Increasing my DD

Welshlassie

We moved house in January and stayed with Scottish Power ManWeb as they were the cheapest (for gas and electric), our DD increased from £55 per month for a 3 bed to £59.50 per month for a 4 bed, which they worked out for us.

At the beginning of this week we had a letter through saying they were increasing our direct Debit to ensure we didn't underpay as our energy consumption was above what they expected.

They want to increase it £124 per month. That is more that double our current amount. I can't understand how we are apparently using so much more energy in this house than the old one. We don't have any more electrical equipment, the house is new so insulated well and radiators in rooms we don't use are off with the doors closed.

Can anyone suggest why we appear to be leaking energy from???

Any tips on how we can save more energy?

I don't really want to "uswitch" at the moment as I'm sure there are more energy increases coming the next few weeks to follow British Gas again.

Thanks

Cardew

The first thing you want to do is ascertain how much of the increased DD is to pay off some debit you have built up, and how much for the increased consumption and increased prices.

Welshlassie

Well I've called them with my current meter readings and the guy on the phone couldn't tell me why it was so high. We owed £126 which I have paid off and he suggested that we would need to pay an additional £20 per month. If they included the £126 in the calculation to the end of the year the DD should have gone up to £110, still £14 less than they wanted to take from us.

I'm going to wait for the price rises to settle down and my bill to come through and check I'm still gettingthe best deal.

In the meantime are there any tips for keeping our consumption down. I still can't understand why it is costing us so much more in the new house though, we aren't excessive and try to turn everything off when we aren't using it. I did go a bit nuts with the tumble dryer when we first moved in but that was because we didn't have a washing line and nearly 6 months ago. Weird.