Faulty Appliance Has Made Electricity Bill Rocket - Will I Still Have To Pay It?

[joko]

Recently found out that my fridge freezer has 'possibly' got a fault and has caused my electricity bill to rocket upwards.
If this turns out to be the case, will the electricity company still expect that full amount to be paid?
Or are they understanding of faults and can adjust the totals accordingly?
Or is there something I can do about it?
Obviously I 'personally' have not used that electricity so i obviously i'd rather not have to pay it if I don't have to.
Even if I wanted to, i could never afford it
Thanks

[Buenchico]

Try a simple test:
Unplug everything which can be unplugged. (Don't just turn them off). Turn off things which can't be unplugged (such as your central heating and lights). Check to see if there's still any activity on the meter. (That means a wheel rotating on older meters. More modern digital meters might indicate that electricity is being used in a different way).

If your meter is still whizzing round there's obviously a fault somewhere.

[Buenchico]

To return to your actual question though . . .

As an analogy, if the water meter out in the street shows that you've been using a swimming-pool-full of water every day, the water company will need to find out where the leak is. If it's between their meter and your property boundary they won't charge you. If it's on your property though you're legally obliged to pay for the water but the water company might use their discretion to reduce the charge.

Similarly, any excess electricity 'disappearing' on your side of the consumer unit (where your fuses or circuit breakers are located) must be paid for by you (although, again, the supplier might be prepared to exercise some discretion).

So if, for some reason, electricity is leaking to earth between the meter and your consumer unit, you shouldn't have to pay. However if it's leaking to earth (or actually being used) on your side of the consumer unit, they can bill you (but would hopefully use some discretion). Unless there's a fault with your consumer unit though (as well as with the wiring beyond it) it should be impossible for electricity to leak to earth on your side of the consumer unit, as that should cause a fuse to blow (or a circuit breaker to trip out).

It would be interesting to know that actual meter readings that you photographed (and the period of time which had elapsed between them), as we could then see just how fast you were allegedly using electricity.

[joko]

regarding the meter test - i tried that - the meters show no sign of use - - its just a digital screen with 5 numbers ... and they dont move, there is no 'counter' to monitor unfortunately. used to have the old style spinning ones but they were replaced with this one.

[joko]

the test i did to ensure it wasnt just a backlog of stimated readings

14 feb 44174
then
3rd may 46600

so about 10 weeks

i am a single person, and live alone in a flat above a shop.
i only have all the usual things a person has, TV, cooker, dishwasher, etc

so you can see it went up rather a lot in that time

i have never used that amount of power in that time in the 20 years ive lived here.

[sunny-dave]

That's (about) £300 for 11 weeks - so £120 per calendar month - which (for winter months) doesn't seem that excessive if you use electricity for all your heating and hot water?

[ my (extremely well insulated) small house uses a bit less total energy than your flat in a similar period - but I'm away a lot ]

[Buenchico]

So that's 2426 units over 78 days, equivalent to about 31 units per day. That certainly looks rather high but it's not necessarily massive. (A 3kW fan heater, running for ten hours per day, would use 30 units per day).

Further, it doesn't explain where such a masive bill came from. Extrapolating those meter readings to a period of 91 days would result in 2830 units being used. At, say, 15p per unit, you'd end up with a bill of £425 (possibly with a standing charge added on top) for the quarter. That's somewhat higher than a typical quarterly bill in the UK but still nowhere near to £6k !!!

I'm beginning to wonder whether the problem might have little or nothing to do with your meter (or your actual electricity consumption) and a lot more to do with an error on the rate per unit which you're being charged.

Take a look at that big bill to try to identify where the error comes from. If your electricity supplier really thinks that you've used a massive amount of electricity it should show around 40,000 units being used in a quarter. (That's about 440 units per day. You'd need 6 x 3kW fan heaters, running 24 hous per day, to use that much electricity). It would seem far more likely that the price per unit (which should probably be between 13p and 18p) has been wrongly applied.

[joko]

it is a lot more than usual and that is standard for me and they agreed.
it also wasnt really winter months so not much heating on.
i dont have central heating so only have a bar heater on in one room at any one time - occassionally have a fan heater on but im aware theyre expensive so its usually only short periods.
water is on an immersion so only goes on when i need it.

i ''think'' this all started when the new meter was installed in 2012, they did say it might be set to the wrong tariff.
but they couldnt seem to say - i assume they have to see that actual box to check that. never had any problems before.

my other vague thought/worry is that whatever has caused it, has stopped now? or it was a temporary blip or something, so it wont show up on any tests. i just have no idea.

thanks

[joko]

Just a small update for anyone curious - i did a test -

I too a reading then turned the FF off for a week, and instead used a mini fridge and a mini freezer
then i took another reading and put the FF back on again
then - after a week took another reading

these are the readings
48608
48698
48759

i dont know what the average weekly usage rates should be

so its not made much difference to the readings - and in fact the reading when it was off is a bit higher!

i have hardly had any heating on and did no washing, and only the dishwasher once.
but its obviously not enough to say its the FF

so thanks all for your help

[hc4361]

Thanks for the update, sorry you're nowhere nearer to solving the mystery