Increase in my gas direct debt.

carol1977

hi

Anyone tell me I have just spent 30 mins on the phone about my gas and elec at present as far as they can see i be in credit for my elec i will know in nov when i get my next bill.

My gas it different they didn't take a reading since last nov since then there has been two raises so now I owe £94.09. and now there have told me i will need to increase my direct debt from £30 to 64 a month which is just over double in a year.

Can anyone advise me what to do are all company prices going to be the same as i know that i be lucky to afford this as at present now i need to pay over £100 a month just for gas and elec.

We live in a 2 bed end terrece hob uses gas and we have fitted new gas boiler fitted in march we have also fitted thermosates to all raidators what eles can we do to save paying so much.

System

im about to get a calor gas heater to try and control my gas this winter.

Magentasue

It seems as if you have been paying too little and need to pay more to clear the debt.

When was your meter read? Can you work out how much gas you use in a year? If you know that you can work out how much you need to pay every month.

If you pay £94.09, you can probably reduce your monthly payment, but you need to pay enough every month to cover the whole year's use.

If you have your annual use for gas and electricity in kwh, you can use comparison sites to see how much you can save. The only other way is to use less!

Magentasue

CHRISSYG wrote: »

im about to get a calor gas heater to try and control my gas this winter.

More expensive than CH, causes condensation and potentially dangerous. Use with care! There are posts about the symptoms to watch for on other threads if you do a forum search.

carol1977

No my debit will still be £64 per month as I am going to pay the £94 i owe I was paying the right amount I only knew about the one increase and that was just the one that happened I just feel double my DD is far too much

i used 17138.37 kwWh between 24 nov 07 and 13 oct 08 would this be enough to get a comparison

Magentasue

carol1977 wrote: »

No my debit will still be £64 per month as I am going to pay the £94 i owe I was paying the right amount I only knew about the one increase and that was just the one that happened I just feel double my DD is far too much

i used 17138.37 kwWh between 24 nov 07 and 13 oct 08 would this be enough to get a comparison

Well, that's over about 11 months - approx 18,700kwh a year. You could use that on a comparison site. Do you also have electricity readings?

Finally, make sure the two readings are both actual and not estimated.

carol1977

There sending me a bill out in nov so i got to wait to then to get wha they owe me.

tinky37

Insist they send you a bill now based on a meter read you give them - you should not have to wait until Nov

Magentasue

carol1977 wrote: »

There sending me a bill out in nov so i got to wait to then to get wha they owe me.

Hang on ... you owe them money for your gas but you are in credit for electricity?

The things is, you should be in credit at this time of the year as your bills are likely to be higer in winter.

Again, you need to work out your annual electricity consumption, cost it and divide by 12. Over the summer you should build up a credit that will be used up over the winter so that in six months time you will have either a small credit or small debit balance.

If you want it so that you are never in credit, you need quarterly billing - that said, there is no point in building up a huge credit balance - that suggests DD payments are set too high. In your case, this doesn't seem to be true. Have you taken you annual use into account?