Very large electricity bill - £73 per month?!

lmjohstone

Hi, this is a bit of a long story but if anyone could offer advice if they have/are in the same situation it would be appreciated.

I moved into a small one bedroomed end of terrace house with my boyfriend in July last year. We were told that there was electric central heating, and when we viewed the property there were storage heaters in each room.

Once we moved into the property I rang the electricity company to register and asked to set up a direct debit. I was told that I could only set up a direct debit for an estimated amount, say £50, but at the time my partner was unemployed and I wanted to be aware of what money was going where so asked to only be billed for what we were using.

Once it started to get colder we realised that there was only one storage heater in the whole house, and this was located at the bottom of the stairs, opposite the front door, so we decided not to use this at all. Instead we bought an electric convector heater (another one came with the house) we set one up in the bedroom and one in the sitting room, with each on a timer so that they were on for 30min in the morning and a couple of hours at night. I know this is an expensive way to heat the house but we didnt have much choice.

Right, we have been receiving bills ever since and paying them with no problem, but then about a month ago received a bill for £723.70 stating all our previous bills were estimated and asking for it to be paid immediately.

I shall now outline when all of our bills were, what they were for and the meter reading;

(When we moved in the readings were Day 90172, Night 80873)

August 2008
Actual Day 90303 (131 units)
Actual Night 80975 (102 units)
£28.80

October bill is missing, but according to November bill readings were;
Estimated Day 81089
Estimated Night 90557

February 2009
Actual Day 81243 (260 units)
Actual Night 90817 (154 units)
£71.04

May 2009
Estimated Day 91015 (198 units)
Estimated Night 81359 (116 units)
£53.57

August 2009
Actual Day 95180 (4165 units)
Actual Night 83670 (2311 units)

When we got this last £723.70 bill, I rang the electricity company and asked how we had used so much electricity in the the period from February to August. I was told that all our bills have been estimed, as a reading was taken in February but was incorrect so an estimated bill was issued (it says actual reading on the bill), and that we are using £73 of electricity per month on average.

My partner rang two days later after speaking to the CAB to discuss the bill. He had a long discussion with a representative who said that shorting out and power cuts may "be a factor" in draining electricity, especially if neighbours have high bills or power cuts/surges (when we first moved in we had regular power cuts for hours on end and one of our neighbours has a £250 bill per quarter who also notices power surges during the day). My partner was told to take daily meter readings for a week to check if the meter was faulty, and explained the schedule for what would happen if it was wrong. He was told again that all bills are estimated and February was a false reading.

He then took daily readings which showed we are using 5 day units and 6 night units per day.

He rang them back after a week to give them the readings and was told that according to their readings, we are using 12 day units a day but since August we have used 5 day units per day. He was also told that although the February bill says Actual, it was actually Estimated. He was then told that power cuts and surges would have no bearing on our meter.

He took another reading today, which shows that we have used 97 Day units and 98 Night units in the last month. Which works out as £14.91 a month

Added to this I have been looking on price comparison sites and for the usage that they are claiming we have used our electgricity company quote £440, while they are charging us £1018.74 for it (including the money we have already paid)

I know we should have been checking the meter readings ever quarter, but were happy that ever other quarter we were receiving a bill based on actual readings so nothing like this would come out of the blue.

My partner rang again last week to complain about this bill set up, as we were not informed that the meter reading was incorrect so we were receiving an estimated bill, and the gentleman he spoke to has given us a £20 credit to apologise, but we are now waiting on a call from a Manager.

I just wanted to see if anyone had been in the same position as us, and what the outcome was. I dont want any sarcastic comments about how we should have been checking the bills, unfortuantely for us we believed them when they said every other bill was based on actual readings.

Thanks, and well done if you have made it to the end!

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Well firstly the CAB person is talking rubbish. 'Shorts' don't drain energy. You cannot 'destroy' energy - it manifests itself as heat.

I am not quite sure from your post the basis of your complaint; High consumption or estimated bills?

In the year from August 2008 you have used a total of 7,572kWh for heating and normal electrical use.

That is very low consumption indeed, particularly when you use a convector heater for a large part of your heating.

Taking meter readings in Sept is useless as a guide to annual consumption - you could well use 3 or 4 times more electricity heating in January.

Bear in mind that the average UK consumption is 20,500kWh gas and 3,300kWh electricity and pays around £1300 a year; and Electrical heating is far more expensive than gas.

So you certainly have no complaints about high consumption or high costs, in fact it is one of the lowest annual consumption for an all electric house that has been reported on this forum.

When you have an Economy 7 tariff you pay far more for your daytime units.

Whoever told you that you would pay £440 for 4,877kWh daytime electricity and 2695kWh night time electricity is talking absolute rubbish.

Although if you are paying £1018.74 for that consumption, you are certainly paying a lot more than you need to - what Company is this with - and what area.

If your complaint is about estimated bills - and then a big 'catch up' bill - as you state you should have checked your bills and notified the company of the correct readings.

lmjohstone

Hi, sorry, but you seem to have got the wrong end of the stick, or just not read my orgiginal post properly.

The company in question is Southern Electric and we live in Reading, and it was a person what SE that said that short cuts could be draining our energy.

Our issue is that during the winter months, we have been billed for a lot less energy than in the summer months. According to the bills we have received, it is from February to August that we have used te majority of the electricity. We also have an issue with SE turning round now and saying that our bill in February was not an actual bill, but an estimated one, when we have it written on paper that it is actual.

Southern Electric have mis-sold this electricity to us. If I bought a car for a grand, and then 6 months later the previous owner came back to me and said the car was actually worth 3 grand so please can I pay the extra 2 grand, I wouldnt pay them.

