£1156 bill from March to September?

Repoocekim

Hi,

I came downstairs this morning to find our 6 month bill from EDF, only to be confronted with a £1156 bill! Me, my partner and our 10 month old daughter have lived in a private rented property for roughly 18 months and normally our quarterly/6 monthly bills are around 160-200, which we pay with a set £85/Month direct debit, however these have always been based of estimated readings. Since our bills have always been roughly what I would expect, or possibly a bit less, I have never thought the need to actually give them a reading.

I'l admit we are not shrewd with saving electricity, and this is not helped by the fact the property has no gas. We have 2 computers which are rarely switched off, and our electric boiler is set to 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening for hot water, obviously being the summer we've not used the heating at all over the 6 month period.

I checked the meter reading today which said 13404, with the bill saying 13301, so the reading seems accurate, however our last reading was 6893 (which was estimated). I phoned EDF to say I had checked the current meter reading and it seemed accurate, but there "estimated" readings from previous bills were nowhere near as high. He said that because it was no longer possible to check the old readings there was nothing he could do and this was simply a "catch-up" bill and that it was our responsibility to give them the readings. Now I understand if we have been undercharged in this past then they need to recoup that money, but I cant help thinking we've been punished by the system, surely EDF would have sent someone round to read the meter more than once in 18 months? I'm now thinking of changing supplier quickly but now were stuck with them since we don't have that kind of money to settle the account. Also would you say this bill seems excessively high for our usage? Broken down, I would say these are our main uses.

TV 4-5hrs in the evening/ 2-3 hours in the morning
PC on 24/7
Laptop on 24/7
Boiler 4 hours/day
Electric oven/hob
2 bedroom fans on overnight
energy saving bulbs in every room
+All kitchen appliances

I'l admit there are some ways we could save electric there, but friend and family are telling me this bill is far to big for our home.

ihateyes

Repoocekim wrote: »

Hi,

I came downstairs this morning to find our 6 month bill from EDF, only to be confronted with a £1156 bill! Me, my partner and our 10 month old daughter have lived in a private rented property for roughly 18 months and normally our quarterly/6 monthly bills are around 160-200, which we pay with a set £85/Month direct debit, however these have always been based of estimated readings. Since our bills have always been roughly what I would expect, or possibly a bit less, I have never thought the need to actually give them a reading.

I'l admit we are not shrewd with saving electricity, and this is not helped by the fact the property has no gas. We have 2 computers which are rarely switched off, and our electric boiler is set to 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening for hot water, obviously being the summer we've not used the heating at all over the 6 month period.

I checked the meter reading today which said 13404, with the bill saying 13301, so the reading seems accurate, however our last reading was 6893 (which was estimated). I phoned EDF to say I had checked the current meter reading and it seemed accurate, but there "estimated" readings from previous bills were nowhere near as high. He said that because it was no longer possible to check the old readings there was nothing he could do and this was simply a "catch-up" bill and that it was our responsibility to give them the readings. Now I understand if we have been undercharged in this past then they need to recoup that money, but I cant help thinking we've been punished by the system, surely EDF would have sent someone round to read the meter more than once in 18 months? I'm now thinking of changing supplier quickly but now were stuck with them since we don't have that kind of money to settle the account. Also would you say this bill seems excessively high for our usage? Broken down, I would say these are our main uses.

TV 4-5hrs in the evening/ 2-3 hours in the morning
PC on 24/7
Laptop on 24/7
Boiler 4 hours/day
Electric oven/hob
2 bedroom fans on overnight
energy saving bulbs in every room
+All kitchen appliances

I'l admit there are some ways we could save electric there, but friend and family are telling me this bill is far to big for our home.

it certainly seem you have been underpaying.... £85 not enough really. they shoud send periodic readers round, but as these problems creep up often its yor responsibility as well.

you ae now stuck with them, and the last thing you want now is for them to install a prepayment meter as they are more expensive....

What will mean id guess is your ddeb will go up..... alot, closer to £200.... to cover the back dated payments, and to cover your ACTUAL usage, which your clearly not covering with your current payments.

macman

You've already answered your own question. It's a big catch-up bill. You haven't used £1,156 worth/6,408kWh in 6m, as that includes all the previous consumption that your DD has not covered. No way you can heat and hot water an all electric property for £85pm. It's impossible to say what your actual consumption is unless you go back to the last actual reading recorded, which is presumably when you moved in. You can then do an estimate of annual consumption from that figure.
They are only obliged to read your meter once every 2 years. If you knew that previous bills were estimated, why didn't you give the actual reading so they could rebill you?
Electric heating and hot water is very expensive-about 3 times what it would cost with gas, even more so as you are presumably not able to use E7 with this system.
You will not be able to switch suppliers until the debt is cleared, howver you can make sure that you are on the cheapest EDF tariff.
To avoid this situation arising, you should submit readings at least every 3 months.
As suggested above, your DD will probably now rise to around £180-£200 if they want you to clear the debt in a year.

Janey3

Can't really offer any constructive help regard the bill. We've been stung like this in the past with estimated bills - we are all electric too.

I'm fanatical about readings now and check the meter everyday!

