Very high gas and electricity bill

alirauf04

I live in a two bedroom flat, and my duel fuel provider is Southern Electric. Gas bill for the last 3 months (Dec -Mar) was £501 and electricity was £360. This seems very high especially as our gas boiler broke down and was off for three weeks in December before being fixed so I thought gas bill would be much less. Just wanted to get an idea of what other people's bills had been over this winter period just gone. We have a thermostat and keep the flat temperature at 25degrees. Perhaps this is the reason?

DUTR

It does seem high and yes the thermo setting is perhaps higher than required to obtain comfort, £501 would have covered both my fuels in an old 3 bed semi, old boiler and I would still have had plenty of change.

cattie

25 degrees is quite high if this is a contstant temperature. I live in a 3 bed house on 3 levels , but as only one bedroom is now being used, that's the only one I heat. The house has 2 reception rooms. My rough estimate for both gas & electricity for the year is approx £1k, and I pay around £80 month on a direct debit.

Your winter bills are not much less than what I pay for the entire year in my not very energy efficient house, so I would look into it. Unless of course you have the heating on all day, as that would then account for the high gas bill, but not the electric one. I think my approx electricity useage is roughly £80/£85 per quarter.

chanz4

How do you heat your water without the boiler?

alirauf04

chanz4 wrote: »

How do you heat your water without the boiler?

For a couple of days had the immersion heater on. But that went bust too which also took a couple of weeks to fix. And yes, that meant two weeks or so in the middle of winter with no heating and no hot water. Which makes these high bills an even bigger kick in the stomach!

dogshome

I'm afraid that the cash amount on the bills isn't enough info. to be of help - How you heat the flat and how many Kwh were used on Gas & Elec are needed, but as a quick check, are the meter End Readings estimated - usually indicated with an E

macman

25C is extremely warm-most people are OK with 19-21C. As a rough guide, each 1C extra adds 10% to your usage. So in theory, turning the stat down to 21C could save your 40%.
However £'s billed tell us nothing, so as stated above post your actual kWh usage (not estimated readings) for each fuel for proper advice.

st999

25C is extremely warm

Try telling that to my wife. If the temp drops below that on comes the heating.

Yolina

alirauf04 wrote: »

I live in a two bedroom flat, and my duel fuel provider is Southern Electric. Gas bill for the last 3 months (Dec -Mar) was £501 and electricity was £360. This seems very high especially as our gas boiler broke down and was off for three weeks in December before being fixed so I thought gas bill would be much less. Just wanted to get an idea of what other people's bills had been over this winter period just gone. We have a thermostat and keep the flat temperature at 25degrees. Perhaps this is the reason?

That's rather a lot. As others have mentioned, post your actual usage in kWh as it's a far more meaningful figure than £.

I'm in a 2-bed flat, not sandwiched in on the sides and mostly roof above me, 20+ year old boiler, large windows (again 20+ year old double glazing and powder-coated aluminium frames with no thermal break which makes them rather cold), I'm also in most of the day.

I'm aware that I'm a low user and London is obviously warmer than other parts of the country, but my usage for the last 12 months was 5000kwh gas (thanks to the mild winter - it's around 6000 to 6500 for a "normal" year and 7700 if there's a rather cold winter) and 1500kwh electricity. I rarely heat over 18C, and obviously it's off overnight, when I'm out and I also don't usually need to have it on non-stop all day. So just your gas bill for the last 3 months is more than what I pay for gas and electricity for a whole year. Time to put on a jumper and turn down that thermostat if you want to use less Your electricity seems quite high too and you might want to see what you can do to reduce your usage there

rowenaa

Hi there,

I received a very high gas bill from my landlords. It went up to £700.00 for 3 weeks. I got a bit suspicious and researched about this but there was little information about this. The first week the heating was on almost every day but then somehow I couldn't get the heating on anymore for about two weeks. (There was something with the water ran out??) In the second week there was someone who check the metre, but do they charge you for that? And is it possible that my landlords still owe money to the gas company so they charge the extra that was left on the next bill? I mean, there must be something wrong because I don't want to pay that kind of amount.:mad:
I hope you can help me....

macman

So how much have they actually billed you for in kWh, and over what period-it cannot possibly be £700 for 3 weeks usage! Is this a private meter?
You need to give proper info about the bill to get proper advice.