my first gas bill

monnie38

Hello all,
I just need some advice please before i call the gas company,
i have just moved out and i have changed my suppliers but need to pay for the usage from purchase of the property until switch over.
this time period is 5th september - 13th october they say i have used 141 units and the bill is £142
Somehow this seems very steep.

Can someone just tell me please is this high,low or an average price i only have a 2 bed mid terraced house and didnt think i had had the heating on this much .
It seems really high and im worried i wont be able to pay these bills every month , the main reason i am alarmed by this is the electricity bill they sent me was for £22 !
please can someone shed some light for me !

TwittersPVFC

The best thing to do is to check your gas meter if you can. 141 units sounds excessive for that short period of time, so it sounds like the gas company have estimated your bill, and overestimated it. I very much doubt it will be 140 units a month, I have a similar sized property and think at my worst only used 100 units a month but that was because I was a bit naive and left the heating on all the time, then got a £300 bill landing on my doorstep!!!

victor2

Does sound a bit steep, but depends on what gas appliances you have and as TwittersPVFC says, maybe it was an estimated reading. Assuming you've got gas central heating, hot water and maybe a gas cooker, your gas bill will always be higher than your electricity bill once the heating is used. If your meter readings are actual, not estimates, then monitor your usage over a number of days of typical use by taking readings at the same time on each day to get 24 hours consumption. Your bill should show the formula used to convert the readings into kWh, which is what you get billed on.

Pont

My useage for the same time period was 33 units - large (ish) 3 bed semi, gch, water, fire etc (electric cooker) - so yours seems rather high to me. Do check if your bill is 'actual' rather than estimated. As victor says take your readings daily to give you an accurate record of your useage.

macman

141 units? Metric or imperial meter-it's marked on the front. Read your meter to check the readings are correct.

monnie38

thanks everyone for your replies,
My bill says opening reading 677 end reading 818 total usage 141

it doesnt say estimated anywhere ?

macman

But are these imperial units or metric?. Your meter is marked either cu ft or cu m, and the bill will say which conversion factor is being used.
The readings are always marked xxxE (if estimated), xxxC (if customer reading) or xxxA (if actual reading). Which are yours?
Again, have you checked the current reading against the end reading on your bill-are they broadly similar?

TwittersPVFC

monnie38 wrote: »

thanks everyone for your replies,
My bill says opening reading 677 end reading 818 total usage 141

it doesnt say estimated anywhere ?

As well as whether the readings are metric or imperial (see macman's post), do you have access to the actual meter itself to check that the reading is correct?

victor2

Assuming your meter reads in hundreds of cubic feet, which a majority do, that will equate to something like 4,500 kWh and the cost you give is realistic for that amount. Your meter will say something like ft3, or HCF on it in that case, or something like m3 if it is metric. It sounds like they are actual readings.
1 hundred cubic feet is about 2.83 cubic meters, so it can make a big difference if they are reported wrongly, but I doubt if that is the case.
Definitely take a look at your meter, but it sounds like you have genuinely used quite a lot of gas.

monnie38

as im at work i cant read it at the moment, so im going to check it when i get home and im also going to get my new supplier to come over and check my metre is running correctly.
I hope it doesnt have anything to do with it but when i moved in i had to call the emergency gas people as there was a strong smell and he changed a part on the metre so i hope that hasnt got something to do with it either !

I hope its something simple.
Thank you all

Pont

Did you check your meter when you moved in? Did the reading show the opening reading of 677?