A facetious response is - move to France. OK - it was only the builders using the supply but our bill for the last quarter was 120 euros.

A more useful response might be - have you thought about switching to a cheaper supplier / cheaper tarif?

Firstly, was the shock you received due just to the price or to the consumption? Has your consumption altered at all? And can you identify, say, your highest 3 'consumers'. My view would be to look at these appliances/systems first and establish whether they are as efficient as they could be - an old fridge/freezer can use many times the energy of a modern version; then consider the cost of replacement and payback.

With regard to solar PV, and whilst it appears to be becoming cheaper, I am yet to be convinced that it would help save you (or me) money. I'm not sure what power a washing machine draws, but I doubt that a small patch of solar PV would help much.

CFLs can help, but so can turning the lights off when not needed. We use CFLs for lamps that are almost always on after dusk, and are replacing some others as time goes on. Interestingly, one of the problems with CFLs is that they last so long - we still have 'old' CFLs that are neither as efficient as the latest versions nor as nice a colour - can't justify getting rid of them though! LED household lighting is still in its infancy, but potentially holds out a lot of promise.

Hi, reality check that. I did once have a knackered fridge in an outbuilding that was sucking juice like mad but not that much. Check figures or do a 6 am to 6am next day reading to check.

Mike up North

You asked about CFLS or dimmer switches - why not do both? You can now buy dimmable CFLs on the web.

You can buy a plug in energy monitor from Maplin for about £25. It will tell you how much each appliance is using. Should pay back if you identify what is using all your electricity!

My bill is £17 per month, there are two of us, one A rated fridge/freezer (tall one but not an american one), a C rated washing machine. We both work full time though.

That can't be right unless you are running a cannabis factory!! You need one of these http://www.efergy.com/en/

Thankyou for all your sensible suggestions. Ran upstairs and eagerly checked loft for the cannabis farm. . . . . . found darkness and bats. . . . returned despondently to the kitchen.

The bill is an actual read and not an estimate, and I believe they came and changed the meters last autumn. We have always had dimmer switches on the lights since the 70's, I was wondering if CF are better, because when the sparky comes I can change out some large old flourescents for these new kind of lights.

The electricity supply to the outhouses cut out last summer - so the freezer and lights out there haven't been working since then.

Over the winter, we had been using economy 7 nystore heaters in the bedrooms, and the bill was never as big as this. We turned them off for good last month for the summer and have no heating upstairs now.

I'm sure there is a problem somewhere, because increasingly we have the kitchen electrics shorting out - sometimes by as much as 12 times in a row. I have to go under the stairs and flick the fuse.

We have electric metres on each upper floor - its a long story as to why - so we chuck cash in each time we have a black out. When I emptied them I got £150 - which would explain the expensive nystores, but not account for the £400 we seem to be using on the ground floor.

Shutting myself under the stairs with a bottle of wine to watch the meters whirring sounds like a good idea - been interrupted many times while composing this response, so hiding from the kids for a while - even in a cupboard under the stairs sounds great.

gotta go - pasta boiling dry (on gas ring)

Perhaps your previous bill was estimated and was very low thereby effectively giving you a double bill this quarter. £650 is way too high though.

It is sensible to record your meter reading at least every week just to keep a check on things. I do one every day.

WARNING! I will admit to having a commercial interest here, I run a company that specialises both commercial and residential building automation & energy management so you know where I am coming from but I will try to be as generic and impartial as possible.

Got to agree with Ads' comments, you have something that is using a heck of a lot of juice... I would expect to see that sort of power consumption from a commercial property that only had electric heating. But I am still at a loss to figure what it could be from your description. Given that you are on Oil and Woodfired stove I'm going to assume you live in a rural area.

