Electrical supply fault?

  • Phil70's Avatar
    Level 1
    I moved into a 1 bed council flat just over 1 year ago. It’s single fuel only. Electric. I’ve looked online and every site says the average monthly bill for this kind of property is £50-70.
    A few weeks after I moved in there was an electrical fire at the consumer unit. There’s a separate unit for the night storage heaters and this melted. The council repaired it. I’m not sure whether this is relevant but I’m sure there’s something wrong with my supply as my WEEKLY bill is £50. Surely this isn’t correct. The night storage heating is switched off as I had a huge bill last January. I work all day and don’t see how I can be using that amount of electricity. Everyone I’ve talked to,says there must be something wrong. Even that I’m paying for someone else’s flat.
  • 10 Replies

  • Phil70's Avatar
    Level 1
    I’ll try again. My smart meter says I’m using £50 per week. When I signed up I was quoted £40 per month. I work full time and am in bed by 10pm every day. I have economy 7 but my night storage heating system is turned off at the consumer unit after a shocking bill last January.
    I’ve looked online and EVERY site says the average for a single occupancy electric only 1 bed flat is £60-70 per month. How is mine £200 per month?
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    Hi,

    It sounds to me as if something else got damaged in that fire and you'll probably want to get a local electrician in to take a look at your flat. I need to think about whether I can recommend other options, so I'll be back by the end of the day.
    Just another guy passing by... The unknown tech way...
    Pete is an IHD Tariff Update Robot! 🤖 Anasa is a Giant Enemy Robot Spider 🕷 🤖 Hannah is neither! Need Customer service? click here! Replacement IHD Guide? Here it is!
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    Ok, after thinking about this for a couple of hours and chatting with my friend Blastoise186 about it, I think one of the diagnostic tricks in my toolkit is probably worth a try. I'm not usually one to copy/paste, but when it comes to how to pull off a Creep Test, it's the easiest way to make sure I get it right. The idea of this test is to try to identify a possible meter fault where it continues to clock usage even when you've totally turned off all the power to your flat and the meter should have stopped.

    Before you get started, I strongly recommend only doing this test during daylight hours for your own safety and you may want to have a torch handy just in case. Please also make sure to safely shut down and turn off any sensitive electronics and gadgets like your computers, TVs, games consoles, Wi-Fi Router, Smart Home gadgets and anything else that might be affected by having the power suddenly go off. You can leave the fridge/freezer on though and keeping a couple of lights on is helpful so that you know when you're done.

    If you're happy to go ahead, here's what to do. These steps might sound a bit tricky as I generally copy/paste them directly from what Blastoise186 gave me, but they should work.

    1. Locate the electric meter and fuse box/consumer unit
    2. Take a quick meter reading and note it down - you'll need it later
    3. As you're on Prepayment, please make sure you've got some credit and you're not in Emergency Credit - otherwise it can disrupt the test. If you don't have much left, now is a good time to top-up!
    4. Turn off the power to the entire house using your consumer unit - it'll only be for a few minutes so don't worry about being off-supply for a long time
    5. Observe your electric meter for about five minutes. the red metrology LED (or the spinning disc in older meters) should stop completely and the meter should not clock any usage after the first 30 seconds or so
    6. After five minutes, take another meter reading and note it down
    7. Turn the power back on
    8. Compare the two readings you took at the start and finish of the test



    If the meter is not faulty, the two readings should be about the same. However, if they're massively different and/or you noticed the metrology LED (or spinning disc) continue to run and/or the meter was still clocking usage despite the power being off, then there's almost certainly a fault with the meter itself. In this case, you'll want to request a Meter Accuracy Test. It'll cost around £160 upfront and you'll get this back if the meter is confirmed to be faulty, as well as having the meter replaced and a refund issued for the lost credit once E.On has managed to figure out how much it's thrown into a black hole. Please bear in mind that the test fee is not refunded if the meter is found to be working correctly. With that being said, if it failed the Creep Test then that's already a very good sign that the meter probably is faulty - the MAT is still required to make it official but doing the Creep Test first might save you wasting £160.

    I also suspect that the fire you had in your flat may have caused further damage elsewhere that might not have been spotted during the original repairs. Please could you post some photos of the meter(s) and everything around it in your next reply, as I'd like to quickly see if there's any meter damage I can spot with a quick visual check. A local electrician should also be able to help with further diagnostics in your flat, such as tracing wiring and potentially identifying any power guzzling appliances that are taking up more than their fair share of your supply.

