Gas DD and Bill

leeegglestone

I moved house a month or so ago and signed up to existing suppliers British Gas for both Fuels.

I have since put in the motion of Switching however my initial DDs for my new supplier were based on what British gas had set up for me

£13 for Electric
£47 for Gas

I have just had my First Gas Bill, which is £18

So why have they set me up at £47, they dont normally try and predict your useage in a High Use Time of Year do they.

Im concerned as if they mixed figures up, these will mean my new suppliers DDs will be way out

Cardew

"they dont normally try and predict your useage in a High Use Time of Year do they."

They normally try to predict your annual consumption and divide this by 12 to get your monthly DD.

You either build up a credit during the summer which is rapidly reduced during the winter. Or you build up a debit balance over the winter which is reduced in the summer. I can have an outstanding bill of £200 in April, yet be in credit by October.

By the way if you have only been in the house a month, the bill could be for a week or 2 - look at the dates. Also check if the latest meter reading is estimated - usually denoted by an 'E' after the reading. I assume you did get an actual reading when you moved in?

leeegglestone

yes i got an actual meter reading when I moved in.

This £18 is 5th may -23rd may.
start reading 5th - 5743
current reading 23rd may - 5759

It just seems strange that my DD is £47 yet this Bill is £18. I will end up lightyears in Credit

It may get sorted out with my new supplier, once i start providing regular Meter Readings

Cardew

The £18 is for 18 days so £30 a month is what you are using now - with presumably no heating. So assuming you use the same(£1 a day) in July, Aug and Sept you will be approx £50-60 in credit by then - even assuming you don't need heating in Sept, which is hardly 'light years'!. So its a pretty fair bet that you will be well in debit by the end of the winter.
If its any guide I use well over 4 times as much gas in the winter for heating and hot water as I do for hot water in the summer. I used gas worth £22 last month(June) and gas worth £117 last January and my DD is £66.50.

Obviously you may not use as much for heating, depending on the size of your house and your useage.

If they reduced your DD to, say, £30 that wouldn't even cover your hot water(and cooking?) so your debt would be huge after a year. If fact you may well find a DD of £47 is insuficient.

gzed

In your position I would reduced my DD to something that sounds more realistic. When the next few bills come along you can readjust them to your liking. Soon enough they'll send you a letter letting you know that your consumption is greater than you planned and then you can increase you DD. They don't want to supply your energy for free. There is no need to give your money to them before the winter.

I switched to southern electric a couple of year ago and from the start told them how much I wanted to pay (nota: I knew what my consumption was). My gas DD went up after the first year due to general price rising up but as it was overestimated (as they always do) I rang them up to adjuts it correctly to my real consumption. They were very undestanding.

Cardew

gzed wrote:

). My gas DD went up after the first year due to general price rising up but as it was overestimated (as they always do) I rang them up to adjuts it correctly to my real consumption. They were very undestanding.

If you read through scores of posts in this forum you will find that in the vast majority of cases the DD are underestimated and there are complaints that a huge debit balance has been run up.

As I explained above it seems to me that £47 is also an underestimate. If anyone is seriously worried about temporarily getting £50 in credit they should opt out of DD payment and pay quarterly.

MarkyMarkD

But then it will cost them more, as DD is the cheapest payment method.

Better to tolerate temporary credits/debits on your bill, but sort them out each year (AND keep an eye on the balance and set funds aside, if you owe them money).

Cardew

MarkyMarkD wrote:

But then it will cost them more, as DD is the cheapest payment method.

Better to tolerate temporary credits/debits on your bill, but sort them out each year (AND keep an eye on the balance and set funds aside, if you owe them money).

Absolutely correct in both respects.

The point I was making is that people seem to feel that a temporary credit balance of £50 is hugely unjust and they are losing a fortune in lost interest.

Yet if they get an effective 'interest free' loan by having a debit balance of hundreds of pounds they complain even more!

MarkyMarkD

I know what you mean. I'd rather run a permanent deficit on this sort of payment plan, but it seems (to me) that the companies are getting smarter.

I worked up a nice deficit with npower, but within 6 months they have upped the payments to clear the deficit as well as to cover their increased prices. Doubtless they'll "forget" to reduce my DD when the deficit has been cleared - but I won't!