We are currently living in a rented farm cottage 300m ASL on the east coast of Scotland exposed to the wind from the north and the east (so it's b....y cold and windy!), it has no central heating system (night storage only), an open fire that does the hot water as well, immersion heater, rudimentary double glazing, minimal insulation, electric cooker basically as energy inefficient a property as you can expect to find. Add to this the fact that we are running a fairly hectic business from here so there are 2 servers, 4 printers and 3 PCs plus a load of network gear running for at least 16hrs a day (servers run 24/7). On top of that the prevailing weather conditions (cold and wet) and lack of central heating means that our tumble drier takes a LOT of abuse and bearing in mind we are running CFLs & LEDs and the only incandescants/halogens are the yard lights we would be very upset if we got an electricity bill like that for the 6 months of winter let alone a quarter. Inefficient appliances simply can't account for that sort of consumption.. .there has to be a (poor) habitual use issue in there as well, you aren't doing something really silly like using the tumble drier all the time even on good "drying days", leaving 500w security lights on all night, what other lights are you leaving on, what kit is left on standby, are you using the immersion heater?

sorry... got waylaid by some business calls so I've cut the above to a notepad and then refreshed the page and re-pasted it so you have answered some of the questions I had.

Firstly all I can say is OMG! a meter for each floor, and blackouts etc. as a professional electrickeryikal engineer I can only whimper and whisper "Mummy, make the scary person go away"

I'm going to make several assumptions here a) this is an old house - possibly a rambling edwardian era gentleman farmers house b) was first wired in the thirties c) has been patched (dare I even say bodged) ever since. d)the boiler was installed in the seventies e) the plumbing will still be in lead in some places and probably date from the edwardian era (and has been bodged ever since) f)It's been in your family for some time and is a bit frayed and baggy round the edges (but still Emily loved him).... apologies never miss an oportunity to quote from Bagpuss! g) the storage heaters will be HUGE 1970s beasts. h) the grounds are quite extensive

Marks out of ten please

The solution I would recommend is fairly drastic - as a safety issue primarily gut the electricals in it from top to bottom and start again, wire the WHOLE house to 17th Edition, do not even attempt to tie old to new, do not collect £200 when you pass go, etc, etc. You can do it in phases (electrical joke - pardon the pun) a floor at a time BUT I would also take the opportunity whilst the walls are being chased out and the floorboards are up to install piping for wet radiators a floor at a time as well. Underfloor would be nice BUT if it's an old house this would be problematic so stick with conventional radiator technology, plus it's not half as expensive. If you do take the opportunity to renew the heating (or from the sound of it just install it!) then don't put in an all in one loop for each floor, zone the rooms!

I guess what I'm trying to get at is you have an opportunity to get the services infrastructure right here GRAB IT. You dont' need to commision the pipework into service at this stage, fit radiators or buy a new boiler just get the pipes "first fixed" so you dont have to repeat the ripping out walls and floorboards process all over again. I would seriously consider installing a building management system - this is going to have the potential to save you up to 50% of your energy use and make the process of phasing this install accross floors a heck of a lot easier.

So "What the heck is a building management system?" I hear you ask... basically it is a system with the capabilities to manage all of the systems and services that are installed in a building (heating, lighting, AV, Security, etc) and make them work in harmony by unifying their control. Now I am not going to pull the wool over your eyes here an say that it is any cheaper than an conventional electrical installation it isn't its probably 15-25% more expensive materials wise BUT if this is a family home and you plan to live in it for a long time then it will pay for itself in energy savings within a minimum of five years.

What I'm saying is make the building smart, link the heating and the lighting control, put in occupancy sensors (like alarm system PIRs but smarter) that way you get a building that knows when a room is occupied or not and can make a decison to turn off the lights and turn down the heating if it is un-occupied (it only really works with zoned heating which is why I suggested the plumbing as well). From a users point of view it doesn't look any different than good old electrics a white light switch is still a white light switch if you want it to be, a thermostat is still a thermostat, there is no central controller either. It's not a newfangled, unproven technology either this has been in use since 1994 on the continent and in the UK. It will do all the tricks you want it to do if you want, mood lighting, central locking we can even get this technology to dim the lights and close the curtains when you press play on the DVD player if you are that way inclined (which is the way it has been marketed in the UK). BUT the real key to it is that it is the next generation of building electrical systems - 80% of new build homes in Spain are wired this way, 30% in Germany, 40% in Scandinavia, it is based on common sense engineering but it is so adaptable you can have the fluff if you want to if you want Starship Enterprise touchscreens then you can have it but if you want traditional light switches then it will do that as well.

