"Alan" wrote
| After a high electricity bill I've been trying to find out why.
| I've been checking my meter readings each day and so far (after
| 3 days) the usage is around 23kwh / day peak rate and 8kwh /
| day low rate (Economy 7). This seems very high to me.

If you were using electric storage heating, my first suspicion would be the
timeswitch was erroenously putting the heavy off-peak load on in peak hours.
Even though you are using plug-in timers for the washing m/c etc, it is
still possible the timeswitch is switching your meter over to cheap rate at
the incorrect times.

With that ratio of day:night units I wonder if E7 is the right tariff for
you. Its daytime rates cost more.

A 500 W "frost watcher" will use 12 kWh per day unless its thermostat
reduces down, which it may not in this weather, compare that to your 30 kWh
a day and you can see it isn't much.

| I have an ammeter connected to a current transformer on the incomming
| mains supply, and even on a typical evening with lights on etc it
| reads about 4 amps, and during the day the meter is usually resting
| on it's end stop (0-80A scale).

Switch off everything on your consumer unit and see if the current drops to
nil.

Switch everything in the house off, and then put the circuits back on at the
CU one by one, and watch for any increase in load.

Owain