£170 electric bill for 1 month usage?!! - HELP!

DotNetter

Hi all,

I'm with British Gas on their fixed 2011 tariff which equates to 12p per unit.

My bill seems to be over £100 every month...not quater...month!

I have 3 children (9yrs, 7yrs 10months) and my wife.

We live in a 3bed semi (it was a 2 bed but we split a room down when the baby came along so it's a very small 3 bed).

We have all energy saving light bulbs. We have a plasma tv which I understand is cheaper than a CRT-based tv. We have the usual sky box, laptop, wii and that's about it.

We have a conservatory which we heat with oil filled heaters off the mains however having got the British Gas Energy Smart monitors about 2months ago we realise how much these things cost and now just don't use the coservatory when it's too cold (haven't been out there for weeks!).

We have solid-fuel central heating with the central heating pump switched on 24hrs a day like most people. We also have an imersion heater which provides our hot water which is constantly on (again, we've spoken to friends and they have the same setup).

Friends that we've asked with same size families and houses seem to spend almost half of what we spend (about £60 a month or £180 a quarter).

My bill came in today and although it was estimate it still said it was £170 for 21st January - 22Feb!!!!!!!! I was updating the meter reading constantly until about 2 weeks ago so I can't see it being that far out.

since having the Energy Monitor from BG we've tried turning everything off when we're not using it include things that would normally sit there on standby but we just can't get the usage below an average of £3 a day which equates to approx £90 a month - and that's a real struggle.

All of our friends have said there must be a fault somewhere, has anyone seen this before or got any suggestions? I've spoken to BG about it but they just said that if the meter was faulty it would act 'differently' rather than consistently giving the same readings each month?

Cheers,


Wayne

Andy_WSM

DotNetter wrote: »

My bill came in today and although it was estimate it still said it was £170 for 21st January - 22Feb!!!!!!!! I was updating the meter reading constantly until about 2 weeks ago so I can't see it being that far out.

Hi Wayne. You might have been providing them with readings, but did they use these to generate the bills?

You need to check your actual consumption figures on the bill to see if they match the readings you gave them.

It seems likely to me that this is a catch up bill and £170 is not really a months consumption at all. £100 a month, your estimate, seems much more realistic from what you have posted.

JennyR68

Your tariff seems quite high, have you checked comparison sites for a better deal?

DotNetter

JennyR68 wrote: »

Your tariff seems quite high, have you checked comparison sites for a better deal?

I thought it was a good tariff and I couldn't find anything better via comparison sites?

Mrs_Thrify

Hi Wayne, £170 or £90 a month is a big diffrence for electric, you need to submit readings on line often to keep an eye on the bills. I have started doing this weekly.

Most people do NOT have CH on 24 hours, mine is on for 4 hours a day.
By not heating the conservatory will help save too, could you not move the fire into the sitting room?

Fuel is going up all the time and people that notice like us have to become more thrifty and turn things off.

JimmyTheWig

I think this can be broken down into two questions...
1. Why was this one bill for £170 when others are for not much more than £100?
2. Why are most bills £100 when friends pay £60?

1. I agree with Andy that this £170 isn't necessarily 1 month's comsumption. The bill should be reasonably clear what it is for. Post up the figures if you want someone to have a look for you.

2. If you are struggling to keep to £3 a day according to the Energy Monitor, then £100 a month bills are likely. My guess is that the imersion heater is the reason that your usage is higher than other people.
Am I right in thinking that with the Energy Monitor you can see how much electric you are using at any one time? If so, turn everything off. Does that show you using nothing? If not, you've forgotten something! Then turn things on one at a time and see what is using the most.
It might be that you've got your hot water thermostat turned up higher than other people.
It might be that the thermostat has broken.
It might be that your hot water tank isn't as well insulated as your friends'.

It might be, of course, that your friends have remembered their bills from a few years ago when prices were lower!
It might be, as Jenny suggests, that you are paying more per unit than your friends.

jennifer56

Have a look at this web site

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Easy-ways-to-stop-wasting-energy/Frequently-Asked-Questions

Jennifer

DotNetter

julie_d wrote: »

Hi Wayne, £170 or £90 a month is a big diffrence for electric, you need to submit readings on line often to keep an eye on the bills. I have started doing this weekly.

Most people do NOT have CH on 24 hours, mine is on for 4 hours a day.
By not heating the conservatory will help save too, could you not move the fire into the sitting room?

Fuel is going up all the time and people that notice like us have to become more thrifty and turn things off.

Here ya go:

21 Jan 2010 - estimated 52445
20 Feb 2010 - estimated 53950
= 1505.0 kWh used over 31 days
First 42 kWh x 24.111 p = £10.13
Next 1463 kWh x 11.443 p = £167.41

Total cost of electricity used £ 177.54


I will check the reading when I get home but I don't think it will be that far out. It also doesn't appear to be a catch-up.

In response to the other points made in other responses...

1 of our friends are on PAYG key meter and they top up weekly and they told me the most they've ever topped up was £14 in a week. They don't have kids however their house is bigger and the husband is a farmer and so the constantly have the washing machine and tumble dryer on to keep up with his work-wear (we have used our tumble dryer 3 times in the last month to try and keep costs down!).

I will check what the thermostat is set to; any ideas what it should be set at or how to determine if it is broken?

The imersion heater has insulation around it, granted I don't know if it is better/worse than our friends.

I have also asked some of the guys in the office now and 1 guy who has the same size family as me says that he generally uses about £160 a quarter and that's with someone at home 7 days a week (his kids are all pre-school age and his wife doesn't work).

My wife works 3 days a week so there is nobody home and nothing electrical on for 3 out of 7 days during the day.

Hope this helps.

Regards,


Wayne

Antispam

DotNetter links are forbidden in signatures unless its a charity link. Please remove it, thanks

DotNetter

Antispam wrote: »

DotNetter links are forbidden in signatures unless its a charity link

Really? It's been like that for about 3 months and nobody has said anything about it??

It's just a link to my blog to help others on the Debt Management Plan thread who have questions about the whole process.

I'll get clarification and remove if needed.

Thankyou.

Regards,


Wayne

savemoney

Plasma I doubt uses less energy than a crt, if anything it uses more, lcd is less especially lcd led backlight