I'm on a mission. My last power bill was over $600!! Two adults and a child live in this house. This has been pretty typical for us for the past 4 years or so and every now and then I complain to my power retailer. Occasionally they will offer advice but generally they just want to know when I'm going to pay them. I'm going through the laborious task of working out precisely what's hogging my power.
I wanted to throw a couple of things out there for comment.
Firstly,about 2 years ago I complained to my retailer (and then the energy complaints commission when they ignored me) as I believed that we were suffering from a low-voltage problem. After waiting for weeks for action I finally managed to get someone from the network provider out here to test, and sure enough it was confirmed that low voltage was the problem. Several weeks later they finally finished upgrades and the toast was toasting and the jug was boiling in no time at all. During this time I did some investigation and heard a few rumours but no real evidence that low voltage puts a strain on appliances and is liable to make them inefficient. Since I moved into this house 5 years ago I've had 3 washing machines, 2 fridges, 2 dishwashers and an oven all fail. At the time of these failures I assumed it was just bad luck, but now I'm not so sure. does anyone know if this is true?
And secondly, why on earth don't the network providers for electricity infrastructure test to make sure that households are getting an efficient power supply? I shouldn't have been the one to have to tell them I had a voltage problem!
noticed that it was taking longer and longer for various appliances to do their job. Imagine a piece of toast taking 10 minutes to cook. I could have a shower in the time it took to boil the jug.
