Southern Electric Bills HELP

debasur

Hi everyone.

Got my Gas and Electric bills this morning and oh my God I am not very happy.
I moved into my new house April, and the Electric bill is for 22 April to 20 Oct and is £201.
The Gas is from 16 July to 13Oct and is £303.66.Seems very high for the period.
Both bills are from a reading of the meter.
Now my house is a not very big 3 bed semi, with only myself and my girlfriend living there and we both are out at work everyday.the heating is gas , and gas cooker with 8 radiators but 3 are turned off due to not using that room.
And obviously over the last few months we havent barely used the heating due to summertime (well what summer we had).
My gas price on the bill says from july to august 4354 kwh @2.560pence , and aug to oct [EMAIL="5442kwh@3.370pence"]5442kwh@3.370pence[/EMAIL].
Electric is 3600units @12.59pence.
I looked on Uswitch and the best deal it tells me was with Npower but my current price for units is cheaper so am i better off staying as i am?
How can this bill be so big for gas when we hardly use it.
Someone told me that the best way to have your water heated is to keep it on constant hot water as it only tops up the heat,doesnt have to keep heating a full tank all the time -is that right?
Any advice people ?
Have i got a faulty meter?

Magentasue

You say that you hardly use gas and then go on to ask about constant hot water. To me, these are mutually exclusive - if you're heating water all day, you're using gas all day (albeit on and off).

I would think the high gas bill is due to heating your water for too long - 30mins twice a day should be OK. Try it and see - if you need more hot water, adjust by 10 minutes a time until you get it right.

Elrctricity looks OK.

Best way to make comparisons is to work out your annual use in kwh rather than £.

Premier_2

debasur wrote:

...I looked on Uswitch and the best deal it tells me was with Npower but my current price for units is cheaper so am i better off staying as i am?...

Unit price is only part of the story. You then need to take into consideration all the various discounts the different suppliers offer to arrive at the actual cost.

The comparison sites try to take account of these. Try checking with a few of the other sites and see if you get similar results. This is particularly important when nPower is recommended as their 'sculpting' can cause some erroneous results.

debasur

thanks for the replies.

I am going to try the timed hot water and keep a log of the units used/meter readings per day to see what consumption i use.
Still feel £100 a month is very high for our situation.

Kavanne

Do you make sure the heating is off during the day when you're out?

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

I know its of no use to you at the moment , but Southern gas/electric will provide you with a free monitor(look on their website) -worth £40 so you can see what appliances are using the most electicity-they also give you hints n tips on reducing your usage -also if you can reduce your bill by 20% they will deduct £25 off of your bill and if you reduce by 10% you get £15 off

It doesn't help with your gas bill -but every little helps

Premier_2

MRSMCAWBER wrote: »

Hi there

I know its of no use to you at the moment , but Southern gas/electric will provide you with a free monitor(look on their website) -worth £40 so you can see what appliances are using the most electicity-they also give you hints n tips on reducing your usage -also if you can reduce your bill by 20% they will deduct £25 off of your bill and if you reduce by 10% you get £15 off

It doesn't help with your gas bill -but every little helps

I think it's only free if you sign up to their 'better plan' tariff which for me costs more than £40 per year extra.

Or you can just buy the device for £33.81 delivered
https://www.ecogadgetshop.co.uk/ProductDetails.aspx?ProductCode=Current%20Cost%20Device%20(TEST)&Category=1

MRSMCAWBER

Hi there

No, my mum rang them and checked after I told her about it.. told her to make sure that there was no charge ..she has her meter and is watching what everything uses :rotfl: and now my sister has swapped to them and my brother is just about to swap too -as they are cheaper than their usual provider:D

Magentasue

I think Premier is saying you have to change to the Betterplan tariff, which may work out more expensive rather than there being a charge. Or, MrsM, are you saying your mum got one without changing tariff? Someone I work with tried this and was told she had to switch to Betterplan to get the free monitor.

Vestra

You have to change to the betterplan "tariff" but it's not really a tariff but an add-on, so it doesn't affect the unit rate, there are several other add-ons but the only one that cost extra is the RSPB one.

Premier_2

Ah, that's possibly correct.

I'm actually with Ebico, but I can usually access any offers, freebies, etc. otherwise exclusively available to SSE customers.

However, as Ebico are not actually part of SSE, then I don't think they can add BetterPlan to an Ebico Equipower tariff, hence why I would be worse off switching to BetterPlan. I would have to transfer to an SSE tariff which costs more than Ebico.