Colossal winter bill

Mel4981

Just registered to see whether anyone else is paying anywhere NEAR what I have just been billed.

I moved into a large 2 bedroom apartment with a friend of mine on the 1st October last year.

I duly called our energy company E.on and set up a monthly Direct Debit, they took our details, i.e we both work full time, are on electricity only, how often we use the wahing machine, dishwasher etc etc and said £40 a month should cover it. erring on the side of caution as I like to do I upped this to £50 to take into account my firends obsession with straight hair and heard NOTHING from them until Febraury when I called as I had'nt had a bill. They told me not to worry and my bills were being covered by the monthly DD of £50.

Yesterday when I got home I had the first correspodence from them since I got my welcome pack..... a bill for £1416.90!!! :eek:
I am on the E.on Energy Plan and have been billed the following, which is NOT based on an estimate but an actual reading.

Up to 4th Feb based on an estimate...

311 kWh @ 25.7p - Day rate for the first 311 units
6342 kWh @ 12.33p - Day rate for the remaining day units used
2751 kWh @ 4.58p - Night rate

After price change on 4th Feb to 11th May ( a price change which I was not notified of.....)

237 kWh @ 27.11p - Day rate for the first 237 units
2419 kWh @ 13.74p - Day rate for the remaining day units used
1020 kWh @ 5.27p - Night rate

In total the whole bill is now coming to £1116.90 which it the total minus the £300 we have already paid and - £80.59 we have been given for paying by Direct Debit.

I am never in my home during the day and I don't have a ten acre hydroponic weed farm growing in my airing cupboard. Yes we had the heating on during the winter but even still I think this is a ridiculous amount.

Can anyone give any advice as to the best way to make a complaint as I have spoken to E.on who have told me that it is correct and there is nothing I can do.

I am more than happy to pay the bill if it is correct but surely 2 adults who are at out of the house from from 7 til 6 each weeknight cannot realistically use this amount of energy??? :huh:

Mel

charlie792

Wow I admit that does seem like an exceptional amount - I assume from your figures you have Economy 7 heating? I don't know much about that nor electric only heating but Im sure someone else will be along soon to give you some advice on it....

My flat for 2 people cost us a total of £90 a month during the winter (November-Feb) plus our lighter spring usuage would give us around £510 for the same time period - but I know sole electric heating can be costly....

I would make sure you confirm your meter serials with E-on and firstly make sure they are billing you for the correct meter, secondly you say these readings are accurate and not estimates - did you take them yourself or did someone come round to read the meter? Is it possible someone read the night reading as the day readings?

daveyjp

I assume it's heated by electric heaters? How many do you have and how are they controlled?

On those rates ONE heater on during daytime can cost 50-75p an hour to run, so you can see it's not difficult to spend over £1,000.

spiro

Mel4981 wrote: »

Up to 4th Feb based on an estimate...

311 kWh @ 25.7p - Day rate for the first 311 units
6342 kWh @ 12.33p - Day rate for the remaining day units used
2751 kWh @ 4.58p - Night rate

After price change on 4th Feb to 11th May ( a price change which I was not notified of.....)

237 kWh @ 27.11p - Day rate for the first 237 units
2419 kWh @ 13.74p - Day rate for the remaining day units used
1020 kWh @ 5.27p - Night rate

Looking at this you have used a total of 9309 on the day rate and 3771 on the night rate. For an E7 tariff to be worthwhile you should be using something like 40%+ of your total consumption at night because of the higher day rates. I presume you gave them a reading when you moved in. Have you checked the day and night readings are the correct way round? You can do this by reading the meter at say 6pm and then 8pm and see which of the 2 readings has increased, this will show if they are the correct way round.

Hope this helps.

Mel4981

The meter serials are correct and the reading is correct - I took it myself.

Unfortunately I don't have access all of the time to the cupboard the meter is in as there are 10 apartments in my building and the landlord is the owner of the furniture shop downstairs so I may ask him if I can borrow the key and go and have a look at night to see which meter is moving.

As for whether it is Economy 7 or not it is... Apparently this can't be changed? :huh:

There are 6 radiators in the apartment 5 that are a 120cms long and one that is about 70cms long. Although 2 of them are permanently off as we don't like the heating on in our bedrooms.

The meter readings we gave when we moved in were:

28714 on 1st Oct
it is now 38718 for the day meter

10794 on 1st Oct
it is now 14514 for the night meter

I just can't get my head around how we can possibly have used that much electricity!!

My friend who has 3 small children and lives in a 4 bed detached house with all electric only has a bill for £90 per month and her heating, washing machine, tumble dryer and everything are all on pretty much constantly.

Mel4981

Mel4981 wrote: »

The meter serials are correct and the reading is correct - I took it myself.

Unfortunately I don't have access all of the time to the cupboard the meter is in as there are 10 apartments in my building and the landlord is the owner of the furniture shop downstairs

Lol - the electric meter is in a cupboard in the furniture shop.... hence the lack of access!

eurmalian

From the looks of it, unless your night and day reads are the wrong way arround, the high bill is because you're using a very large ammount of electric during the day. You don't have anything like a built in cinema or hot tub in the garden do you? As something must be using all of that electric at the day rate...

charlie792

Mel4981 wrote: »

The meter readings we gave when we moved in were:

28714 on 1st Oct
it is now 38718 for the day meter

10794 on 1st Oct
it is now 14514 for the night meter

When was the 'now' meter reading taken? Because those figures don't tie up with what you said you were billed for in your first post.....Ie billed for 695 more for day meter and 54 less for the night meter

Superbiatch

Do you have a hot water cylinder similar to this? http://www.tradeplumbing.co.uk/Megaflow-HE-Direct-Hot-Water-Cylinder-D170HE_p_10296.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=products

If so, is it constantly on heating the water? I found that by putting a timer on it I cut my electricity bill by almost £80 a month! They cost a fortune to use and its basically like boiling a kettle 24/7. If you've got one, set on a timer to heat up for the hours you are on economy 7 and switch off all other times.

Are your storage heaters set correctly to 'store' during the economy 7 hours?

Cardew

Superbiatch wrote: »

Do you have a hot water cylinder similar to this? http://www.tradeplumbing.co.uk/Megaflow-HE-Direct-Hot-Water-Cylinder-D170HE_p_10296.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=products

If so, is it constantly on heating the water? I found that by putting a timer on it I cut my electricity bill by almost £80 a month! They cost a fortune to use and its basically like boiling a kettle 24/7. If you've got one, set on a timer to heat up for the hours you are on economy 7 and switch off all other times.

I am sorry but that is just not correct. They have a thermostat which cuts off the power so it is nothing 'like boiling a kettle 24/7'

These cylinders are tested to a British Standard which measure heat loss with water at 65C over 24 hours.

These details are shown in the manual in your link. The losses in 24 hours range from 1.1kWh for the 75 litre to 2.25kWh for the 300 litre tank.

Heat loss
in 24 hours
(kWh)
1.10
1.49
1.65
1.77
1.97
2.09
2.25

This means that even the biggest tank will lose 68kWh a month if it is full with water at 65C - so at the OP's rate that is £3 a month.

In practice the figure of heat loss for an average size tank in normal use will be about £1 a month.

Even then the heat is not 'lost' as it warms the fabric of the house.

spiro

Assuming the meter read 0/0 or something similar when it was first installed a total of 53232kwh have been used of which 72.2% have been used during the day. Either (a) the registers are labelled the wrong way round or (b) occupants have not been using heating correctly (outside overnight hours).

I suggest you need to gain access to the meter asap to confirm (a) the meter you think is yours is yours and (b) the registers are the correct way round.