Scottish Power - Have Prices Doubled in just over 12 Months

Leodogger

I have been working out my energy costs after we had moved house to a property half the size of our house and our energy costs were only slightly cheaper when we expected a big drop.

I worked out the price per day from Sept. 2010 to before we moved house in October 2011 to our 2 bed bungalow and the dual price worked out at £2.10p. per day in a 3 bed semi. I have just worked out the price since October 2011 to 2nd April 2012 and it worked out to £4.13 per day :mad: We have fixed our price on the Online Fixed Price to Jan. 13 and I am wondering now if I have made a bad decision. Is this just Scottish Power or are they all charging double the price? Our recent bill is despite the fact that we have not had our heating on for almost 3 months and turn off the water heating element after a few hours per day ! Heaven knows what it would be if we had had the same winter just gone as in 2010 !:(

Pipkin

It's funny you should post that..I just recieved our quaterly bill from SP the other day, we are fixed price til 2013 too and I was utterly shocked to find that it was £190 more than it usually is, and as far as I can see we have done nothing much differently to last year, and I'm completely bamboozled, and quite worried about it as we already pay a great deal each month (we pay £130 gas and electric combined and usually we end up being about £100 in credit each quarter which I leave to build up..this time the bill was £490 for the quarter! I have NEVER had a bill so enormous, ever!)

Leodogger

Pipkin wrote: »

It's funny you should post that..I just recieved our quaterly bill from SP the other day, we are fixed price til 2013 too and I was utterly shocked to find that it was £190 more than it usually is, and as far as I can see we have done nothing much differently to last year, and I'm completely bamboozled, and quite worried about it as we already pay a great deal each month (we pay £130 gas and electric combined and usually we end up being about £100 in credit each quarter which I leave to build up..this time the bill was £490 for the quarter! I have NEVER had a bill so enormous, ever!)

The most surprising thing for me is that we have just undergone one of the mildest winters for years, we have not been using our heating and only heating water for about 3 hrs per day and i am living in a property half the size of my previous one and it appears to be costing me more

It sounds like these energy companies are all a big con when they offer to fix the rates and really they are fixing them at higher prices. What is the point of that, it is not saving the consumer anything unless the energy prices are going to continue going up. I can't believe that is possible otherwise we will all be out on the street trying to pay the prices !

victor2

JWhite wrote: »

Our recent bill is despite the fact that we have not had our heating on for almost 3 months and turn off the water heating element after a few hours per day

I find it hard to believe you haven't had your heating on for 3 months, particularly as February had quite a cold spell in it. If you managed that, then you can go without heating all year round!

That aside, you are comparing winter against an annual figure. For example, my October 2011 to March 2012 (inclusive) usage has worked out at £4.16 per day, but my annual cost for the last 12 months works out at £2.99 per day (using my current pricing), which is mostly down to seasonal variances.
If you still averaged over £4 per day in March, which was fairly mild, then I would say your usage and/or billing does sound to be high. You need to be looking at kWh figures to compare actual usage of gas and electricity. Once you have established that it is lower in the new home, you can look into the cost.

Leodogger

victor2 wrote: »

I find it hard to believe you haven't had your heating on for 3 months, particularly as February had quite a cold spell in it. If you managed that, then you can go without heating all year round!

That aside, you are comparing winter against an annual figure. For example, my October 2011 to March 2012 (inclusive) usage has worked out at £4.16 per day, but my annual cost for the last 12 months works out at £2.99 per day (using my current pricing), which is mostly down to seasonal variances.
If you still averaged over £4 per day in March, which was fairly mild, then I would say your usage and/or billing does sound to be high. You need to be looking at kWh figures to compare actual usage of gas and electricity. Once you have established that it is lower in the new home, you can look into the cost.

We have moved to a small housing association terraced bungalow which is well insulated and only has 2 beds compared to the 3 bed semi with 2 living rooms and a cold conservatory at our last house, so no we haven't had our heating on hardly at all as we are sandwiched between older people who have their heating on constantly, which is why we were surprised at the size of the bill. I did however compare the last bill at our house during the Autumn quarter against the winter bill at our bungalow but that should have meant the winter bill where we are only being higher if we had had to use our heating which we didn't.

j2011

Money amounts are useless, we need actual consumption figures in kWhs.

st999

I find it hard to believe you haven't had your heating on for 3 months, particularly as February had quite a cold spell in it.

I find that very condescending to the OP.


Why do people assume just because they do something other people do it.

bob_bank_spanker

Gas and electricity is charged in p/kWh, not £/day. You need to give consumption figures and unit rates.

zzzLazyDaisy

I am with scottish power, I switched to them three years ago - and this quarter's bill has doubled from this time last year. I have checked every bill since I have been with them, and this quarter is pretty much the same consumption per quarter. Nothing has changed in my household composition, energy use, etc. Just a huge jump in price.

At the moment I can switch to fixed price with Npower and still save on my monthly DD (according to Uswitch).

victor2

JWhite wrote: »

We have moved to a small housing association terraced bungalow which is well insulated and only has 2 beds compared to the 3 bed semi with 2 living rooms and a cold conservatory at our last house, so no we haven't had our heating on hardly at all as we are sandwiched between older people who have their heating on constantly, which is why we were surprised at the size of the bill. I did however compare the last bill at our house during the Autumn quarter against the winter bill at our bungalow but that should have meant the winter bill where we are only being higher if we had had to use our heating which we didn't.

It is heating that tends to be the biggest user of utilities, so maybe there is another explanation, apart from increased prices.
If you can, compare your kWh figures for gas and electricity over similar periods for the old and new home. That might give you an idea which utility has higher usage than before and subsequently an area to focus on. For example, if you have a hot water tank, it might have an immersion heater in it, which could have been inadvertently left switched on for a lengthy period of time.
You haven't had bills using estimated readings in the new home have you? They can often be the source of unexpectedly large bills.

Leodogger

bob_bank_spanker wrote: »

Gas and electricity is charged in p/kWh, not £/day. You need to give consumption figures and unit rates.

As I have tried to explain it is difficult comparing the old house with the new bungalow in Kwh for gas and electricity as we do not have the same size property and as explained we are not using the heating /water heating at our bungalow half so much as we did in our house. I used £ per day as that seemed the easiest way to compare what I am using on a daily rate basis at each property.

The other thing we need to bear in mind is that we had a condensing boiler at our previous house and we have a wall mounted baxi bermuda, non-vented (18 yrs old) at this property, so I am not sure if this is a reason too why we are using more fuel, although it is hard to say if it would be worthwhile changing it due to the cost of replacement. However, we do get a free replacement if it packs in altogether or BG cannot get the parts as this is covered by our housing association community fees cover.

Is it worth getting Scottish Power out to check the meters are working correctly or is that not their responsibility ?