£240 per month for Gas and Electric :(

XXSCOTSLASSXX

Hi

Apologies if this is wrong place to post 1st thread Iv ever started and didnt want to highjack anyone elses lol

Have read lots of posts on here with SOA's where people have said op is paying too much at £40 a month for Gas or Electric.... We are currently tackling debts and have cut back on most day to day living costs one thing I havent been able to cut is gas OR electric

We currently pay ....wait for it ..... £30 per week(£120 per month) :eek: on both gas and electric... a total of £240 per month:eek:

We live in modest ex council 4 bedroom end terrace house, loft was converted 2 yr ago and fully insulated using kingspan (the best apparently according to my other half lol) central heating also extends to the loft however is never on up there as is always very warm anyway... granted it is a pre pay meter we are using however prior to having this installed 2 years ago, paid direct debit to electric £110 per month and gas £45 per month, in 1 year ended up with £1200 arrears on electric and £600 arrears on gas (heating and hot water combi boiler only) (these arrears have been clear for last 8-10 months)

Have done a price comparison on my supermarket and confused.com best they could offer was a saving of in bright red i must add lol -(yes that is a MINUS) £447.16 :eek: have had the meter checked on electric and changed twice as I complained was an error somewhere, however nothing has changed.

The House is empty Monday to Friday 8am -5pm as myself and other half at work 3 kids at school and after school clubs... have dishwasher and tumble dryer they are on timer switch which kicks in early hrs of the morning if needing used. All energy saving lightbulbs in house and no tvs etc left on standby..

Am assuming as the price comparisons came back MORE expensive than we are just now we pretty much s*rewed with regards to lowering the cost Id be delighted to pay £40 per month on each even tho many on here say thats too expensive lol...... any advice would be greatly appreciated x

glasgowdan

Hey scotslass, that DOES sound very high. I have heard of people with this issue having checked the whole house for anything that might be draining power and sometimes finding an appliance that should be turned off, for example. Not sure how it would account for such a change though. I live in what sounds like a similar-sized house and bills are a combined £900 a year.

Every bulb is a low energy one, appliances get switched off at the wall, only gas appliance is the combi boiler, 2 people in the house. Are there a lot of kids gadgets plugged in all evening/night? Maybe you can check the kitchen whites and see if a replacement would save a lot of energy? Is the shower very powerful? I guess you might have to look at lots of small things, assuming there isn't some kind of problem underlying it all that is!

Tixy

Hi, thats a lot for gas, but I'd say it was huge cost for electric.
It might be worth posting on the gas & elec section of the board for some ideas - they'll start asking about actual usage rather than just looking at it from a financial point of view.

Probably worth investing in an electricity monitor or you can rent them from some libraries (I assume these can be used with prepayment meters), occasionally the utility companies will give them away for free.

On your elec - how often are you using a tumble drier? are you using an electric heaters? Do you think you might have an inefficient fridge or freezer (broken seals or very old etc)?

Maybe have a read of Cheap Prepaid Gas & Elec
How to get a credit meter or switch & save £100s


and
Free & cheap energy monitors
Slash £100+ off your energy bill

to start with.

HappyMJ

When making an SOA you really should seperate out the current usage and the arrears. How much would your bills be if you had no arrears. You will not be saving -£447.16 if you entered the actual kWh readings into the comparison website. Most people can live quite comfotably on the average usage of 3,300kWh electricity and 16,500kWh of gas. The cost of that for the average home is £35 a month for electricity and £50 a month for gas. If I enter those figures and my tariff I would save £10 per year if I switched to the cheapest tariff. As it is my usage is much lower than that.

If I put your figures of £120 a month into the calculator I get
11,000kWh of electricity 3.3 times national average
48,000kWh of gas 2.9 times national average

poppasmurf_bewdley

It may sound silly but are you sure that nobody is syphoning off your gas and electricity? This goes on more than you would think, and is especially rife on certain council estates.

Best way to check is switch everything off and see if your meters are still moving.

XXSCOTSLASSXX

On your elec - how often are you using a tumble drier? are you using an electric heaters? Do you think you might have an inefficient fridge or freezer (broken seals or very old etc)?


many thanks for your responses with regards to tumble drier most washing gets done at weekend when im not working unless kids need something during week, so is prob on maybe once during the week through the night and then maybe a sunday night if havent managed to get uniforms etc dry over weekend....

dont use any electric heaters all heating is gas and even then none of the radiators, except in bathroom which is on low, are on upstairs.

