Huge British Gas Electricty Bill - How on Earth?

voorheves

At the end of August, my electricty bill came and it seemed exceptionally high - we usually pay around £150 - £200 mark and it had somehow jumped to £304! I thought, one off, maybe we did use some stuff and didn't think much of it.
Two days ago my new bill arrives and it's even higher - £329! I could not believe my eyes!
The breakdown was as below; now the worrying and weird thing is it's our consumption that seems to have gone up! Nearly by a 1000 kwt's. There's only me and my younger son living in the house and to top that we have had no new electronics, no technology, etc, etc. The house is quite small and my son does have an electric heater but he had that last year, too and the bill never seemed to jump so madly!?
I called British Gas and all they could offer me was a meter monitor which I ended up accepting just as a starting move. But what else can I do to check what might be the problem because rationale suggests that in order to be able to consume all this electric we'd have to be quite literally eating it.

Voor
27015
16 Dec 2007
We read your meter 27978
17 Jan 2008
We estimated your meter reading 963.0 Kilowatt hours Over 33 days First 81 kwh
at 14.788 pence

Next 882 kwh
at 7.859 pence

11.98
69.32
27978
18 Jan 2008
We estimated your meter reading 29316
07 Mar 2008
We read your meter 1338.0 Kilowatt hours Over 50 days First 68 kwh
at 21.599 pence

Next 1270 kwh
at 9.860 pence

14.69
125.22

Magentasue

I'm being lazy here, but I can't make sense of your figures.

What is your meter reading today? If you subtract 27978 (meter reading one year ago), how many kwh have you used in a year?

As soon as you said the words 'electric heater', your bills looked reasonable to me.

voorheves

Let me demonstrate what I mean - last year - December 2007, same house, same bloody heater and the figures we as follows:
15 September - 15 December - 1967 Kilowatt used over 91 days
And this year:
11 September - 05 December - 2741 Kilowatt used over 86 days

There's been no additions to the house - everything here is as was exactly a year ago including the ceramic heater - why the jump? how the jump? the house is a small two bedroom flat.
Subtracting the recent reading from a year ago exactly we've used 9000 kwt's year to year.
Voor

voorheves

Just a small addition - looking at 2006 - 2007 December to December - we only used 6000 kwt's - I don't understand where the extra 3000 kwt are coming from considering we have not changed anything in the house.

Magentasue

More hot water? Heater on longer? Fridge or freezer less effieient that they used to me? More washing? More tumble drying?

All electric is expensive - I know that doesn't explain the increase of 10kwh a day over the winter period this year and last. But more hot water, a couple hours more heating, another wash etc all add up.

paceinternet

Those numbers in your first post add up to your bill of £304 for 16 Dec 2007 to 7 Mar 2008 when you probabaly used about 2899 kwh for 13 weeks.

So, check your meter readings over the next few days every 24 hours at the same time every day and confirm you are using about 33 kwh per day.

Then maybe check the readings when the heaters start and stop to get an idea of what they are using.

If you have electric immersion water heating try using it manually and see what that is using. Sometimes a malfunctioning thermostat can keep it on continuously.

Turn a few things off and again see how the meter slows down.

Unfortunately, 33 kwh per day at this time of year for an all electric house is probabaly reasonable.

voorheves

That's the clinch, it's not all electric house - it's a single heater for one room - the rest of the house is central gas.

Voor

Magentasue

In that case, it's very high. I'd get rid of the heater sharpish and take daily readings. The meter monitor will be helpful as you'll be able to see what's happening when everything is off and how you achieve your 33kwh.

espresso

voorheves wrote: »

That's the clinch, it's not all electric house - it's a single heater for one room - the rest of the house is central gas.

Voor

So why are you using electricity for heating then, when it's about four times more expensive when compared to gas per kWh?

voorheves

Well my son gets remarkably cold during the winter months, so I like having an extra source of heat in his room during the winter months - his rooms seems to get the coldest!
But I've had this single ceramic heater for over 2 years so how on earth can it impact the bill like that now?

I'll start taking readings today.

Voor

Magentasue

voorheves wrote: »

Well my son gets remarkably cold during the winter months, so I like having an extra source of heat in his room during the winter months - his rooms seems to get the coldest!
But I've had this single ceramic heater for over 2 years so how on earth can it impact the bill like that now?

I'll start taking readings today.

Voor

Maybe more cost effective to have a larger radiator in your son's room?