am I paying too much, or expecting too much?

Humour

Hi all, I trust all are having a pleasant Xmas and Holiday period :beer:

I have very recently completed my first house purchase (phew, it took a life time or two to get in this position lol) and I am now the owner of a 3 bed end of terrace. As is usual in such circumstances, despite my best efforts to do my homework prior to commitment, I am discovering a long list of works that are required to get to a position to call the house a "home".

Most alarming at present is a £180 bill for little over 3 weeks of Gas usage from an inherited British gas meter thats installed in the house. In my previous house hold this was a quartely bill amount based on heating being on most of every day, at least 10Hrs per day in any case.

I was already aware that I would have to pay a small fortune as the house is heated by a back boiler and the first order of business when I got the keys was to get a Gas man to come and service it and enable the gas supply (don't ask)....now serviced, Im happy that at least its safe to use the heating.

My usage however is somewhat of a mystery seeing as I work all day and the other occupant in the house is also out most of the day, so the heating and water are set to turn on for 1 hour in the morning and then turn on for 3hrs after 6pm, including weekends.

Initially I didnt know that the thermostat was fubar and the heating could not be controlled, it was either full blast or off, but I had that rectified within a couple of weeks by bying and fitting a new stat myself, if only on a temporary basis. :rotfl:

I checked in the loft prior to purchase and although insulation improvements are needed by modern standards, the loft does have around 180mm of insulation already and I was advised that cavity wall insulation was also installed by the obligatory pre-purchase survey.

I also discovered further culprits in the shape of draft in the living room window seals and front door, altough this is not too bad unless its really windy. My biggest mistake as a newbie however was not checking thoroughly that all house windows were double glazed, as a result (gutted and !!!!ed at myself for beign a prat) I have discovered that all upstairs windows are of PVC frame construction but are only single glazed :eek::mad: unlike the ground floor where everything is double glazed.

All things considered, I am expecting to pay a higher price until I can get a combi in there and get insulation beefed up, but I feel that over 200 quid per month is a bit steep especially for very light heating usage at present.

I read something on the web that referred to paying 3 times as much if the Gas supplier is estimating a pay-as-u-go meter on the basis of cubic feet and trying to convert to metric, thus charging 3 times the used amount, but Im yet to find out if the meter is metric readout and/or have had any success in being able to contact BG's customer service (not through lack of trying) to find out how they are calculating my charges.

Any info, suggestions or opinions are always welcome

Sorry for the novel like first post but I wanted to make you aware of most of the facts

Hum

macman

The meter is clearly marked either cu m or 100's cu ft.

Humour

macman wrote: »

The meter is clearly marked either cu m or 100's cu ft.

By clearly marked do you mean a silk screen marking on the outer casing or somewhere within the digital display?

I will check as soon as I am back in the house (currently in another country spending Xmas with the missus)

Hum

dogshome

The front of the meter will be marked m3 for Metric, or ft3 for Imperial
Suppliers can incorrectly bill a customer on both pre-pay and credit meters if their records for the meter type are wrong
.
Check what it says on the Meter, then look at the Bill and divide the Kwh charged by the meter units used - The answer should be appx. 11.2 if you are being billed for a Metric meter, or appx. 31.5 for an Imperial meter
If the chargeing method does not match the meter's marking - GET ONTO BG Immediately.

Not withstanding the above, as a 'new' account BG would have put you onto an expensive 'Standard' tariff, so ask them what the Gas/Elec consumption was for the previous owners over the past year, then put these figures into a Switch site to look for a better deal

Ken68

Hi Humour...did you take meter readings when you moved in? Are you paying the previous users liabilities.

t0rt0ise

Is the bill using estimated meter readings or actual readings? Is the first reading correct or have they made it up as they sometimes do?

Humour

Hi all,

thanks for the replies/questions, unfortunately I've been busy over the past few days.

Firstly, there was a surcharge from the old account. When I first put in 40 pounds into the meter I think nearly half was taken off immediately. Subesquently though, the credit kept dropping pretty sharply. Unfortunately I had alot of things on my mind at the time and idnt have the presence of mind to take meter readings when I got the keys to the property. I digress.

As for what kind of charges were being applied, Im 99% certain it was some type of estimate since as a new owner I had to contact all the utility suppliers one by one (some of which were difficult to determine for the house hold), and register with them under my name, therefore I didnt provide any meter readings.

My pre-pay meter was M3, but I was unable to determine when speaking with cust. services how they calculated my bill as the person on the other end of the phone kept going around in circles telling me how they account for different meter types and how they ALWAY calculate the CORRECT amount.....:rotfl::(

Anyway, I made a pretty stern demand when I got tired of the bit part unsubstantiated answers to my questions, and told them I want to have the meter replaced or I'm going to switch suppliers and get it done with someone else. They credit checked me and then made an appointment on the 9th to come and replace the meter.

The BG engineers who tunred up did the work but worryingly told me to keep windows open for a bit to make sure and were trying to "SMELL" (yes with their nose) if the gas supply was getting to the boiler/front room fire, I asked them if they had a CarbonMonoxide reader and why they werent using it (my self-employed service engineer did) to which they replied, "we have to buy it, as with most of our tools". I accept that they are sub-contracted by BG but they use BG branded vans yet dont have the tools for the job. Jokers!!! :eek:

Although they did do a vacuum/leak test, they didnt provide a safety certificate despite asking them to do so, yet had alot to say about the previous owners leaving an open gas pipe in the kicthen when they moved out and took their cooker. All they provided me with was a work carried out check list.

Anyway, now Im on a new M3 meter starting from 0 reading which will help trying to figure out whats what.

Im planning to go on the websaver tariff when they finally update their details, but now Im in two minds having heard on the news yesterday that BG might be following suite with dropping Gas prices.

So this is where I am at for now.

Regards

Hum

Ken68

Thanks Humour, nice to get an update.