Need help

[starboy1928]

Hello I’m not an electrician but need your help. I recently moved into a new home and since moving in the electric meter readings were extremely high, like 3-4x my usage in my previous home. I checked with the previous energy supplier and the previous owner was using about 5x less per month than the readings I was getting. Appliances are built in so i inherited them and I didn’t change timer settings on things like heaters plus it’s summer. I called the energy supplier and they fitted me with a new smart meter. Since installing the smart meter my usage has been cut in half so there was definitely a problem with the old meter but it’s still very high based on usage. I started testing appliance against smart meter readings and can see when an appliance is turned on the usage increases but when I turn the appliance off it can take hours for usage to return to normal even if I unplug the appliance. If I switch the appliance off at the board the usage will immediately go back to normal. Also during sleeping hours I’m getting very high usage which should be minimal. My question is how accurate are smart meters at showing real time electric energy usage? Also could there be a fault with either wiring or the board that could cause increased energy usage and how would I go about finding that with an electrician?

 

[Andy™]

meters are usually extremely reliable in their measurements. cant say for their real time through and displays etc, but the best youd get is the red flashing light that most meters have. usually flash 800 times per unit so a faster flashing light means more power is being used now. try it with a kettle, shower etc,

certain faults could cause an increase in power usage but would be minimal. to be using a lot of power then things will be getting very bad very fast, i.e tripping circuits and melted wiring, something youd most likely notice

and are you sure your neighbours dont have a supply from your property? it has been known to happen

 

[starboy1928]

How would you go about checking if someone is stealing electricity? 
 

also last night I went to bed with almost everything off and meter was saying I was using 200-266w per hour or £.05 and hour, probably just the fridge and maybe laptop charging. Woke up this morning 6-7hrs later it’s reading the same usage but somehow it says total usage in that time period is 4.76kwh or £1.22, it should be like £.40 or maybe 1.8kwh.

if I use an appliance usage shoots up, but when I turn it off it can take hours for it to normalise. Is there a fault that can cause this?

 

[Geoff1946]

Do you have electric water heating?