Baffled by high gas usage in a new build house

J89eu · 19 April 2017 at 11:22AM

Hi all

I have a new built house and have massively high gas usage and I can't understand why, we only use gas for heating and water yet my bill is as follows:
12th Mar 2017 - 11th Apr 2017
Gas £131.00

12th Feb 2017 - 11th Mar 2017
Gas £172.00

I'm with Octopus Energy's super green (100% eco) bill but this isnt much more than their normal plan so although it will be slihgly higher per kwh it shouldn't be these numbers!

I have a brand new house built in October 2016 and I rarely feel the radiators on. There's 2 of us in the house and we shower every day but other than that I can't see where the money is going.

The heating schedule is pretty basic
21c weekdays when home, 15c when out of the house and at night
20c on the weekend and 15c at night

We do have an immersion heater but I was told not to use this with there only being 2 of us so this is turned off.

Help?

molerat · 19 April 2017 at 11:36AM

Based on actual or estimated readings ? Stop talking £s and give some meter readings / kWh use.

Raxiel · 19 April 2017 at 11:37AM

Are these based on actual readings or estimates? Do you know your actual consumption (in kWh or m³) over this period?

matelodave · 19 April 2017 at 11:43AM

As others have said - cost or payments are irrelvant. You need to know how much you use in kwh hour as read from the meter, not estimates guessed by the supplier. Are these bills derived from actual meter readings.

The only way to get an idea of your consumption is to read your meter monthly, Ideally on the same day, record it and send it to your supplier.

Guessing wont help you identify any problems (if there are any).

J89eu · 19 April 2017 at 11:48AM

I have been providing meter readings but I haven't longed moved to Octopus and am still waiting for a final statement from e-on who the supply was with from the builders, here's some details:

Super Green Octopus (12 Feb 2017 - 11 Mar 2017)
12 Feb 2017 4187 Opening Read
12 Mar 2017 4654 Estimate
Consumption 467 m³
Energy Used* 5240.0 kWh @ 3.03p/kWh £158.77
Standing Charge (28 days @ 18.00p/day) £5.04
Total Gas Charges £163.81

Super Green Octopus (12 Mar 2017 - 06 Apr 2017)
12 Mar 2017 4654 Estimate
07 Apr 2017 5009 Customer Read
Consumption 355 m³
Energy Used* 3963.2 kWh @ 3.03p/kWh £120.08
Standing Charge (26 days @ 18.00p/day) £4.68
Total Gas Charges £124.76

Robin9 · 19 April 2017 at 11:59AM

Are you reading the meter correctly?

Mine is a modern meter and has 8 digits. It reads 02175.411

Ignore the digits 411 after the decimal point. My reading is 02175

Also check your meter is Metric - labelled M3- and your bill also says M3

Raxiel · 19 April 2017 at 12:10PM

J89eu wrote: »

I have been providing meter readings but I haven't longed moved to Octopus and am still waiting for a final statement from e-on who the supply was with from the builders, here's some details:

Super Green Octopus (12 Feb 2017 - 11 Mar 2017)
12 Feb 2017 4187 Opening Read
12 Mar 2017 4654 Estimate
Consumption 467 m³
Energy Used* 5240.0 kWh @ 3.03p/kWh £158.77
Standing Charge (28 days @ 18.00p/day) £5.04
Total Gas Charges £163.81

Super Green Octopus (12 Mar 2017 - 06 Apr 2017)
12 Mar 2017 4654 Estimate
07 Apr 2017 5009 Customer Read
Consumption 355 m³
Energy Used* 3963.2 kWh @ 3.03p/kWh £120.08
Standing Charge (26 days @ 18.00p/day) £4.68
Total Gas Charges £124.76

Ignoring the estimate, that is 822m³ over 53 days, that does seem very high. For context I've used less than 600 units since early December including cooking. I'd suggest taking another reading to see how much has been used since the 6th.

A couple of unlikely suggestions, just to eliminate them:
Can you confirm both reads were taken from the meter itself? This isn't a smart meter that's gone dumb since switching from the original supplier that installed it?
There have been instances of people reading the kWh figure from the remote display and submitting them as the read (which will cost about ten times as much).

Also, confirm it's definitely in m³ (although for a new build I'd be stunned if it wasn't)

J89eu · 19 April 2017 at 12:34PM

Ok I think I now have this resolved. I sent a pic to Octopus of the gas meter when we signed up at their request. It seems they took 4 numbers instead of 3 (1 of the numbers is in the red boxes) so this then meant when I gave future readings I also provided 4 numbers instead of 3 as this made sense to me (seeing 4 numbers on the site, I couldn't exactly give 3 as it wouldn't have let me) so I just carried on. So it appears we've both given 1 number too many. I have called Octopus and they are going to correct this, drop the last number off each meter reading and re-do my bill. This should be sorted today apparently so I will then get credited the money back.

Thanks all!

Raxiel · 19 April 2017 at 12:53PM

Glad the problem has been found, but it seems incredible that such a large error made it through third party validation when you switched.

What reading did E.ON use for your final bill? Since the difference between 418m³ and 4187m³ would be well over a grand's worth of gas!

J89eu · 19 April 2017 at 12:58PM

I've still not received a bill from e-on yet but they did send me an email to say it's coming "soon" so will see... Octopus did say they will contact the old supplier as they will need to correct their bill as well, maybe this is why the bill is taking so long!!

Raxiel · 19 April 2017 at 1:03PM

I wonder if Octopus decided not to wait for the third party numbers with the intention of correcting them later in the event they were different when they did arrive.

Still strange though, shouldn't take this long for them to be verified.

Personally I wouldn't wait for E.ON and would call to ask, just in case they are about to issue a bill with a stupid figure at the bottom, but it's up to you.

Edit: it did just occur to me that, as it's a new build property, and doesn't have much in the way of history, that the third party might have just waved them through.

Baffled by high gas usage in a new build house

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