running seemingly fine for about 6 years until now.

It’s incredibly rare. Costs £70 odd for supplier to check (unless it is over reading, then free).

You could try an add on monitor to check real time consumption?

Try switching everything off and see what the meter is doing.
If it suits then, as above, try using a real time monitor and switch things back on a slowly.

Not left the immersion on have you?

As suggested above. Have you asked the power supplier if they’ve any suggestions?
Meter disputes linky

We don’t have an immersion heater, combi boiler for water.

We were managing on £56 a month, now it’s £250!

No changes to anything electrical in the house. Clearly something is amiss.

Have you checked the actual usage rather than assume they are billing you correctly?

We had a faulty meter once but then other way around, it stopped recording. New meter fitted for free and we weren’t charged for additional usage as they didn’t know what we’d used.

We had a faulty meter once.  Our biggest mistake was not insisting the meter company check it soon enough even though we contacted them several times.  Because it was underreading they then tried to ‘fine’ us a huge amount.  It got sorted in the end but it was painful.  Best advice is document it and document every time you contact them, and just keep plugging away.  In the end they had a set of rules on what to do when a meter is broken in terms of estimating use and it was completely fair.

This was Belgium but I would doubt that the UK is miles different apart maybe from the complaints mechanism when we had to escalate

There are used ‘electricity monitors’ on eBay e.g. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.co.uk%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F263993246456 for £7.

You could buy a cheap clamp meter and depending on access to cable you can check how much current is running through them against what you expect – almost all are normal meters too so can be useful.
They start at £10 these days

[just a possibility]
If you’re on a direct debit, maybe you were underpaying compared to actual use and they’ve now altered the payments to catch up with what’s owing?

[/just a possibility]

It’s incredibly rare

SSE are constantly sending me letters and emails claiming my meter could become faulty at any time and I must replace it immediately… with a smart meter of course (small print saying I could have a standard one if I really insist).

They’ve stopped claiming my meter could be dangerous though because it’s old.

It’s not that old. Digital meter, maybe 10 to 15 years old.

EDF reduced our direct debit about a year ago as we were over paying by a £300 a year for electric and gas.

It’s definitely the is either a dodgy meter, or something has seriously gone awry with something in the house and it’s constantly burning masses of juice.

Mrs Seadog is very paranoid, so switches off/unplugs everything that can be when we are not in the house or asleep. Pretty much the only things on 24hrs are the fridges, Wifi router, bedside radio, dishwasher is normally run last thing at night (so stays on), that’s all really.

Going to try and knock off everything tomorrow when out of the house, switch off at mains breaker, and see if the meter still counts up over a few hours.

I’m very suspicious.

Common advice is not to run devices like dishwashers , washing machines last thing at night or when you are not in the house , you need to be awake when they are on , just in case.

EDF reduced our direct debit about a year ago as we were over paying by a £300 a year for electric and gas.

That sounds to me like you’d overpaid for sometime, they’ve reduced your payment to use up the surplus you’d paid and now they’ve increased it again as the use has caught up with what you’ve paid. Now you’re back up to paying what you’re using?

seadog, are you basing you concern on bills, meter readings or both? I’d be reading the meter every day to see if the trend (daily x 30 = monthly) is consistent. Are you meter readings by you, actual reading by the electricity company or estimates? Even just turning everything off for 5 min to see if the meter moves is useful.

I switched everything off bar one 100W light bulb and then timed the meter (used to dial rotating, now light beeping) and checked it was ok. Read spot on 100W.

@greybeard, it’s based on the meter readings, they have shot up massively. The business about direct debit and surplus paymentsis by the by. We were over paying for a while, and once the direct debit reduced it was closer to actual usage, typically running a positive balance in the summer, then being caught up in the winter.

Can you check your useage over time on line, going back maybe three years or so? Some companies let you download you reading/date. You might be able to see a sharp increase or decrease somewhere?

Like others have said it might just be because of the direct debit reduction unless you’ve checked actual usage.

I’ve just looked in to our gas, a combination of slightly increased usage, not supplying a reading for nearly a year and them having put our DD down far too low meant a debit of about £450 on the account.

It made it look like we’d used masses more gas, but in reality it’s just the new (?) rules that doesn’t allow them to hold lots of the customers money over summer that would absorb the large winter bills. I think.

Oh, just seen your reply now the page has refreshed. Ignore the bit about DD 🙂

I genuinely can’t think of anything in a house that you wouldn’t know about to cause a near 200 quid rise in monthly payments. Even my hot tub on in winter at 38 degrees only caused a circa 60 quid a month rise. I wouldn’t be **** about unplugging stuff because all the time you are searching you are literally eating pound coins! Ring your supplier and get them out asap.

Cannabis farmer next door has tapped into your supply??

^^first thing I thought of^^
However he’s gotta be proper side of the meter, and pulling that kind of load isn’t going to end well spurred off a socket etc.

Common advice is not to run devices like dishwashers , washing machines last thing at night or when you are not in the house , you need to be awake when they are on , just in case.

I’ve never really understood people who say they won’t run electrical appliances when out the house. If my D/W or W/M catches fire I do not want to be in the house! Yes there is a possibility that you (or more likely the smoke detector) spot it early enough to alert you and get out but there is likely little you can do without putting yourself at some level of increased risk. Would you rather have no chance of being killed by fire but a tiny chance all your possessions are destroyed OR a very slightly smaller risk to your property but a higher risk to you?

@poly

Bang on. The last thing I want is my wife or kids attempting to tackle a fire, let the place burn.

You could be being billed for a different meter; it happens a lot, they get meter numbers confused and you’re billed for a neighbour and them for you etc.

My missus hot tub and my sons gaming pc are the big users in our house. About £160 a month on electric.

Wrong meter number could be a possibility.

I had it years ago when my gas meter was changed. I repeatedly told Southern Electric that the meter number was wrong, I kept a copy of all the meter readings, (I was having to take a photo of the meter because I couldn’t see the screen without a camera phone).

It turned out my meter number had been mixed up with one a couple of streets away. They then tried to shaft me for a £1000ish bill. I could prove my meter readings going back to about a month after it was changed, so it worked out OK in the end.

I’d be checking previous bills and meter readings, do the calculations, get them out to check the meter, if you are overpaying by £200 per month the £70 call out / check fee will be a small price to pay.

I’d also check that next door isn’t growing weed in their attic at your expense.

let the place burn whilst you are asleep ?

At home – WM/DW goes bang, phone 999, shut kitchen door, get out the house and let fire service deal with it. All safe, house likely saved, might need a new kitchen.

If asleep – idiot leaving stuff like that on while asleep, but anyway – fire alarm, repeat above steps. You have an alarm in/near the kitchen of course and keep doors shut at night?

Not at home – WM/DW goes bang, house burns down, then someone rings 999 when they spot the smoke (everyone ignores other people’s fire alarms).