All I'm saying is consider it - don't take what your electrician is saying at face value there are a lot more effiecient and flexible ways of wiring a house and making it work the trick is to make sure the underlying infrastructure can cope with it, your sparky probably will not even be aware that this technology exists, he'll be too busy to keep up. I'm not saying that what they are proposing is wrong just that there are potential alternative to make a lovely old house a lot more energy efficient without ruining the character of it.

If I you were a client I'd be reccomending a phased floor by floor rewire of the electrics to KNX and 17th Edition standards (KNX is the name of the technology standard we work with), installation of piping (copper of course!) to allow a zoned central heating system to be installed. Once all of the floors were rewired and plumbed I'd rip out the old boiler and dithc the storage heaters and replace it with a ground source heat pump fed system if possible or solar (or both!) backed up by a woodchip or other similar biomass boiler (this is an old house so it will need a bit of help) - I'd take the opportunity on each floor to insulate the ceiling voids as well during the mess and fuss of the rewire. If you want to consider photovolactics or turbines then this would be the stage I'd reccomend that they be installed (though we have done the control systems for a new build house in Galloway that was totally off the grid as well so right from the start was using Turbines, Photovoltaics and 2 Bio-Diesel generators as backups where micro-managing the energy budget was critical).

I've probably turned your head to mince by now with all this for which I'm sorry but you have a good opportunity here and I'm only trying to give you another option.

I've been in the cupboard under the stairs and taken a look. The meters (3 of them that are read by the meter men) were put in on 22 Jan 08. One reads 00000 because it is from the top floor and no one goes up there - except to look for cannabis

the other reads about 3 or 400 - which must be the middle floor, and the final one reads 3484. . . . . . the first 2 have red lights on them, the one with the large reading has a flashing red light.

I'm at a loss to understand where it's all going.

No tumble dryer, or dishwasher.
lap top is off when not actually being used.
TV and freeview box turned off at wall each night - but internet/phone connection left on.
2 fridges.
one small freezer in the lounge because the electrics to the outhouses no longer works.
electric grill but gas oven
washing machine, radio, toaster, microwave. . . . . usual stuff.

Grandma does use a nystor and has a v old fancy electric bar heater - but she used that over the winter and the bill wasn't as high as this even then.

oh, regarding the storage heaters, they are all new except for one - massive old brown thing in the 'guest room' which works but is never used and turned off.

By the sounds of it we're using enough power for a small town and i have no idea what on.

From what people have said, it might be worth having the sparky out to see if he can discover the problem BEFORE he starts the rewiring. failing that, how do I get the power companies to check if something is wrong - and even more importantly - how do I get them to give me money back as philedge suggested?????

Going by the other two, I would assume so, as they all look the same. what's more, the bit of paper he left behind shows that all 3 read 0 when installed.

& are you still paying for previously used elec before that?

OK - so ask them?

It sounds very odd

nigel. I made a mistake with my first post when I said the meters were changed in the autumn. when I ventured under the cupboard the date of the change was 22 jan 08. The meters on the different floors are coin operated ones which just help us keep a check on what we spend and where. Its the meters under the stairs which are read, and for which we get charged. As I understand it, there are 2 meters which make sense. The one which reads 0000 because we don't use any power on the top floor at the moment. The one which reads. . . . . just been to check 138 (not 3-400 which I said earlier when I couldn't be bothered to go and check) I'm assuming must belong to the middle floor and would account for our nystor usage over the winter.

Then the final one which reads 3489. . . . . so it's gone up by 5 since tea time. . . . . . . . . is that normal? These meters are small boxes with an LED number on them and a red light. There is no wheel to watch going round.

I'm kicking myself I've never bothered to investigate this before. I assumed that living in a house like ours and having daft bills was parr for the course - you just economise in other areas. Because people rarely discuss actual figures you just assume other people are paying the same and it's normal - especially when you don't appear to have many 'luxuries' like massive sound systems/technology.

OK other way round 18.6p

Ooo Science experiments - how exciting