A quick question!

JimmyR32

Hi,

Please try and excuse my ignorance here but I am young and new to electricity bills and bills in general! Me and my partner bought a 2 bed flat in South East England in December, the previous occupants showed us an Eon Quarterly Electricity Only Bill equating to £30p/m. So when I ring to get the Direct Debit set up for the account I tell them this and they they, "OK, We will put you on £30p/m". Today we have received a letter saying that they are changing our Direct Debit payment to £62p/m. I have checked online it it seems our actual bills have been so far:

Bill 1 - £148.29
Bill 2 - £169.59

Meaning I have an outstanding balance with Eon of £147.52.

My question is first of all when will Eon want me to pay the balance as they havnt informed me of anything at all until I checked online and also can they just up it to £62p/m after only 2 bills? I was sure a Eon sales representitive told us that our £30p/m payment was fixed for the first year?

Any help with this would be greatly appreiciated as like I say im new to this and times are hard enough already without companies saying they can Double their direct debit!

Thanks in advance!

JimmyR32

OK, having reread my post through and some other posts on here I have found my usage numbers for the quarter, does this look like high usage? We own a 2 Bed Flat in Essex and is just me and my partner living there we are on the Eon Electricity Online Extra Saver Plan

984 Day kWh used

---

Primary - 219 kWh at 24.22p each - £53.04
Secondary - 765 kWh at 10.31p each - £78.87

1110 Night kWH used at 4.65p each - £51.62

I get an online discount of £22.02

Making the Total Bill - £161.51 or £169.59inc

I dont really know if these are high numbers or not and whether we just need to cut our usage down or whehter we are on an incorrect price plan. Any help or advice would be great!

notbritishgas

JimmyR32 wrote: »

OK, having reread my post through and some other posts on here I have found my usage numbers for the quarter, does this look like high usage? We own a 2 Bed Flat in Essex and is just me and my partner living there we are on the Eon Electricity Online Extra Saver Plan

984 Day kWh used

---

Primary - 219 kWh at 24.22p each - £53.04
Secondary - 765 kWh at 10.31p each - £78.87

1110 Night kWH used at 4.65p each - £51.62

I get an online discount of £22.02

Making the Total Bill - £161.51 or £169.59inc

I dont really know if these are high numbers or not and whether we just need to cut our usage down or whehter we are on an incorrect price plan. Any help or advice would be great!

Hi Jimmy, I take it from the night units used that you have electric heating (night storage?). If so then the two bills you quote both had an element of winter heating in them? and as such were not that expensive.
If you have no gas then a monthly DD of £30 is not enough to cover your yearly bills, the £62 is more like it.
The debit of £147 is normally paid back by them increasing the DD as they have done.
Don't forget that the next bill and perhaps the one after will be smaller due to it being summer (honestly it is!) so some of the debit will be paid of due to that, thats how the DD normally works, build up a debit in winter and pay it off in summer.

JimmyR32

powerRIP wrote: »

Your night time units seem high to me. (more than half your usage!) Is that mainly water heating do you know?

If im honest im not really sure, when we bought the property it had an old electronic economy 7 boiler which we removed and replaced with panel heaters and also we have a water tank which I think is on all the time, im not really sure but could that account for the high usage? Only other thing I can think I get in about 7pm and use my laptop every night and the TV is on slightly more and I guess the Electric Cooker are these more likely to be responsible for the high evening charges?

One other question what is the primary and secondary day rates all about?

notbritishgas

JimmyR32 wrote: »

If im honest im not really sure, when we bought the property it had an old electronic economy 7 boiler which we removed and replaced with panel heaters and also we have a water tank which I think is on all the time, im not really sure but could that account for the high usage? Only other thing I can think I get in about 7pm and use my laptop every night and the TV is on slightly more and I guess the Electric Cooker are these more likely to be responsible for the high evening charges?

One other question what is the primary and secondary day rates all about?

The night rate for E7 varies timewise depending on your supplier but normally is a 7hour period between about midnight and 8 am .You are using a lot of electric during those hours, are you sure you have panel heaters not night storage heaters. If panel heaters then that is the most expensive way to heat but you would be using most of the electric on day rate.
Now we have established you have electric heating then the debit you have built up is understandable and the rise in the DD is realistic.
To answer your other question, you are obviously on a no standing charge tariff whereby they charge the first so many kwh per quarter at a higher rate (primary units) and then the rest at a lower charge(secondary units). They do this so they recoup the equivalent of the standing charge from the higher primary unit rate.