REALLY confused about gas bills!!!! EDF

scarletwoman

Hi all,
I have had the gas and electricity with EDF for years. Electricity seems to be all right although the prices went up a couple of years ago, it's not the end of the world.
But the gas bill is a complete mess and the price i pay seems extortionate to me!
My husband and I live in a small one-bedroom flat in London. The gas is used for heating, hot water and cooking (hobs only). The heating is on from October to March, about 8 hours a day.
A couple of years ago EDF told me I owed them about £ 2000 and that's when I realised that although I paid them £ 24 a month I never actually received any bills. After months of research and phone calls, I found out that they were billing me for the right street number and street name but the wrong postcode and the property they were invoicing for was a 3-bedroom townhouse!
When I gave them the right postcode they told me that they actually OWED me money and gave me £ 800 refund!
However during the course of last year, they told me £ 24 a month was not enough and then increased my bills to £ 70 a month!
They now have the right address and accurate meter readings so I assumed I was just paying too little. Last month I received a letter saying they now want to increase the bills to £ 85 a month!
I asked different friends in the same area. A friend of mine who's also with EDF pays £25 a month for a 2-bedroom flat! Ok, he leaves on his own, he goes away on a regular basis.
Another friend pays £ 60 a month for a 3-bedroom flat and the heating is on all the time for his stay-at-home wife and their 2 young kids.
Surely £85 a month is not right????
The meter readings seem accurate but maybe there is a leak somewhere? I cannot find the meter for the upstairs flat, could it be they are feeding off my meter?
I'm at my wits ends and desperate to save money. Anyone got any idea?
All suggestions will be appreciated, thanks.

scarletwoman

One last thing, just checking bills now, it seems that my usage since last year was 17532 kwh. Not sure this helps finding out if i pay too much or too little!

micim1

You can never rely on what other people are paying per month - For all you know your friend could end up with a whacking great bill when actual meter readings are taken.
Looks right that you should pay £85 for gas per month, provided you are not paying more than £45 for your electricity - but you really need to get into the habit of taking your own meter readings on a set date each month and submit these to the Utilities Company. Then change to quarterly billing - really only works with actual usage - and calculate yourself how much in ££'s you use each month and put this aside until the bill comes in (remember to do the kwh conversion as shown on your bill/on this forum).

quocunque

scarletwoman wrote: »

One last thing, just checking bills now, it seems that my usage since last year was 17532 kwh. Not sure this helps finding out if i pay too much or too little!

If it helps, my consumption for a 4 bed detached house las t year was 177835 kwh. Sounds like somethning's wrong!

quocunque

quocunque wrote: »

If it helps, my consumption for a 4 bed detached house las t year was 177835 kwh. Sounds like somethning's wrong!

Sorry, that should have read 17835 kwh.

scarletwoman

i can understand about not relying on what other people are paying but what about the consumption though?

TwittersPVFC

scarletwoman wrote: »

One last thing, just checking bills now, it seems that my usage since last year was 17532 kwh. Not sure this helps finding out if i pay too much or too little!

I think what may make your bill so high is the length of time you have your heating on for. My usage is about 4 hours a day heating in an old two bedroomed mid-terraced house that has no cavity wall insulation and the usage is 12000kWh. Much to my girlfriend's annoyance, I'm frugal with how long the heating is on for as we had a huge bill first year we moved in.

Having your heating on for 8 hours a day, 6 months a year does seem high and could explain why your usage is so high, especially if like me you have an old style boiler and not a new combi boiler.

Bark01

I live in a 4 bed old Victorian terraced house with sash (drafty) windows with 5 people and my consumption is around the 21k mark for gas.

Average consumption for the Uk (not OFGEM typical) is around 4k for electricity and 14k for gas. This is average consumption so I would expect yours to be lower.

Having your heating on for 8 hours a day for 6 months of the year is quite frankly ridiculous. Get draft excluders, shut doors, use heavy curtains and shut them when its dark. You will find plenty of advice around this forum on how to cut bills.

If you want to find out if the meter is leaking (highly unlikely), or if your neighbours are using some of your supply (not unheard of), then shut everything you use off for an hour or two or preferably for longer (good excuse for a weekend away) and take reading at the start and at the end.

If you are on EDF's standard tariff and paying by credit your gas bill at the stated consumption would be ~£610 so an MDD should be ~£50. It sounds like you are paying off the debt built up when you where only paying £24. I f you are on the standard tariff then over the course of a year you will have built up a debt equivalent to £30 a month. Its standard practice for energy companies to recover this debt over the next year so you may well be paying an MDD that is the correct £50 amount + the debt recovery of £30 per month - This totals £80 per month so pretty close to what they have asked for.

To reduce your payments you could offer to pay the debt off in full, but I'd advise against it as they don't charge interest on the debt so its effectively an interest free loan

Gothicfairy

I am never really sure about the size of a property being an major issue as it is more based on what you have on. I live in a 3 bed house but my gas is a lot lower as I don't use my heating until it is hell freezing over cold (and this year I am going for the whole winter without as I am moving to a country which has a colder winter so getting use to it etc) I have a gass cooker and my water is heated through gas but that is it.
Even when my heating was on the rads not in use where turned off and it was only on for 1.5hr in the morning and the same at night.
8 hours for 6 months just seems so long and it must use a lot of gas.

Maybe try for less time and see how you go ?

scarletwoman

According to my husband, the problem lies with us having wooden floors and all will be better if we carpet the living room and bedroom. I can understand that the heat goes out thru the cracks in the floor. You can hardly feel the difference in the bedroom even when the heating is on. The radiator is located under the window (like in most places). When the heating is on the room is cold. When the heating is off, might as well keep our coats on. And the bedroom door is always shut, which makes it COLDER, as all the heat seem to stay in the kitchen and bathroom. We have draft excluders and curtains. Must be the floor. The kitchen and bathroom are tiled.
I don't mind wearing an extra layer but my husband (and his children when they come at the weekend) would rather have the heating on (even at night sometimes) rather than moving around the house in a quilt.
As far as the neighbours feeding off our meter, we'll soon find out, as we're going on holiday soon and will take a reading before and after.
And paying off the debt we built up because we paid a lower rate... well let's see they're the ones who gave me an £ 800 refund 2 years ago because I'd paid too much, according to them.
I think they got peed off I got such a high amount refunded and are trying to claw back the money lol!
Anyway, thanks for your help and advice, we'll see what happens when we come back from holiday!

macman

No, heat rises, so it's going out through the walls, the ceilings and the windows...
Have you got decent loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, double glazing?
Of course, if the cracks in the floor are so large as to be letting cold draughts in, then you need to seal them up, not just put carpet down.