am i paying too much for gas and electric

stevewk

i have a normal size 3 bed detatched 50's bungalow,i am with edf for my gas and electricity,my gas on dd is £170 per month and my electricty £120 per month dd,me my wife and son live here,the only thing i have on gas is boiler for hot water and central heating everything else is electric going on their rates that means my yearly gas and electric is £3480 i gave edf readings of my meter over 4 days and this is what they said i had to pay,i cant believe gas and electricity have gone up so much we cant even afford it no more

oldskoo1

Its defiantly well over the average

It all depends on,

- Does it have cavity walls
- Are they filled
- How much loft insulation does it have
- What windows and doors do you have
- Do you have draft protection
- Is your CH heating controlled by a thermostat and where is it's location
- What is your CH timer program and what heat?

The most obvious sign is your electricity usage. It's awfully high, like you leave all the lights on, run a plasma all day, several tvs, computers and lots of tea and coffee.

Our electricity bill is about £25-£30 p/m. I work from home so the laptop+monitor is on all day but everything else apart from the broadband and fridge is turned off at the wall. There is my wife here and 2 kids. They know to turn things off and not leave things on standby.

Gas is currently about £50 per month, worked out the other week, that will rise slightly over jan-march. 4 bed detached but a lot of effort has been made to make it efficient. Around 250mm of loft insulation, composite doors, draft seals in various places, UPVC windows and as its new build, cavity walls are all done. Our heating is on 24/7 at 16c. This give us 18c for sleeping and the thermometer in my office reads 21c even now at 3am. In the evening we use the gas stove which is 80% efficient to heat the living room. It uses 30% less gas than boosting the CH to 18-19c.

Because the house is draft free and quite efficient we can have the CH at a lower temp. It is perfect for sleeping and the gas fire makes the living room so hot you could literally sit there naked.

Clearly having it on timed and 16-18c will use even less gas but i like the 24/7 comfort. My direct debit is only £66 monthly anyway which is the right average each month for a years usage of gas and electricity.

jalexa

stevewk wrote: »

To answer your Subject you need to post more info. What tariff are you on, what is your consumption measured by actual meter readings, how long have you been in the current home, how long have you been with Edf, is your gas bill correctly calculated for the type of meter you have, did you have an account debit or credit balance at the last bill.

(Cryptically:D) when is your annual review?

Extraplolating a monthly DD to an annual amount, in isolation, is no indication of consumption. That is the meter's job.

dogshome

In the 1950's it was rare for any insulation to built into a new dwelling and even if it was it was very poor, but lack of insultion doesn't explain your high Elec.billing

There are however two things that you need to check.
Gas - Since the B'low was built the gas meter would have been changed and it's possible that EDF think you have an IMPERIAL meter when in fact it is METRIC
Look at the meter, it will be marked ft3 for Imperial or m3 for metric - Next look at a recent bill and divide the number of Kwh charged by the number of meter units used. If the answer is close to 31.5 you are being charged for an Imperial meter, if it is close to 11.2 you are being charged for a Metric meter.
If the meters marking doesn't match the billing formula - Get Onto EDF Immediately .

Elec - Your B'low may have had Elec heating with ECO7 meters when it was built, and had Gas heating installed at a later date.
If no one told the Elec supplier of the change, it may be that you are still being charged
expensive ECO7 meter rates for everything you use during the day
Look at a recent bill for anything about Night Rate or Off peak charges

macman

Post your annual kWH consumption. Monthly DD figures are meaningless.

cottonhead

Seems quite steep to me. We pay £65 for electric and £45 for gas for a 1 bed house - its risen from £65 a month to £110 so yes its gone up a lot. I believe my parents who have a 70's 3 bed detatched pay around £140 a month for both.

grahamc2003

stevewk wrote: »

i have a normal size 3 bed detatched 50's bungalow,i am with edf for my gas and electricity,my gas on dd is £170 per month and my electricty £120 per month dd,me my wife and son live here,the only thing i have on gas is boiler for hot water and central heating everything else is electric going on their rates that means my yearly gas and electric is £3480 i gave edf readings of my meter over 4 days and this is what they said i had to pay,i cant believe gas and electricity have gone up so much we cant even afford it no more

Do you mean you've had a new monthly direct debit calculated due to your readings, and the new dd is about £295 per month?

If so, it's possibly because you have run up a debt on your current dd rate of £120pm, and they are collecting the debt over a few months, so the £295 is their estimate for current usage plus debt. Your monthly usage costs will be somehere in between, say around £200pm or £2400pa, which is still high, but not exceptionally so if you like a warm house.

Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick, but your post isn't easy to understand at all.

working

They have room thermostat set at 25 degrees

j2011 wrote: »

What was it set at before their usage doubled?

I've deleted my post as it posted on the wrong thread. Sorry about that. I re-posted it on main forum.

Lorripooks

I have been forced to have this meter, and being out of work, I had to go to the Ombudsman to get the company to reduce the debt collection to £5/week. However, it would appear that they have since increased my tariff and it cost about £4.00 per day, although it is just me and i don't use any more that I did before. The Ombudsman's office says that they can't tell the company (Utilities Warehouse/telecom plus) what to charge.

Is there anything that I can do which is immediate please?. Can trading standards help by checking the meter?. There two charges which they won't explain to me - one is 8.7... and the other 4.7. and a £15 top up seems to only last 3 days, where it was lasting a week before.

Please help, I cannot afford this at this time. Thank you.

HappyMJ

Lorripooks wrote: »

I have been forced to have this meter, and being out of work, I had to go to the Ombudsman to get the company to reduce the debt collection to £5/week. However, it would appear that they have since increased my tariff and it cost about £4.00 per day, although it is just me and i don't use any more that I did before. The Ombudsman's office says that they can't tell the company (Utilities Warehouse/telecom plus) what to charge.

Is there anything that I can do which is immediate please?. Can trading standards help by checking the meter?. There two charges which they won't explain to me - one is 8.7... and the other 4.7. and a £15 top up seems to only last 3 days, where it was lasting a week before.

Please help, I cannot afford this at this time. Thank you.

Get off the UW prepay tariff ASAP. Do anything borrow the money from somewhere and pay it all back and switch.

According to my calculator if you are spending £15 per week in summer (26 weeks) and £30 a week in winter (26 weeks) you are spending £1170 per year.

Now entering that figure into the comparison site shows that UW is the most expensive. You could save £120 per year by switching but you must clear the debt you have first to be able to switch. You need to figure out whether the cost of borrowing whatever is outstanding will be worth it. Until then there is nothing you can do.

The 8.7 and 4.7 are probably the primary and secondary rates that apply but not 100% sure so please check with UW.

stevewk

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Do you mean you've had a new monthly direct debit calculated due to your readings, and the new dd is about £295 per month?

If so, it's possibly because you have run up a debt on your current dd rate of £120pm, and they are collecting the debt over a few months, so the £295 is their estimate for current usage plus debt. Your monthly usage costs will be somehere in between, say around £200pm or £2400pa, which is still high, but not exceptionally so if you like a warm house.

Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick, but your post isn't easy to understand at all.

hi,i have no debt on electric or gas,this has all happened since they installed their smart meter a couple of years ago,(they asked if i would like to try it out for them with no cost to myself,i now have no thrmostat as they broke it and said i had broke it but told me to leave it as the central heating would come on becauce it was at the highest level,we used to have overhead elec cables then they put them underground but left the long thick mains cable lying across my roof ans said it was not their job to take it down,i am so sick and tired of these money grabbing crooks its making me very very ill