Gas Bill

bluemead0w

Hi

I received my gas bill recently and nearly fell over!!! We recently moved to a 2 bed bungalow which is fully insulated with cavity walls and the loft being done. The bill runs from 26th Nov to current day and was for a cost of £429.00 approx. This can't possibly be right. We used to live in a 4 bed house and our bill there was £167.00 for the same period. Having spoken to friends/neighbours with 4/5 bed houses their bills range from £285 to £320.00 with their heating being on 24 hours compared to ours which averages between 4-6 hours a day.

Having spoken to our supplier they insist this is correct but I cannot see how.

Any ideas?

penrhyn

Estimated bill?

kjsmith7

As Penrhyn said, check whether the start reading in November and end reading now are estimated, because they could be just total guesses. If your start reading is estimated, ring up and correct it - I assume you took a reading when you moved in? If your most recent reading is estimated, just read the meter, give them a ring and give them the accurate meter reading.

Plus, if the bill covers from Nov 26 - present (even March 26) then that is a bill for 4 months (it is likely your quarterly bills are March, June, September, December and because you only moved in at the end of November they didn't send you a bill for a month as it would be pretty pointless if you're a quarterly customer). That would mean your bill equated to £107 a month, and over a quarter, that would only be £320 (but your bill is greater as it is for four months).

Regardless of this, you cannot really equate your neighbours bills to yours. They'll have different boilers, service history, consumption, tariff, etc. They could be on a long term fixed deal were their prices are 30% less than yours. Another thing they could be doing is just working out their 'bill' based on their monthly direct debit payment - e.g. "My direct debit is £110 per month so my Winter bill was £330", which isn't correct.

It was the same for us - we moved from a shared house with 4 students (4 bedrooms) to a 2 bedroom flat (2 professionals) and our gas bill this year was a lot larger than last year, due to the fact the flat is colder than the house was, and that it was an exceptionally cold winter.

Hope those pointers help. Get yourself on a monthly direct debit and online tariff (you view the bills online instead of through the post) as the savings are much better than being on Standard tariff (which you're probably on at the moment and have been since November).