I will defo look at getting a meter to see if can pinpoint where most is being used, with regards to fridge/ freezer etc have recently turned fridge down to 2 as was freezing inside at anything higher so will keep an eye on that x

XXSCOTSLASSXX

HappyMJ wrote: »

When making an SOA you really should seperate out the current usage and the arrears. How much would your bills be if you had no arrears. You will not be saving -£447.16 if you entered the actual kWh readings into the comparison website. Most people can live quite comfotably on the average usage of 3,300kWh electricity and 16,500kWh of gas. The cost of that for the average home is £35 a month for electricity and £50 a month for gas. If I enter those figures and my tariff I would save £10 per year if I switched to the cheapest tariff. As it is my usage is much lower than that.

If I put your figures of £120 a month into the calculator I get
11,000kWh of electricity 3.3 times national average
48,000kWh of gas 2.9 times national average

There are no arrears on either account.... both have been clear of arrears for 8-10 months and meters reset accordingly. incidently arrears previously were not through non payment of any direct debit but due to having estimate readings for a year...

I can understand what you are saying re the actual kwh reading however as we are paying up front and I know by end of the week theres normally £2-£3 left in meters I dont really see what difference this will make (sorry for being dim) current usage is at a cost of £30 per week give or take £2-£3.

XXSCOTSLASSXX

poppasmurf_bewdley wrote: »

It may sound silly but are you sure that nobody is syphoning off your gas and electricity? This goes on more than you would think, and is especially rife on certain council estates.

Best way to check is switch everything off and see if your meters are still moving.

I dont think so to be honest where we live is ex council all have been privately bought we only have 1 house in close proximity (we are end terrace other side is the end of the road). electric meter has been changed twice as I complained re the cost and nothing was stated then, I will mention it again tho when meters get read ty x

XXSCOTSLASSXX

glasgowdan wrote: »

Every bulb is a low energy one, appliances get switched off at the wall, only gas appliance is the combi boiler, 2 people in the house. Are there a lot of kids gadgets plugged in all evening/night? Maybe you can check the kitchen whites and see if a replacement would save a lot of energy? Is the shower very powerful? I guess you might have to look at lots of small things, assuming there isn't some kind of problem underlying it all that is!

Shower isnt electric it comes straight from combi boiler so doesnt heat any water if that make sense. Kid do have a lot of gadgets and I have noticed the Xbox that my youngest has is a big drain on electric hes limited to 1 hr at a time (approx £3.50 on meter lol) think it will be a case of getting a monitor and going through everything see where savings can be made x

quintwins

we have heating oil, it costs us about £550 a year for a fill and that usually lasts us the whole year (last years fill was £450 and lasted us 10months) so around £45 a month, but my elec is so high compared to some on here our last bill was £130 for 6 weeks i'm expecting our next bill to be around £200+ as i've been using my dryer more, i turn things off and only use my dryer when needed, we have eneergy savings lightbulbs except for our kitchen which has those big long ones, my last house cost me £20-£25 a week aswell on a meter and jsut about everyone i know pays the same, i can't understand how people oh here pay so little, i can only change providers so much cause i'm in n.ireland but we're already of airtricity to save us a few pennies

HappyMJ

XXSCOTSLASSXX wrote: »

Shower isnt electric it comes straight from combi boiler so doesnt heat any water if that make sense. Kid do have a lot of gadgets and I have noticed the Xbox that my youngest has is a big drain on electric hes limited to 1 hr at a time (approx £3.50 on meter lol) think it will be a case of getting a monitor and going through everything see where savings can be made x

Which version of the Xbox do you have? The oldest ones codenamed Xenon and Zephyr have a 203W power supply. At 12p/kWh and at max load that would cost 10 pence for 4 hours of play time. The Xbox uses 17.5kWh per year on standby costing you £2.10 per year leaving it plugged in. Where do you get £3.50 an hour from?

Don't respond to the last spam post regarding utility warehouse according to my calculator it would increase your charges from £240 a month to £375 a month. It is not suitable and is only for those on credit meters.