Horrendous Gas Bill -Advice and check my owrkings please

NVRAM

Hey guys,

Recently moved home just before Xmas.
Currently renting from a housing association.
At the point of move the housing association said all we needed to do was await for the first bills.

Well theyve came and Im pretty annoyed, we've been placed on the most expensive gas plan I think I've ever seen.

Theres 3 of usliving here, me the missus and one of our mates.
My mate normally spent about £20 p/m on gas, Me and the missus were spending £15 p/m (very low gas useage at our old place)

We were expecting maybe £50 p/m as this is a larger property with proper heating and of course there beign 3 of us. The CH is gas and that hobs in the kitchen thats about it. Shower is electric.

The bill we have been sent is £300 for 3 month! :eek:
I've spoken to scottish power and finally managed to extract from them the full info on the current bill... Heres the breakdown:

02/12/09 - 10/03/10
Gas: 526 Units
Electric: 593 Units

Electricity Bill comes in at £85.04 which for 3 month of use we all feel is acceptable.
Gas bill comes in at a whopping £283.80 !!

Which of course we all feel is vastly innapproapriate (sp).
The plan info is as follows:

Standard:
Standing charge 18.56p p/day
Unit 10.816/unit
526 Units
£56.89 for units

Dec 02 - 31 = 29 Days
Jan 01 - 31 = 31 Days
Feb 01 - 28 = 28 Days
Mar 01 - 10 = 10 Days
98 Days in total
£18.21 STANDING CHARGES

Now keeping in mind that we never received ny form of communication from Scottish Power until a silly bill, we never requested utilities from them, never received a welcome pack and AFAIK the housing assoc gave all of our details to them. I have been informed of their other plans now by a member of their staff which is Online Energy Saver 9 (Tied til Apr 2011).
Breakdown as follows:

1st 225 Units/qtr @Primary
Primary: 13.125/unit
Secondary: 8.531 /unit

526 Units

225 @ 1st - £29.53
301 @ 2nd - £25.67

From that you can see a ridiculous saving.
I have been given the number for the Change of Tenancy Complaints team which I will be calling later today when they return from training. Keeping full documentation of all calls made including everything said and figures given, Extension numbers when I can.

Are there any issues ofther than the ones that I've pointed out that I should bring up?
Also once you've included VAT do my calculations come across as correct?

Thanks in advance for any help guys, some of you are way more on the ball on all this stuff than me

rsykes2000

One things that leaps out is your standing charge figure. ~100 days at 18p a day is 18 quid, not 180 quid...

NVRAM

lol taken onboard xD

I Can't work out where the huge charges are coming into it then

notbritishgas

Your figures do not seem to add up.
Firstly you do not appear to have converted your gas units into KWh, we need to know the type of meter you have to do this for you.
Secondly the rates you quote are much too high for gas, are you sure you have not put in the electric rates, especially as 225 at the primary rate is more likely to be the electric version.
Lastly if the 3 months were in the winter period and you used the central heating quite a lot then you could expect a bill of about £20 a week.

notbritishgas

NVRAM wrote: »

Hey guys,

Recently moved home just before Xmas.
Currently renting from a housing association.
At the point of move the housing association said all we needed to do was await for the first bills.

Well theyve came and Im pretty annoyed, we've been placed on the most expensive gas plan I think I've ever seen.

Theres 3 of usliving here, me the missus and one of our mates.
My mate normally spent about £20 p/m on gas, Me and the missus were spending £15 p/m (very low gas useage at our old place)

We were expecting maybe £50 p/m as this is a larger property with proper heating and of course there beign 3 of us. The CH is gas and that hobs in the kitchen thats about it. Shower is electric.

The bill we have been sent is £300 for 3 month! :eek:
I've spoken to scottish power and finally managed to extract from them the full info on the current bill... Heres the breakdown:

02/12/09 - 10/03/10
Gas: 526 Units
Electric: 593 Units

Electricity Bill comes in at £85.04 which for 3 month of use we all feel is acceptable.
Gas bill comes in at a whopping £283.80 !!

Which of course we all feel is vastly innapproapriate (sp).
The plan info is as follows:

Standard:
Standing charge 18.56p p/day
Unit 10.816/unit
526 Units
£56.89 for units

Dec 02 - 31 = 29 Days
Jan 01 - 31 = 31 Days
Feb 01 - 28 = 28 Days
Mar 01 - 10 = 10 Days
98 Days in total
£18.21 STANDING CHARGES

Now keeping in mind that we never received ny form of communication from Scottish Power until a silly bill, we never requested utilities from them, never received a welcome pack and AFAIK the housing assoc gave all of our details to them. I have been informed of their other plans now by a member of their staff which is Online Energy Saver 9 (Tied til Apr 2011).
Breakdown as follows:

1st 225 Units/qtr @Primary
Primary: 13.125/unit
Secondary: 8.531 /unit

526 Units

225 @ 1st - £29.53
301 @ 2nd - £25.67

From that you can see a ridiculous saving.
I have been given the number for the Change of Tenancy Complaints team which I will be calling later today when they return from training. Keeping full documentation of all calls made including everything said and figures given, Extension numbers when I can.