We also used a price comparison site for the estimate of £440, which was a quote from Southern Electric. We even asked a representative at SE about this large difference in prices, and they could not explain why it was.

We get told a different story every time we speak to Southern Electric, which makes us mistrust what they say to us. Needless to say once this has been sorted out, we will be changing electricity company.

NeverInDebt

This looks like you fallen for the trap of low direct debts to entice you in, many people fall for this. The other mistake you made is not submitting regularly readings so as not to get into too much debt or credit

Using electricity for heat is far more expensive that using gas not sure how much more for storage heaters but certainly gas is cheaper to use to heat your property than electric

slummymummyof3

I don't understand why there were storage heaters in each room and then only one??? Are you in rented? Ask the landlord where they are.

Convector heaters are probably not the most economic way of heating your flat - have you considered portable gas heaters? If you don't buy a gas bottle - you have no heat - you have no bill, as you have to pay for the bottle up front. You may find condensation a problem with portable gas heaters though.

I would be tempted to take meter readings daily for the forseeable future and look at your general consumption - get an energy owl (or similar to monitor your general useage)

Cardew

Well whoever told you 'shorts' or 'surges' were the reason for high consumption is talking through his hat.

In any case your consumption is very low, and what you are paying is low.

The sole aim of Comparison website and call centres is to get you to switch so they get their commission. So, as said above, you have been enticed to switch by someone deliberately underestimating a direct debit.

If you use xxkWh you pay for that amount of electricity; end of story.

lmjohstone

Cardew wrote: »

Well whoever told you 'shorts' or 'surges' were the reason for high consumption is talking through his hat.

In any case your consumption is very low, and what you are paying is low.

The sole aim of Comparison website and call centres is to get you to switch so they get their commission. So, as said above, you have been enticed to switch by someone deliberately underestimating a direct debit.

If you use xxkWh you pay for that amount of electricity; end of story.

A representative of Southern Electric told us surges and shorts could cause the meter to jump, which is one in a long line of complaints we have - we are told different things every time we call them.

Yes our consumption is low - we are rarely in the house, but what we are paying isnt low - over £1000 for a year?!

I havent been enticed to switch by a comparison site, I am stuck dealing with Southern Electric until this is sorted out, who themselves have told us in one of our many calls that our bill is extremely high and shouldnt be based on our readings.

And as for your last comment - that is exactly my point - we havent used this amount of electricity. Every time we ask for a breakdown to show where we have used all this electricty, SE say they cannot do this.

I have to say, I came on here looking for some help, but you dont actually listen to the issue, you just spout rubbish and blame us, just like you have to other people on this site looking for advice.

DVardysShadow

lmjohstone wrote: »

A representative of Southern Electric told us surges and shorts could cause the meter to jump, which is one in a long line of complaints we have - we are told different things every time we call them.

Yes our consumption is low - we are rarely in the house, but what we are paying isnt low - over £1000 for a year?!

I havent been enticed to switch by a comparison site, I am stuck dealing with Southern Electric until this is sorted out, who themselves have told us in one of our many calls that our bill is extremely high and shouldnt be based on our readings.

And as for your last comment - that is exactly my point - we havent used this amount of electricity. Every time we ask for a breakdown to show where we have used all this electricty, SE say they cannot do this.

I have to say, I came on here looking for some help, but you dont actually listen to the issue, you just spout rubbish and blame us, just like you have to other people on this site looking for advice.

Put your toys back. Cardew only spouts rubbish about Direct Debits, most of the rest of the time he is sound. And be fair, when I read about the shorts and surges affecting the meter, I thought you meant the CAB told you this.

Now, tell us. The readings you have given go up and down and the night and day seem to swap. Have you transcribed them correctly from your bill?

neas

The meter is an electrical device catered towards sinmply measuring throughput of engery.

In general.. as you can expect they are damn well pretty accurate... and the new ones have built in test to detect errors i guess.

Is there a chance the meter is faulty? maybe... but more like 0.1% chance.

As others have pointed out your usage isnt that large compared to normal heating.

I'd give a similar example with my flat at the moment... we use gas for heating but the relationship of usage still stands.

We moved in 7 months ago.. and in that time we have used 2000 kwhs. In a Year we use 6000 Kwhs. so in the next 5 months we will use 2/3 of our annual allowance over winter.

Your daily usage now will be considerably less if you dont need to use the heaters, just as our gas is considerably less during summer months. Its all the more worse for electrical heaters though.


For example if you have 2 1000 watt (1 Kilowatt each) heaters running for 1 hour. That will cause you to use up 2 electricty units there per day.

You state that both are coming on fro 2.5 hours a day in winter. Thats gonna cost you 5 electricity units there purely from the heaters. And the Colder it gets generally these things requrie more electricity to heat up etc.


So in winter you had your usual allowance now... and about 5-7 extra units worth.

Ofc.... if your heaters are 2kwh heaters... then you can double that usage... to 10-14 units extra a day when you use them for 2.5 hours.


If they were 2 kwh heaters (which prob would need to be to heat a largish flat between them)... then i can see you using up to 18-19 units a day in winter and in summer 5-7 units a day. I use 7 units in my flat per day without heating for example.

neas

Perhaps you should take alook at the heaters and see how bad they are.... They really are a really really expensive way of heating a flat... even when compared to gas.

neas

Your figures also dont add up.. your night usagfe 2000 kwh... is the same as my usage for a year... thats usually after like 12 midnight isnt it? That boost is surely down to the heaters lol

Oh and I pay 45 quid a month same sized flat for gas/elec.... your bill could be reduced down to about 55 quid or so with a better tariff... so all in all i think that usage is realistic as elec is expensive to use as heat.