We shut down our computers each night and switch off at socket.
Don't tumble dry unless desperate.
Our television was on the same amount as you, but we've cut that back now.

Just wondering whether you took a meter reading when you moved into your house?

crazyguy

macman

The OP must have supplied a reading when they set up the account 18m ago. The problem here is that they haven't supplied one since.

jalexa

Repoocekim wrote: »

Also would you say this bill seems excessively high for our usage? Broken down, I would say these are our main uses.

TV 4-5hrs in the evening/ 2-3 hours in the morning
PC on 24/7
Laptop on 24/7
Boiler 4 hours/day
Electric oven/hob
2 bedroom fans on overnight
energy saving bulbs in every room
+All kitchen appliances

But this is not really (only) about a failure to read meters, its about a failure (over the 18 months) to understand that it is "heating" which is the main use of energy.

chris1973

however these have always been based of estimated readings

Estimated bills and DD without consumer intervention = a Huge no no.

How do you know that the DD is accurately covering your monthly consumption if you either dont check the meter / track your own usage on a regular basis yourself?, or give your supplier the timely means of checking it for you by way of actual meter readings?. The supplier doesn't care, as they will be entitled to bill you for what you have used at some point. Its solely in your interest not to let any underpayment linger and the amount build up into a debt.

surely EDF would have sent someone round to read the meter more than once in 18 months?

Most providers have some kind of easy method of giving the consumer the means to submit an accurate reading, either by writing it on biro on a card (which is often left whilst you were out) and sellotaping it to your front door before you go off to work, ready for the meter readers' return visit, or by going online and typing it in to your account. Its not a time consuming process nor is it one which always requires an actual meter reader to visit (outside of each 2 year period).

For future reference, EDF do give you the opportunity to submit a reading online, and at anytime you wish here:-

https://www.edfenergy.com/meter-reading/edf-energy/start-2.do


As you have found out, it may be a several months or worse still, be approaching the two year obligatory 'reading required' period before an accurate reading is supplied / read and the shortfall in DD is discovered and by then you have a backbill to pay.

Your lifestyle is not exactly energy efficient either. Why do you need a PC and laptop on 24/7?. Not only are they two appliances using energy for no real purpose but I had a switch mode power supply inside a PC fail and go into meltdown once, and it wasn't pleasant, so running appliances like these (which arent designed to be run 24/7) also poses a needless fire hazard when you are asleep.

Even an average decent spec PC will consume around 100W of power, meaning at least 2 units of Electricity a day when left on 24/7 - which is £7.84 a month on your bill or £141.12 for an 18 month period running 24/7 (at an example 14p per kw/h unit). It all adds up doesn't it!.

jalexa

chris1973 wrote: »

The supplier doesn't care, as they will be entitled to bill you for what you have used at some point

Indeed. Or rather the supplier says "thanks very much, the customer has kissed goodbye to application of the Billing Code".

While there is only a legal requirement for a supplier to read once every 2 years, I am *slightly* suprised at apparently only one actual read in 18 months (needs to be confirmed by the bill). In the absence of actual or customer reads the supplier still has an obligation to estimate in accordance with a known profile for the property.

Has that be done? Not sure, but not updating estimated reads with customer reads is indefensible, so possibly an academic question.

Repoocekim

Since this is our first property (we are both still quite young), I think this is a lesson to be learned. I'm probably guilty of not looking into how this worked before hand. I think we were probably under the impression that the bill amounts seemed reasonable enough not to question, after all I did not expect £150 direct debits each month for a 2 bedroom house. Also speaking to friends who live in the local area who tell me they are paying between £25-40 for electric and almost the same for gas, we thought £85 pounds a month seemed about right. But, that does not excuse me checking the meter myself, which I'll admit was ignorance on my part.

I was also unaware that heating our home would be substantially more expensive with just electric. With regards to my usage, I did state that I knew savings could be made, and although I knew we may pay extra for the convenience of leaving certain things switched on, I did not expect it to be so much (after all many people leave computers switched on, despite what you may think about fire hazards, devices such as these are designed to be left on for long periods without bursting into flames)

My home computer acts as a server, which I need to access daily due to my occupation, It needs to be switched on for me to do this. The laptop acts as a media centre for the living room and is only ever put into "sleep" mode when not being used (although I have now started switching it off completely). Also if we have been paying £85 a month for nearly 18 months and have still managed to get into arrears by being undercharged, what should those direct debits have been in the first place? surely anything substantially higher than that is just ridiculous considering our situation. Is electricity really this costly over gas? If so we may have to consider moving to a different property.

macman

I personally do not leave PC's and laptops on overnight, but this is not the reason your bills are so high. Standard rate electricity is about 10p per kWh, gas is about 3.5p per kWh. Although electric heating is more efficient, but that does not offset the 300% higher unit cost in the first place. Typical dual fuel bills (gas CH and DHW) are now heading north of £1100pa, so using all electric heating is going to be much more than that, especially without E7- I'm guessing £1500 a year plus.
As I said before, you need to go back to your last actual reading and work out what your real annual kWh consumption is. At the present time neither you nor your supplier can know this.
If you don't know what you are actually using and spending, you can't begin to address the problem.
NB: and remember that if your DD was set at £85 18m ago, then prices have risen dramatically since then.