MERGED: Huge / crazy Utility Bills - Help & Advice

KimYeovil

skintchick wrote: »

Tumble drier??!! :eek: DO NOT USE IT! That will cos you loads - I stick my washing on airers and it is dry in two days - if you stick it over a rad it will dry quicker.

But that only applies if you have the heating on in the first place. It's cheaper to use a tumble drier for two hours than switching the heating on for two days.

ellawood

the meter was read not longago so actual the heating is gas we are a family of four what is a owl would that help

thanks ella

savemoney

ellawood a owl is a energy monitor, its only go for electric, you dont need it, it just shows in real time how much energy you are using in a convenient manner ie like a clock on a wall


http://www.ekohut.co.uk/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=220

We are a family of four and we are slightly in debt for electric not much and gas well in credit and we pay£85 a month for both and we need gas on a lot due to a disabled daughter who feels the cold, we also use a log burner but not all time (have just about run out of Winters logs)

I take readings of each every month and submit them to British Gas. I cant remember off hand our consumption as I am not near the pc where we keep the readings in a database

Magentasue

ellawood wrote: »

the meter was read not longago so actual the heating is gas we are a family of four what is a owl would that help

thanks ella

So how many kwh are you using in a day?

An Owl is an energy monitor - you need to get to grips with reading your meter first. When you know how many kwh you are using, you need to work out what is responsible. If you are using a reasonable number of kwh a day, but paying for past use, you don't need an Owl.

savemoney

I think we used about 16-17 tops Kwh a day now I come to think of it

We have a large LCD tv on all evening sometimes an hour or two during day, 4 computers not all on at once but most evening 3 are on plus tv in two bedrooms and pvrs, kids like tv on and pc at same time, and yes I try to stop them but gave up nagging

Fire_Fox

KimYeovil wrote: »

But that only applies if you have the heating on in the first place. It's cheaper to use a tumble drier for two hours than switching the heating on for two days.

In cooler weather - and without heating - it takes two days to air dry clothes indoors, in the summer most items dry during a working day (barring jeans and bath sheets). AFAIK it takes a couple of hours to dry most items over a warm radiator.

KitKat77

Hi

Wondered if anyone can help at all. Have been with Npower for a few years. My housemate and I moved house last year. We moved to a property of the same size (Mid terrace with 2 bedrooms and box room) with a combi boiler. We only have the gas heating on from Mid Oct - April and for only 6 hours a day at 18c (sometimes a little higher but not often). Radiators are thermostaticlllay controlled. There are no other gas appliances in the home.

When we moved here in August 2008 we were aware that the gas was going to increase in price so popped our DD on £35 instead of £25. However, a bill came in in April and they increased our payments to £49 as the reading was estimate. Since then they have been provided with readings but say that our charges will go up again in the next billing period. We hardly use any gas at all. My housemate is rarely here.

However, our electricty significantly decreased from £35 to £16 in the same period. We use thus much more with ovens, hob, and lights etc.

I am sure we are being overcharged and they claim that between April and now we have used approc £190 pounds of gas compared to a paltry £50 between 25th July and Oct 29th last year.From October to 6th April they say we have consumed over £450 gas. A friend lives in a same sized house with the same boiler, number of people and has gas appliances. Her bills are much less per month and she has the heating on more.

I have racked my brains and spent a long time on the phone trying to fathom out why our consumption seems so high when nothing in the house runs on gas.

Does anyone have any suggestions? My housemate has kept a record of our useage over the last year but we rarely hit the three units a day that Npower said is about average.

The meter is Imperial and they are billing on imperial measurements.

Does anyone have any ideas at all please?

picasso2

Hi , wonered if anyone could help me i'm having kittens here. I pay my electric by dd, i usedto pay 20 pound a month and was usually incredit. last year i had a bill for £125 but that was after having estimated bills for much of the year, at that point i changed to edf who increased my dd to £30, fair enough. They have been reading my meter ever quarter and i have again been in a good credit. A few weeks ago they asked me to read my meter for them which I did. I then got a bill for £950 debit ! When i rang they said I had read the meter incorrectly- it is an old meter and it seems that the line was slightly before the 3 which is read as a 2. My new bill shows me to be £90 in credit. All good. However , now two weeks later i have been getting the cupboard ready for the meter changing tommorow and the line is now on the 3 . Am i now going to have this huge bill ? I dont understand it, how can i use nearly £1000 worth of electric in a quarter ? There is only me and my daughter in a small terraced house, our heating is gas, we have the usual tv x 2 computer x 2 and small electric appliances. we do not have a tumble dryer. We have never had particuarly big bills so ive not kept a close eye , to use this amount of electric i feel the street lights must be wired to my house ! What can i do - they are changing the meter tommorow , will i be saddled with this huge bill if i can't prove my meter is faulty ? sorry to ramble my heart is in my mouth

KimYeovil

The bill should not be high. If you misread a 2 for a 3 then that would mean it was close to clocking over. Now it has clocked over the next digit to the right will be 0 or 1, not the 8 or 9 that triggered the misreading.

That is you read, say, 5398 when it was 5298. Now it will be 5307 or 5317 or whatever (not 5417).

Hopefully.

Hopeless123

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help. This is a little difficult as it's my son with the problem and he doesn't have computer access and is miles away from me, but I'm trying to help him sort something out. Bear with me, I don't have the full facts or the paperwork here, but just want to get a general idea if we're right to question this.

Basically he moved into a house in Sept last year and gave British Gas the meter reading (0055) straight away. In Dec (I think) he was sent a gas bill for over £300. There was some considerable confusion at the time who he was even a customer of as he seemed to be getting npower bills as well. BG insisted my son was lying about the meter reading at the start (obv he wasn't, why the hell would he?). That was all eventually supposedly sorted out with BG (who he IS a customer of) and it was established that he owed £176, which he paid. He has just received a bill for nearly £400 and they will not listen to him at all that there's no way he could have spent that much and something must be wrong. They say the £176 he paid was only a part payment.

He can't remember the reading in Dec/Jan when it was originally 'sorted out', but his reading now is around 0480. So, from moving in in Sept 2009 up to April, he has used about 425 units. I've just got him to ring up and ask what he's being charged per unit and it's 6.619 per Kw/h

He lives on his own and the only thing on gas is central heating. Although he heats the water up for a bath each day, the heating is pretty much only on once a week when he has his son staying.

In contrast, my other son has a family, at home all day every day, has heating and cooking on gas, is on a prepayment meter and pays about half of what they're charging son no 1!

He's really not very good with this sort of thing. He's asked if he can arrange some sort of password so I can speak to them and maybe figure out the right questions to be asking, but they've refused. At the moment, BG have booked an engineer to visit the house next Weds and replace the meter with a pre-payment one and add £12 per week until the debt is paid. If he gives in to that, I don't think he'll ever manage to get it sorted!

Sorry this is so long, but I've not been a gas customer for about 30 years so don't really understand the pricing structure, etc. I've tried to get online help from various sites and one of them did confirm what an average quarterly bill should be with British Gas, in his circumstances. I just want to know from real people if we're right saying that from moving in Sept with reading of 0055 (start) to 0480 (now) would correctly result in a bill overall for over £500?

Thanks in anticipation