£800 Click 5 Electricity bill - help needed

davway

This is my first post on this forum. I am looking for some suggestions about how to tackle a massive price increase in my electricity bills which I think are simply wrong but I'm getting no assistance from British Gas. I think that the problem relates to a new electricity meter installed in November 2009.

I own a 4 bedroomed detached house and have typical electrical items (e.g. oven, washing machine, tumble dryer, fridge, dishwasher, kettle, TV etc) my heating is GCH. Before transferring to BG's click 5, my bills were around £650 a year. I believe that I am not using any more electricity than in previous years.

A new meter was installed in November last year as the other one stopped working. Since then, I have been reporting the meter readings as usual. In March I was billed over £800 for my recent bill covering 4 months from November 2009 and my readings suggest I am currently using £160 worth of electricity a month!

British Gas want to charge me £65 to get someone to test the accuracy of the meter and they keep emphasising the fact that it is unlikely that the meter is to blame. I have reluctantly agreed to this because the meter looks to be the most likely problem but does anyone have any alternative suggestions?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

You are sure that the meter readings are not estimated? and that this is not a catch up bill?

How are you calculating £160 worth electricity a month. What price electricity per unit are you using? the tier 1 price or Tier 2?

It is very easy to carry out a rough check on your meter.

Firstly make sure everything in the house is disconnected - including fridge/freezer(won't cause harm) and then note meter reading exactly - including decimal points.

Then get something with a known load - say a 3kW fire and turn that on for, say 20 minutes.(make sure the thermostat doesn operate - have it outside) and your meter should have increased by 1 complete unit(kWh) If you don't have a fire, keep boiling water in an electric kettle for 20 mins(they are usually 2kW or 3kW)

Alternatively get one of the 'Owl' type power meters and you can check meter readings against the display.

davway

Cardew

Thanks for your response. I will try that tip with a kettle.

The readings are actual readings, they are not estimates.

BargainGalore

Are you all electric? ie you use heating for electric too

£160 a month is a lot a month 3times more than I pay a month just for normal appliances. How many Kw have you used in that time easy to say if you take meter readings regaurly

Cardew

BargainGalore wrote: »

Are you all electric? ie you sue heating for electric too

From the OP's initial post.

my heating is GCH

BargainGalore

Even worse then is they use Gas CH

Cardew

BargainGalore wrote: »

Even worse then is they use Gas CH

Which of course is the basis of the OP's complaint!!

spiro

What was the reading when the new meter was installed in November, there should be a card attached that has the final reading from the old meter and the intial reading from the new meter?

Does the Final and Inital readings tally with the exchange readings on you bill?

What is the reading today?

You need to bear in mind that when a 'new' meter is installed it may not be brand new and may have already been used elsewhere and therefore have 00s or 000s of units on it. Also sometimes the initial readings does not get to your supplier and if they use 0 and the meter actually read say 1234, then you are paying for 1234 units that you have not used.

You will only get charged the £65 if the meter is accurate you wont if it is not. You also need to bear in mind that the check they will do is not much different from the kettle/fire test that has already been suggesteed.

davway

Spiro

The meter was reading zero at the time it was installed. The reading that produced the £800 bill was 2048 in March. It was 2533 last Saturday.

Your point about the readings on the bill is interesting. I have an internet only account. I can normally see my bill online but my account was inaccessible after I registered the March meter reading, meaning that I have never seen the bill. I just received a message to call a number as there was a problem with my account.

Just to share a gripe, the first time I realised I had a problem was when the wrote to me chasing the bill I had never received and I did not realise I had to pay because I have always paid by DD. They stopped the DD when the reading was logged but didn't tell me about that. I had been £500 in credit beforehand and they reduced my DD to £16 a month.

Cardew

davway wrote: »

Spiro

The meter was reading zero at the time it was installed. The reading that produced the £800 bill was 2048 in March. It was 2533 last Saturday.

.

So you have used 485 units of electricity since March. That doesn't tie up with your statement that "my readings suggest I am currently using £160 worth of electricity a month!"

485 units on Click 5 will cost between £50 and £60 depending where you live.

It would appear that the £500 credit on your account might have been a mistake, and the £800 bill is a 'catch up' bill as I suggested earlier.

davway

Ok, I found out what the problem on this account was when BG finally contacted me today. When the meter was replaced, I was placed incorrectly on a pre-pay tarriff. BG say nothing was charged for "catch up" and it all relates to my usage since November 2009. My meter is currently 2795 and adding about 15 units a day.

Cardew, if your rates are correct, that would put my bill between £288 and £345 for the last 6 months which looks right. BG say that my bill will take up to 6 weeks to correct and couldn't give me a figure now. Sounds odd but we will see.

I pity those on pre-pay rates. Based on my experience, they are paying nearly three times my rate. They may have included some "phantom" default charges in the bill (that I have never seen) though.