I just can't get my head around my gas/electricity bill

**Juice**

Right, we bought our first house in April last year - previously I've been in houseshares etc so I've never been that concerned with scrutinising the gas/electricity bill but obviously I now want to get a grip of things.

We're with EON, have a very old back boiler, both work all day so are only in most nights and the odd weekend. I must say the electrics are a bit dodgy...previous owner seems to have been a bit of a DIY enthusiast :rotfl:, but we've had it checked over by an electrician and it's safe for now but will probably need rewired in a few years time.

I just don't understand our bills and haven't since day 1 - the frequency we're billed seems weird, we don't pay a fixed amount so I never know if we're in debit or credit or something else. I was recently looking around to change gas suppliers when I decided to change to another plan with EON, which I did yesterday. I've changed from EON EnergyOnline to EON SaveOnline.

Now we've had a huge bill - it's out of sync with when we normally have a bill and seems ridiculous. Even taking into account that it's winter, we've been at home a bit more in December and that it's for 3 months rather than 2, it just seems ridiculous. What's happened? Is it because I've changed plans and am I now paying something in advance I wasn't before - should I cancel with my 14 day cooling off period?

I need to ring EON but I can't even quite work out what I'm asking other than "why's my bill so high?". I've put a breakdown of my bills below in the hope someone can explain what's going on.

HappyMJ

Are they all actual readings or are some estimated?

Your electric looks quite high. Have you been using electric heating?

**Juice**

They're all actual readings - in the midst of this I've had a letter to say they're going to be in touch to come and check our meter but not heard anything about that yet. I just feel like it's all of a sudden jumped sky high and I cannot work out why.

Initially I was paying them manually as and when we were billed, which is why there's a bit of a gap from April when we moved in to June.

smkelb

You seem to be using ALOT of electricity. Regardless of the amount per kwh just look at how many units you have used and you can see the amount is very high for the last couple of months.Have you been home alot during the last few months? using electric heaters etc? We are a family of 5 in a 3 bed semi and only used 3000kwh in 9 months and we often have things on standby all night,have an electric cooker and a teenager :eek: so your usage shouldn't really be that high, you need to figure out why it is and also compare whether the two tarrifs you have been on both have standing charge, night/day rates etc.Some of the tarrifs appear cheaper but once the standing charge is taken in to account they are alot more.
Having to go through a similar situation with npower at the moment I can tell you that they often don't have a clue for example my gas bill for 6 months was £80 yet they are trying to get me to pay a d/d of £75 per month and can't see how that can be wrong even though they have my actual readings :mad:
None of it makes sense you need a masters to work it out, good luck.

**Juice**

We have an electric fire and electric cooker (gas hobs) - the fire is on more with it being winter and with us less reliant on the heating but I can't see that much more? Boyfriend was off work for a few weeks over Christmas so that may account for a bit of it. Don't think that the cooker has been used much more frequently - maybe tiny bit more with being off work? The only things that are left on standy are TV, fridge, sometimes laptop. charger, phone etc. Lights switched off as much as poss - we actually got an LED TV recently so that should use less power (replacement for old knackered TV from Samsung).

Does anyone know what the differences in billing periods is about? Also am I better putting washing machine etc on later or does it not matter? There's only two of us.

I'm temped to cancel the change, see if that makes a difference, get the meter read properly and put an extra jumper on instead of the fire!

jd87

Who has taken these readings, you? Or a meter reader? Is your electric meter a digital one or does it have the old fashioned dials? The jump from 10339 to 11907 looks like a classic case of a misread dial. The third digit is high, so the second digit looks like it is on 1 when it is still only on 0. (Think of where the hour hand comes to on a clock when it is 59 minutes past).

TIMMY85

jd87 wrote: »

Who has taken these readings, you? Or a meter reader? Is your electric meter a digital one or does it have the old fashioned dials? The jump from 10339 to 11907 looks like a classic case of a misread dial. The third digit is high, so the second digit looks like it is on 1 when it is still only on 0. (Think of where the hour hand comes to on a clock when it is 59 minutes past).

I agree - 10907 would make a lot of sense given the past usage.

http://www.which.co.uk/switch/energy-advice/how-to-read-your-electricity-meter

macman

Since that reading is only 2 days ago, I suggest you go and read the meter now. I think you'll find it's 10907, plus your 2 days consumption since.
Since you are on a single rate tariff, it makes no difference what time of day you do your washing.
If you have a gas supply, you'll find it much more economical to use gas for heating-it's about a third of the cost per kWh.

Mattty

How long per day would you say the electric fire is on and what is its power rating?

It is likely to be rated at around 2kW. If you have it on for 5 hours a day then that is an extra 70kWh a week. If that was used for 10 weeks that would be an extra 700kWh on top of your usual consumption.

For September/October your consumption was around 300kWh per month. So over the Nov-Jan period you would expect it to be around 900kWh. If you add in the extra 700 kWh for the electric fire that takes it to 1,600kWh.

If your boyfriend was home for 2 weeks could the fire have been on longer. Is it on longer at the weekends?

E.ON_Company_Rep_Chris

Great advice here **Juice**, that latest meter reading could possibly be wrong- is easily done for the reason jd87 gave.

First job is double-check your meter and then hopefully it's just a quick call to correct your reading and bill.

We can’t be certain of this though. The new reading will stand out as your earlier bills have for the most part been for summer use. I suggest you pop an extra column on your table for your average use per day.

If the reading’s right at 11907 then you've used an average of 17.42 kWh per day since October, so today's reading would be around 11941. If it's meant to be 10907 that's 6.31 kWh per day, which takes you to around 10920.

Now, in the 60 days your last bill covered for September and October you used 9.92kWh per day. June to September was 7.84kWh per day so it’s unlikely that your use has come down over the winter, even with the mild weather so far.

If the reading does seems right, then worth reading your meter every day for the next week and then give us call to look into your use.

Hope this helps and you get things sorted one way or another, shout up if need any more info

Amanda [FONT=&quot]
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dealsearcher

An obvious point to me is that the readings started in mid June and we are now at the end of January. Electric is used for heating. Going from summer to winter your energy use will increase markedly. That is normal.