Phoenix Gas

SteveyJC

6 hours heating in the evening?

booklover

:hello

Thanks for all your replies - much appreciated. I am really eager to reduce this bill as i know it will only get worse in the winter. What will they be charging us in a few months maybe £200 per month :eek:

We have a reasonably large old victorian house with 5/6 bedrooms which is almost fully insulated with double glazing on all windows and we keep curtains drawn etc in evenings and all other anti-draught precautions.

I guess I will maybe speak to some other people in our avenue who have gas and try to compare costs.

We are annoyed and feel let down that after all the hype of
Phoenix Gas coming to NI and all their promises it has turned out to be so expensive!

About 18 months ago we were paying £35 per month and now £159! They say it is because costs are calculated retrospectively and we hadn't paid enough. I know other people are probably feeling the same way it's just so dear and I am trying to cut down but with a chronically ill child :sad: we can't really be in the cold for too long...

Anyway it would be good to hear everyone thoughts on thi sand hw we can cut down.

Oh we probably have about 8 rooms heated at any one time so I'd better try and change that! No doubt I will not get much support from family though!

Fiona

Ps. There is just myself, husband and 15 year old son here.

Colin_Kee

Turn off the heating & put on some clothes!!. As per comment from andykolo or you must be leaving all your windows & doors open to have it on for 6 hours in the evening. 1 hour or 1 1/2 at the most in the evenings will heat our house to about 18 Degrees. (Remember your in northern Ireland, your house shouldn't be any warmer than this, Our pastey white bodies find it hard to deal with the extremities of the high 20's)

My suggestions would be.
* Turn of radiators in rooms not used, close the doors & put a draft excluder at the bottom of the doors.
* Check seals around all external doors & windows for drafts, if you feel a breeze comming through, get some rolls of that foam sticky strip (Note thats not the technical name) from a diy shop and stop the drafts. Drafts around the frames can be stopped with silicon sealant.
* Don't run around the house in the Buff!! Put some colthes on. Seriuosly!!, You put a jumper, pullover etc.. on when you go outside, why not inside!! (I'll draw a line at putting the duffle coat on)

* Other things to look at:- has your house got cavity wall insullation, roof insullation, double glazing? may seem silly questions but all can make a huge differance and if the house is an older house, it may not have any of these.

booklover

Thanks Colin for your tips, yeah maybe wearing some clothes might work LOL. We all wear at least all the time anyway. all doors and windows are kept closed.

Re your other suggestions I will check with my husband tonight.

Many thanks.

Fiona

Ps. Do you reckon its worth contacting Phoenx Gas to make sure we are not being overcharged?

Is 6.5 hours in evening really excessive? I guess it must be>

nelliebag

Booklover
You will be lucky if you get any sort of sensible answer out of Phoenix - we changed to them 3 years ago and our monthly payment has gone up to £185 per month from £45. I rang them several times and couldnt get anyone to speak to who could tell me what gas we were actually using. In 3 years we have had one bill which was very hard to interpret and that was after ringing every week for about a month. It is a complete rip-off - wouldnt recommend it to anyone.

leftieM

Worrying thread - we're moving to a red brick semi (hopefully) and were thinking of changing to gas, mainly because the current owner got the pipes in ready to switch when her boiler died (10 years on it still hasn't!)
We have a concrete built house and it's incredibly snug and cheap to heat (with no double glazing). We'll get a shock if we move I think!
Do you use a gas fire? Apparently they are really heavy on the gas.

nelliebag

No I dont have a gas fire - dont think I could afford one at £185 pm - think of the bill!! OH would have a coronary.

Jon_C

It sounds like your problem is twofold - firstly you are using too much gas and secondly, if I understand what you've said then you're also paying off an old debt with Phoenix due to past underpayment.

Get your meter read for a start, otherwise Phoenix might be estimating your present bills.

They like you to pay extra so that they earn interest on your overpayments.

Ask them what your gas usage was last year (get a figure in pounds and pence) and divide that by 12 to work out your monthly direct debit.

Insist on paying whatever monthly amount YOU want (but try not to underpay by too much, otherwise your annual bill for the balance will sting you for a large amount).

Turn your gas boiler down. Some people leave theirs at the highest setting but this means that the radiators are extremely hot (so hot that your child could burn his or her fingers) for no good reason. I have my boiler turned to three fifths of the maximum setting.

Your biggest waste is heating unused rooms. Turn off radiators in rooms you don't use as much and close the doors. Close curtains in these rooms too if you feel happy to do so.

Have the heat set to come on for half an hour at most first thing in the morning (starting about 15 minutes before you get up).

Don't have it set to come on automatically apart from this. Only switch it on again during the day if you're feeling the cold and you've already put a jumper on.

Six hours of heating in the evening is excessive. I'd say two hours at most should suffice, even on the coldest of winter nights. Even then, it should be spread out in, say, blasts of 15 minutes rather than constant heating.

If your child is ill then perhaps you need a bit more heating than usual but to have heat blasting all the time might actually be doing him or her more harm than good.

It's far better to keep someone warm by preserving their body heat with extra layers of clothing than to keep topping them up with central heating.

Gas is a fast method of heating your house but it's easy to become lazy and over-reliant on this. Be disciplined and you will slash your bill.

Good luck.

wesd

Even with a large house, that seems like a very large bill. I have a 3 bedroom detached house in an elevated (and very windy) part of belfast and use pheonix for heating, water and cooking but my bill for a full year is £320. I don't heat bedrooms that I'm not using but I like a lot of heat - having the living room at 22/23 degrees would be normal. The heating is on 5/6 hours each evening plus 30/45 minutes each morning but doesn't run constantly - only when the room thermostat feels the need for more heat.

Have you checked your bill (if you can manage get one from them!) against your meter to see if you're using what they say you are. They constantly try to increase your direct debit regardless of how much gas you're actually using. In my case, they "reviewed my gas usage" and increased my direct debit by 50% before the very first payment even came out of my account. In less than a year, they tried to double the payment yet my yearly bill had risen by only £24 from when the original direct debit amount was agreed with them. A handy way for them to get an interest-free loan from their customers!

saigon

"my bill for a full year is £320"

are you sure, mine is £80 per month, cooking ,water and heating with a combi vokera bolier, £960 per year, 5 rooms upstairs, and 3 downstairs, with two landings, so i ahve really 3 upstairs on in the morning for a hour and in the evening i have 5 rads on for about 4hours, think its a bit steep?, should i query it?
thanks
saigon