excessive electricty units charged for a domestic 3 Phase property

legacy · Aug 5, 2012

I wonder if anyone can advise what might be the best method to check if an electricty supply coming in, has either a leak or a faulty meter that results in high usage of units being charged? Would you suggest a load test or 2nd "check" meter to be installed?

We installed 3 Phase into a domestic property approx 6000 sq ft, installed an air source heat system to provide economical heat but have seen a dramatic increase in electricty charges since the installation that now run into 40,107 units per Qtr being charged, around £5000 per Qtr for a family of 5, seems an incredible amount of units for a general household.

Energy providers are not helpful to seek the fault, despite monitoring usage from independant monitors I have installed, it confirms the units being used but cannot believe a general docestic dwelling can use this much? particularly in the summer with no heating appliance on?

Any suggestion what could be the next step to have this checked or how to go about it?

KFH · Aug 5, 2012

You need to check what is using it. Try the energy monitors on different circuits to see where the energy is being used. I would suspect the air source heating unit if that is the only thing which has changed in terms of load. If the energy monitors are confirming that the readings on the supply meters are OK then it is not a providers problem.

If you cannot safely attach the energy monitors to the individual circuits, it may mean opening up consumer units which I would not recommend unless you really know what you are doing, then try turning individual circuits off and see which one/ones are taking the most load on your monitors which I assume are connected on the meter tails.

If you post your location someone here will probably be local and can do more diagnosis for you as it is difficult to say what could be wrong without seeing it.

snowhead · Aug 5, 2012

6000 ft, that's a fair sized property, I assume you only have electricity as an energy source, no gas or oil or solid fuel?

Did you occupy the house before the Heat pump, what was the heating source and what were the TOTAL energy bills?

If you weren't in this house what were your total bills in the previous property?

Strima · Aug 5, 2012

legacy said:
installed an air source heat system to provide economical heat but have seen a dramatic increase in electricty charges since the installation

I think the clue is in your question. Although it is not in use is it turned off?

Get a spark in to start clamping your circuits to see which is the culprit.

Just out of interest how old is the installation and do you have RCD protection etc?

Richard · Aug 5, 2012

Have you tried simply fitting an energy monitor (may have to be three in your case) to see what power is being drawn? This should quite quickly allow you to narrow down where the power is going. Just type in 'energy monitor' and you'll get tons of hits.

On a slightly different note, I attended a fault a few months back which was basically a damaged submain cable. The fault was allowing approx 3KW of power to 'escape' if you like to earth and was sending the meter readings through the roof for a few months, so maybe something similar to this could be happening.

Rich

Edit: It may be better/quicker for you to get an electrician you come and have a look for you however. If you post up your location, then i'm sure someone on here will be near by and call in and have a look for you.

plugsandsparks · Aug 5, 2012

As other have said, needs investigation. Have to admit that is eye watering.
Is the heat pump air to air, i.e. does it cool as well as heat as that would be tough to reach that usage even in winter
What type of meter / meters do you have can you post a pick or post location and one of us will pop round on our way to a job.

Earthstore · Aug 5, 2012

Do you have solar PV installed?

JD6400 · Aug 5, 2012

You say that the air source is not in use , are you sure it is not still heating your water ?
I would say that your there is probably not a fault present and would go as far as to say " Welcome to owning a air / ground source pump "!
We have been involved in near on 25 -30 installs of either type of technologies ( Just installing the controls and mains as a sub to another company ) and so far not one client has said how they were saving money as a result of their purchess , quite the contrary for most of them in fact ! Even to the point of us having to revisit site to reinstall their recently decommissioned oil boilers back in to the system for when the temperature drops to around freezing point the earlier air source pumps did not have the add on 6/9KW in line water heaters and could not cope !!!

I would do as said in some of the posts above and knock of all but one of your circuits at a time and see which one is going strong .
If you have only got a single phase monitor then you need to upgrade it to a three phase one , the OWL range of monitors are quite good and you can also buy extra ct clamps if needed , CEF sell them as well as i think Denmans and B&Q they are around £40ish so not to bad on the by the sounds of it , already drained pockets !:sweatdrop: