"Dave Liquorice" wrote in message
ll.net...
On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:06:00 +0100, endymion wrote:

If I extrapolate the figures for 90 days that would give a night
usage of 18473 units

That's an average of 205 kWh/day, or 8.5 kW continuous (24 hr) loading,
or 29 kW loading (120 amps!) over 7 hours. There's no way on earth
that a single faulty storage heater could account for consumption like
that.

Well, sorry but it must have done.

No you extrapolated from one nights reading to 90 days. Any error in that
reading would be multiplied 90. Maybe you had a hot bath that night and
the water needed to be on for all of it's 2hrs... and it was a cold night,
IIRC you said you has a fire on as well...


a) we never take hot baths in this house ( believe me if you saw the bath
you would know why). Havent got round to changing that yet. Its showers all
round and those showers are done on day rate usually.

b) The weather has not warmed up any here. I have had the fire on and it
runs on day rate and pushes that up. No one is up beyond 10.00 pm in the
house. I have looked at that too. On a really bad day ( like Tuesday) we ran
up 10 on the day rate using electric fires and I also cooked that day.

Since the only figure being run up at a high rate according to the bill is
the night rate it has to be the central heating or hot water as those were/
are the only two things running at night and not in the day.

Having switched them off, whatever the figures ( and 5000+ units in three
months speaks for itself surely as opposed to a total of just 800 for three
months on day rate?) they have shown a significant drop in the night rate
usage to less than 10 units a night even when running the washing machine
and dishwasher and even an hour on the tumble dryer.

The day rate remains constant at between 3 and 8 units depending on whether
we have a fire on and whether I cook ( i.e. run the cooker for an hour and a
half cooking cakes etc)

However you want to argue the figures , it doesn't alter the fact that it
was the night rate that was up very high ( 5000+ units a quarter) and that
has been changed by switching one heater off ( the only one that was
actually on at the time) It may not seem reasonable but that is what has
happened.

I cant tell you how its happened and I have made the same arguments to
myself as you have all made here. I can only think that the damned thing
was running 3.5 KW or more all night none stop and it didn't burn out the
circuit or trip any safety cut out ( or even burn the house down - which it
could have done theoretically if that dangerous a state)

Last night I tried putting a different heater on over night and we used
about a £1 of electric in total. It does seem to be the one heater that was
at fault.

I am not here to argue or moan . I had a problem. You kindly helped me and I
have found that problem, read the meter and sorted it out . I still have to
fit this new storage heater this week. That should be interesting as I am
not an electrical expert. I can wire a plug though.

If I look at the figures over the last five days ( I have religiously read
the meter) we are now using roughly 50% more at night than during the day
with the heater on. Which should be about right according to national
averages for efficient running.

I guess I should be thankful it was the night rate being run up. God forbid
that it had been the day rate being lamped by something. Night rate is 4p a
unit. Day rate is 16p a unit ( and 30p for the first 125units) . Just
imagine the hike in bill on 5000 units at 16p a unit.