High BG Electricity Bills !!!

Frances17

Please can someone advise what we can do?? (Please bear with us as this is a rather “longwinded” email but am I trying to give you the full picture!)

My partner and I are living in a one bedroom, end terraced house. No children yet (expecting our first child end of July!).

By March 2009, we had fallen behind with paying our Electricity bill yet on speaking to a representative on 10 March, we had managed to get our bill down to £300 debit and provided a meter reading 19598. We agreed to pay £56 FORTNIGHTLY to catch up with arrears.

We continued to pay £56 FORTNIGHTLY from 27 March and to our horror a week last Thursday we checked our bill on-line and it had shot back up to £546.24 debit! We provided another meter reading which was higher than their estimated usage and when we checked our account online again on Friday, it had further increased to £821.00! I can understand our bills being higher for the winter months but even then in a small one bedroom terraced house we couldn’t surely be using that much electricity, could we?

I spoke to British Gas and they asked what appliances we were using, and when I mentioned we had been using a tumble dryer he said it would most likely be the tumble dryer or due to a faulty electrical appliance!! However, we use the tumble dryer occasionally like any other household. We do not have central heating, we have an immersion heater (which I realise are not energy efficient) and we had been using a storage heater as our gas fire is broken. We were advised that if they were to send an engineer out to check whether the meter was faulty this would cost £70. How could we afford an engineer to visit when already £800+ in debit. He advised us to keep a diary of the meter readings which I am doing and so far after a wash cycle, the meter moved up one unit, and for a 30 min cycle on the tumble dryer, again the meter has moved up one unit. To-date from starting the diary last Sunday, we have used 65 units day rate and 10 units night rate. I started the reading Sunday pm and obviously it is lunch time but I calculated 65 units x 52 for number of weeks to get 3380 kWh as an average pa, but of course this does not include the winter months in our yearly consumption. From calculating our bills, our electricity kWh usage over the past 9 months, i.e. Oct to June, which is when our electricity consumption began to double/trebble compared to last year’s graph indicator is, 10,865 kWh.

We really don't know what to do, we have emailed a complaint to British Gas and they simply emailed back asking if we have a night storage heater and if not that we would be better on a standard tariff and not Economy 7. However, on the bills that I printed off, it states "you're signed up to our Standard Tariff..".. so firstly I am confused about that..

The other part of the email stated that our electricity bills are so high because we are carrying forward a high debit each time, but surely it is more is do with us being charged from Oct 08 to Jan 09, £411.39 of electricity and from Jan 09 to Apr 09 £553.82 of electricity. How is this possible, according to Ofgem and other websites "the average UK household consumes 3300 kWh electricity p.a!!" We are not even an average household, we are two people living in a small one bedroom house, 2 tvs, a computer, a kettle, fridge, tumble dryer, (no longer using storage heater and haven't been for some time) fridge freezer and immersion heater!

Could someone please advise what we can do as we cannot afford to pay £95.00 per fortnight which is what British Gas have now instructed us to do to cover this ridiculous electricity consumption?

Magentasue

The average of 3300kwh assumes gas for heating and water. You have used an immersion heater and storage heater, both meter spinners.

You need to check that you are paying less for your night units on your bill. If you are, you're on Econ 7. To reduce your usage, go for economy wash programmes, energy saving bulbs and heat the minimum amount of water you need (maybe none at all if you have an electric shower). Do not use tumble dryer. You can't afford it. Use an airer and an open window or, better still, line dry. Storage heater will rocket your bills again in the winter. Get gas fire sorted. If you can avoid using storage heater, you'd be better off getting rid of Econ 7.

If you can't afford to repay what you owe, a prepayment meter may be your only option.

Rolandtheroadie

I'd pay the £70. I'm sure it'll be claimable back if they're proved in the wrong.
You'd have to be drying your socks one at a time to use that much electricity.

Magentasue

scotsman4th wrote: »

I'd pay the £70. I'm sure it'll be claimable back if they're proved in the wrong.
You'd have to be drying your socks one at a time to use that much electricity.

Are you saying that the OP cannot be using 75kwh a week using an immersion heater and a tumble dryer?

OP - please don't throw away £70 to have your meter checked - it's very unlikely you'll get it back based on what you've said in your post

Rikki

Frances17 wrote: »

We really don't know what to do, we have emailed a complaint to British Gas and they simply emailed back asking if we have a night storage heater and if not that we would be better on a standard tariff and not Economy 7. However, on the bills that I printed off, it states "you're signed up to our Standard Tariff..".. so firstly I am confused about that..

You need to look at your bills and check you are on Economy 7. You should have night and day time readings. You should be on Economy 7 if you use storage heaters!
If you are on a Standard Tariff you need to get back in touch with them and inform them of the storage heaters and ask why you are not on the appropriate Tariff. This would have lead to the high bills.

If it is confirmed you are on the right tariff you need to look at ways of cutting back.

Frances17

Thanks for your replies.

You've mentioned to check the tarrif and day/night rates. Well, looking back at the bills, we are paying 0.05p per kWh night rate. We are paying between 0.30p to 0.32p per kWh day rate? Can this be right? I thought the average day rate was 0.03p per kWh?

Please advise?

Magentasue

You should be paying, approximately, per kwh

Elec night - 5p
Elec day - 12p - 15p
Gas - 3p - 4p

KimYeovil

Magentasue wrote: »

You should be paying, approximately, per kwh

Elec night - 5p
Elec day - 12p - 15p
Gas - 3p - 4p

Plus 25-35p for the Tier 1 day units, which is where the OP gets the 30-32p from.

There is no way a fridge and one and a half hour's immersion heating will cost 65 units per day - 6.3 units per day would be more normal. Plus 2 or 3 for tv and lighting plus 2 or 3 on washdays. You should not be registering more than 10 or 15 units per day.

Are you sure you are still using 65 units without the heating? When you were using the heaters, were they correctly set up as night-storage or were you using day-time heating?

Magentasue

I seem to be following you, kim. I thought the 65 units day rate referred to the number of (daytime) kwh used since last Sunday.

KimYeovil

Frances17 wrote: »

You've mentioned to check the tarrif and day/night rates. Well, looking back at the bills, we are paying 0.05p per kWh night rate. We are paying between 0.30p to 0.32p per kWh day rate? Can this be right? I thought the average day rate was 0.03p per kWh?

(30p or £0.30 per kWh. Not 0.30p! Are you sure you're using 65 units and not just 6.5 units?)

Frances17

We have been on this tariff for years so why would all of a sudden our electricity consumption have trebled in the last 9 months? Especially for the first time we have actually used a night storage heater which is meant to benefit Eco 7 users?

Can we surely have used approx 10,800 kWh (please see first email for exact number) in 9 months?