Are there any issues ofther than the ones that I've pointed out that I should bring up?
Also once you've included VAT do my calculations come across as correct?

Thanks in advance for any help guys, some of you are way more on the ball on all this stuff than me

Just checked on Scottish powersite and indeed the figures you quote are the electric prices (ex vat) fot the northern region.
The gas prices are 3.503p and 2.541p per kwh with 1143 per quarter at the higher rate.

dogshome

Hi NVRAM - Please note ryskes 2000 comment on the Day rate calculation, though if this is what is on your bill, phone Scot. Power today.

I'm somewhat puzzled by the Gas tariffs you are quoting - A rate of 10.816p a unit with a Day charge of 18.56p, and a Prime rate of 13.125p a unit with the Balance at 8.531p are typical numbers for an Electricity tariff - A Gas tariff would charged in Kw with each meter unit being charged as app. 11.2Kw or app. 31.5Kw, depending whether your gas meter is Metric or Imperial, and charged at around 4.3p Primary and 3.19 Secondary.

On the assumption that you have a Metric gas meter I have converted your 526 Gas Units to 5891Kw, and using a South Elect tariff , which is not the best, and have worked it out to costing £210.00 - The answer seems to be a thorough look at all the Switch sites
Good Luck

NVRAM

Never mind, spoke to another one of their guys earlier today.
Has advised that the previous info I was given was completely incorrect and mixed up.
You are correct in that the gas had not been converted in kw/h as the previous advisor I spoke to omitted this information.

Reconfirmed the correct info with the guy I just spoke to who was very helpfull.

Standard:
Standing charge 13.95p/d
Unit 4.093

Online Energy Saver 9
No standing charge
Primary rate 1st 250 units/qtr @3.53 then 2.541

Have spoken to them and they have agreed to backdate all charges to when we moved in to the lower tariff.

Lastly according to the guy I just spoke to 526 Units = 6007 kw/h
So say approx 25000 kw/h p/a

thats the info update and enough of me looking like a complete plank for one day

notbritishgas

NVRAM wrote: »

Never mind, spoke to another one of their guys earlier today.
Has advised that the previous info I was given was completely incorrect and mixed up.
You are correct in that the gas had not been converted in kw/h as the previous advisor I spoke to omitted this information.

Reconfirmed the correct info with the guy I just spoke to who was very helpfull.

Standard:
Standing charge 13.95p/d
Unit 4.093

Online Energy Saver 9
No standing charge
Primary rate 1st 250 units/qtr @3.53 then 2.541

Have spoken to them and they have agreed to backdate all charges to when we moved in to the lower tariff.

Lastly according to the guy I just spoke to 526 Units = 6007 kw/h
So say approx 25000 kw/h p/a

thats the info update and enough of me looking like a complete plank for one day

Glad you are sorted,almost.
Just a few possible errors, I think you will find the primary units are 1143 per quarter not 250.
The conversion to kwh is assuming you have a metric meter.
Your approximation to 25000kwh per year is wrong because in the summer months you will not have the heating on (hopefully) and so will use much less gas.

NVRAM

dogshome wrote: »

On the assumption that you have a Metric gas meter I have converted your 526 Gas Units to 5891Kw, and using a South Elect tariff , which is not the best, and have worked it out to costing £210.00 - The answer seems to be a thorough look at all the Switch sites
Good Luck

Thankyou very much for that, I was currently sitting trying to work it out
the good news is the guys on the phone has agreeed to waive any charges should we decide to switch, which we will be

looking on energyhelpine website it seems that Southern Electric would be the best option for dual fuel with an annual saving of approx 37%

Gas only british gas at approx 35% saving
Electric only EDF at approx 30% saving

Thats on the basis of 25000 kw/h gas useage and approx £90 p/q electricity

NVRAM

notbritishgas wrote: »

Glad you are sorted,almost.
Just a few possible errors, I think you will find the primary units are 1143 per quarter not 250.
The conversion to kwh is assuming you have a metric meter.
Your approximation to 25000kwh per year is wrong because in the summer months you will not have the heating on (hopefully) and so will use much less gas.

Meter is a brand new one. new build premises.
yeah I was going for a worst case scenario, the heating is currently on for about 3hrs per day, 1.5in the morning and 1.5 in the evening, very rarely manually turned on but yeah hopefully in the summer this can be reduced even further.
Yeah the guys mentioned units @ 250 which afaik would then be converted into kw/h
this is far more complicated than the original guy let on lol :rotfl:

NVRAM

Well got my new bill today...

£190.57!

Massive saving.
they even reduced the leccy too.

Thanks for the help and tips guys :T

Also been advised no fee's for switching supplier as they are unable to provide me the tariff I wanted.