£180 a month for gas & electricity seems too much, am I right? HELP

Mummy2Noah

Hi
Wondering if anyone can help me, in an attempt to find a way of reducing our bills now I'm on Maternity Leave, I did a search and found that based on my usage on British Gas I would be around £300 a year better off by switching to First Utility (I was paying about £50 a month on electricity and £38 for Gas)

Just had through the second full bill from First Utility and they are telling me my monthly bill is £180 _pale_

We live in a 3 bed terrace, there is just my husband and I, and our baby son living here with an average amount of electrical items (2 tvs, sat, wii, laptop etc) so I am gobsmacked at the monthly cost, they say the standing charge is 29p a day (for electricity) and 7.2p per KWh and 30p/day standing charge for gas with 2.73p KWh

Does that sound right? My usage looks massive but as I say we aren't heavy users (I wouldnt think) they are saying I used 1400KWh last month... is this normal??

Bit besides myself with worry about this being our monthly bill from now on, as I say it was half that on BGas - HELP

Any advice gratefully accepted (and yes I will be calling them up first thing tomorrow!)
Thanks

KimYeovil

Are they charging you for an imperial gas meter when you have a metric meter? But that shouldn't be the case as they'll have installed their own smart meter. (Or has this not been installed yet?)

Or, more likely, are you just not averaging out a winter bill? Paying twice your average monthly bill in winter is entirely normal. That is exactly the advantage and disadvantage of a monthly smart metered bill rather than an averaged direct debit amount - instead of paying £88 equally over twelve months you can end up paying £250 some winter months and £35 in the middle of summer.

Check the readings to see that they are all correct and correspond (there may be a catch-up from your final British Gas bill.)

And, of course, you are now on maternity leave so your useage must have risen, perhaps significantly. £180 is only double your previous average bill so is not surprising.

KimYeovil

Just noticed the mention of 1400kWh consumption - this is unusual. It can not be your gas (as that would not explain your the size of your bill) but it is very high for electricity (that is, if you have gas central heating) - you should investigate to see what it is that is burning leccy.

noapron

Sounds high to me - we are in 4 bed det, and it's £150/month. I even think that's quite high because every now and again I see my credit is so high, I ask for a cheque back. We found years ago when we transferred to Sainsbury energy (scottish power), all of a sudden they'd done a calculation which meant they were taking double what we were used to being taken out of our account. When I queried it, I was told it was a 'computer error' - mmm ... . Have been with EDF several years now and find them fine - not least because their telephone staff are good - well that's our opinion. I get a reminder from them every quarter to read the meters - so there are no estimated readings.

I don't know about anyone else, but certainly the gas side of it is farily constant as it is only used for water and heating. Thus if they decide to raise the monthly outgoing, then it's relatively easy to see how much gas they suddenly seem to think we will will use.

In my experience power companies, while painting a rosy, cheaper=than=everybody-else picture, do like to make a generous estimate of what you will use, and an equally generous monthly outgoing estimate, even if you have years of bills to show what has happened year on year.

I would say, call them with facts and figures to show what your usual consumption is. The fact is if you pay your bill quarterly, you are in debt to them until you pay. Paying monthly is very nice for them because they get your cash nicely in their account every month, but it's taking the michael to have your gas and electricity account as some sort of non-interest deposit account you pay into.

KimYeovil

noapron wrote: »

Paying monthly is very nice for them because they get your cash nicely in their account every month, but it's taking the michael to have your gas and electricity account as some sort of non-interest deposit account you pay into.

Paying you 11% 'interest' (and more) is hardly taking the mickey. Those higher-yielding emails from Nigeria are going to end badly, you know.

Not that one should not be diligent about checking the estimated payments - but nothing wrong with paying up-front.

JasX

Did you do the comparison based on Annual kWH useage (if so what were the figures? they'd point to being a high/low).

Comparisons based on anything else (eg monthly bill) are completly meaningless and will unlikely point you towards the best tariff, could even make things worse.

Other than that check the basics like correct type of meter being billed, you are being billed for actual rather than estimated amounts, and that you are on the best tariff/supplier (if you didn't do the comparison site kWH comparison thing first time round -your standing charge looks huge!)

neas

i'd start taking meter reads to understand your daily usage.

We use 8 kwh per day electricity and over the winter we used a fair bit in terms of gas.

For 2 months usage we got charged 160 quid for gas/elec.. so 80 quid for gas/elec for one month.

We live in a 2 bed flat... no children and we work all day. I could imagine if you had tvs on all day and gas elec on a bit then it could go up to 120-140 quid a month... then if you are on a poor tariff 180 doesn't seem too far off.

i'd check what you really using.. and turn tvs off at plug when you not using them... and try turning temp down on gas heating.

Did you have gas heating on 24/7 during winter or just popping on for a couple hours here and there?

Toomuchdebt

Your electricity usage seems very high at 1400kwh or is that units?My last elec bill was 1734 units costing me £198 but that was for 3 months.My gas usage was 10247 kwh(ouch) costing me £328 again for 3 months.We have a 3 bed detached draughty bungalow and the heating was on a lot as we have 5 kids.Elec was also used a lot as there is someone home all day.

Fire_Fox

Mummy2Noah wrote: »

Hi
We live in a 3 bed terrace, there is just my husband and I, and our baby son living here with an average amount of electrical items (2 tvs, sat, wii, laptop etc) so I am gobsmacked at the monthly cost, they say the standing charge is 29p a day (for electricity) and 7.2p per KWh and 30p/day standing charge for gas with 2.73p KWh

The electrical items you mention here are not the big users of energy - heating, power showers, immersion heaters accidentally left on 24/7, hot cycles for laundry, tumble dryers and the big ones. It has been the coldest winter for thirty years, how well insulated is the property? How warm do you keep your thermostat? How many hours a day do you have the heating on (mat leave!)? How many weeks of the year? How long and frequent are your showers? Does all your baby stuff get hot washed and tumble dried?

It is possible either your gas or your electric meter is not functioning correctly or someone has read the units wrongly, but it is unlikely for them both to be faulty so you probably need to accept that you are higher users than you think.