    Meter or supply tampering is also a possibility that I wouldn't rule out at this stage and it's not impossible that someone else has illegally tapped into your own supply without your knowledge. I think an electrician might be able to help you check, but I'd also recommend flagging this up with customer service if you suspect possible energy theft. You won't get in trouble for submitting such a report, even if turns out to be a false alarm. Normally, I'd be able to provide further info on this process, but I can't seem to find it for E.On for some reason. I'll chat with Beki and Hannah about that later today.

    The only other thing I can think of, is whether you're just using more power than you thought you were, or your tariff is more expensive than expected. This isn't something I'd consider as an excuse to dismiss all the other possibilities though.
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    Howdy!

    It looks like you have another thread open with a similar question. I've gone ahead and responded to that one over at https://community.eonnext.com/thread...l-supply-fault and I'll ask for the threads to be merged. If you reply to this one in the meantime, don't worry. The moderators will be able to move the contents of this thread over so that nothing is lost.

    Thanks!
  • Phil70's Avatar
    Level 1
    Thank you for your time and help. I will try that when I can. I have friends that are electricians so I’ll get one of them round to take a look. The council spark just changed the RCD’s that melted. I did ask him to check the electrics but he said no need.
    Do you recommend getting rid of Economy 7? I’m not sure how these 2 tariffs work. Just feels like I’m being ripped off. Last year Eon increased my direct debit from £40 to £120!a month (without notice). Which I wasn’t happy about.
    I do have some oil filled rad in my front room. But only use that for maybe 1-2 hours if it’s really cold. Would that explain a £50 a week electric bill?
    sorry. I’m waffling. Thank you for you help
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    No worries. It's what I'm here for. I actually find it really useful when you provide a ton of detail as it really helps me to understand the context - and I can always extract just the details I need from that should I need to.

    What kind of heating and hot water setup do you have? If you've only got those oil filled radiators active and you no longer use the Storage Heaters at all, then Economy 7 is pretty much useless to you. It's far more suitable for Storage Heaters than anything else and I can track down some advice on how to better use them if you'd like me to (assuming you're planning to use them again someday).

    My friend Blastoise186 has also recently dug up some energy cost calculators on the internet, which he's shared with me. If you can tell me how powerful that oil filled radiator is in either Watts or Kilowatts along with your current tariff rates, how many of those radiators you've got and roughly how many hours they're all used per day, I can run some number crunching to calculate the running costs for it. In fact, I do the same tricks for almost anything with those same details if you'd like me to.

    Repairing just the damaged RCDs alone is not enough in my opinion. I'm no electrician but even I can tell you that the spark who came should really have inspected basically everything else just to be safe.
  • Phil70's Avatar
    Level 1
    I’ll look into it. I’m having problems accessing my Eon app since it’s switched over to Eon Next. So not sure what my tariffs are. I won’t be using the night storage heating system again as it doesn’t seem very efficient. Or make sense. Heats the flat during the day (when I’m at work) and was generally cold when I needed heat?!! There’s an hot water tank in the airing cupboard that supplies the hot water. I’ll check what that oil filled rad is. I’ve only got one. And bought it after reading that they’re the most energy efficient?!
    Yesterday when I got in from work my smart meter said - so far this week - £1.70. I switched a separate switch for a wall heater in the bathroom off (below the separate consumer unit for the night storage heating system) and the smart meter then read - so far this week - £1.61?!! Not sure how switching a switch off reduced ‘so far this week’.
    It’s just confusing me that every site I’ve checked out (and that’s 100’s) says the same thing. Average per annum cost for my type of flat is £700-800. At my current rate that would be £2100. That seems to be a huge difference.
    And when I joined Eon they quoted me £40 per month. And everyone I talked to said that seemed about right. I understand that clearly that’ll increase over the winter period but should all even out over a year,but up to £200 per month seems excessive. Or maybe that’s just normal? I honestly wouldn’t know. But thanks for taking time to listen.
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    Thanks. I think I'll need to share this thread with Blastoise and get his thoughts on this one. I'll back with you soon, hopefully by Friday morning!
  • theunknowntech's Avatar
    Level 80
    Ok, I've had a chat with Blastoise and got his thoughts on this. Sorry for the wait.

    I'm afraid we're both also puzzled by this and we're not sure what to suggest other than a possible fault somewhere perhaps? I'm going to have to spend more time over the next few days trying to figure out if there's anything else I can suggest, but I think I might be scraping the barrel already a bit here. If I can find anything else though, I'll be sure to let you know.