e-on is being very unhelpful

kate.northampton

hello,
wonder if you can help us lovely people, here is our situation (i will try as short as pos)

we live in one bed flat, two of us. we own washing machine, cooker with oven, tv, laptop and xbox. big storage heater in living room, 2 small heaters - one in bedroom, one in hallway and water boiler. we are at home in the evenings as we both work and we sweetch off basically everything on the plugs before leaving flat as we got electric fire month after moving in and we just scared to leave it on all day when we not here.

just got bill from e-on that showing we are using over £150 worth of energy every month. that's what it say on bill:


Normal previous 4250 read by you on 24 November 2011
Normal estimated on 27 February 2012
640 Normal kWh (kilowatt-hours) used

Normal previous11344 read by you on 24 November 2011Normal current14005 estimated on 27 February 2012
2661 Normal kWh (kilowatt-hours) used


from beginning we have got problems with them. we asked for engineer to came and have a look at the meter but they basically refused. is this usage normal? hoping someone actually know bit more about this then us. if so where to take this next? should we complaint?

thank you so much and sorry this is so long.

DVardysShadow

Obviously, you know how to read your meter. So why are you relying on e.on's February estimate? I can quite understand .on refusing to send someone out - you should have entered you own readings for February. As it is currently, no one knows how much you are using. Not e.on, not you and certainly no one else.

As for your usage, you are not clear. Are you using your storage heaters? Or are you just using your electric fire.

jalexa

kate.northampton wrote: »

just got bill from e-on that showing we are using over £150 worth of energy every month.

Welcome to the forum. I hope you will accept and understand that critical comment is intended to help you (and others):).

I totally agree with the last poster. Just a few points to add.

I'm assuming that you have a dual rate tariff (E7 or similar) and that the lower usage is the cheap night rate. Secondly, you can learn nothing about annual monthly consumption (your £150/month) from winter period consumption, whether estimated or actual. Thirdly you are entitled to insist that your meter is checked subject to liability for a fee if it proves accurate. However there is no real "evidence" of a meter issue going by your post so you would likely lose the fee.:(

A "possible" issue is time clock inaccuracy but that is not something you have mentioned.

I'm surprised by your account of E.ON "unhelpfulness". *If* an individual advisor has been as "unhelpful" as you describe you should complain in accordance with the complaints procedure.

macman

Since both your Feb reads are estimated, it's pure speculation as to what you are actually using. So the first thing to do is go and read your own meter.
I also don't understand why you have only just received a bill based on an estimated closing read on 27/2? That is nearly 3 months ago!

jd87

Estimated readings. Go back and actually do a meter reading. End of story.

kate.northampton

right. just been to read meter and its 15770 day and 05247 night so in six months (from last reading on 24.11) deference is 4426 on day one and 997 on night one.
so that's like nearly 740 kWh a month. in one bed flat surely this is too much?


let me just add there is 5 flats in here and next closest to our meter reads just over 8000 and people where leaving there about 2 months before we moved in.

kate.northampton

jalexa wrote: »

I'm surprised by your account of E.ON "unhelpfulness". *If* an individual advisor has been as "unhelpful" as you describe you should complain in accordance with the complaints procedure.

we try to talk to few "advisers" and non of them sounded like they have any idea what are they talking about. ( or how to get us to understand what they mean)

tariff is day and night because that how meter was when we moved in and nobody ever mentioned it may be differently. last time they just told us we will benefit from some sort of fixed tariff but to be honest i think they could sell us whatever they want as we know absolutely nothing about this things. we just trusted they have customer interest in mind...i know very, very naive

DVardysShadow

kate.northampton wrote: »

...
let me just add there is 5 flats in here and next closest to our meter reads just over 8000 and people where leaving there about 2 months before we moved in.

What conclusion do you draw from that?

On a completely different tack, as you can read all of the meters, how do you know your meter is actually reading your usage? Crossed meters is quite common in flats.

victor2

kate.northampton wrote: »

right. just been to read meter and its 15770 day and 05247 night so in six months (from last reading on 24.11) deference is 4426 on day one and 997 on night one.
so that's like nearly 740 kWh a month. in one bed flat surely this is too much?


let me just add there is 5 flats in here and next closest to our meter reads just over 8000 and people where leaving there about 2 months before we moved in.

It's not 740kWh per month, it's more like 930kWh per month as you have to add the day and night usage together (your 4426 is actually 4436 too). It does sound quite high, even with electric heating and allowing for the 6 months covering winter.
Of more concern should be the split of your usage between day and night. You are only using about 18% of your electricity at the cheaper night rate. You need to be using more like 40% at the night rate, according to e.on's own website, to benefit from Economy 7 electricity. So, maybe you are not fully utilising the storage heater, or are using the other heaters at the daytime rate, which is higher than tariffs without Economy 7.

If you can sort out your Economy 7 usage, then your bills could drop significantly, as they should do anyway with warmer weather supposedly coming.

jalexa

kate.northampton wrote: »

so that's like nearly 930 kWh a month. in one bed flat surely this is too much?

I neither agree nor disgree that 30kWhrs/day is excessive during the heating season, even for a 1 bedrooom flat. It is well within the capability of a large storage heater, 2 small heaters and water heating to consume. Only you know what level of heating you maintain (and the building insulation standards).

To get a feel for your consumption take daily readings for a week and then monthly readings. You should see consumption begin to come down.

macman

As already pointed out, it's unliley that E7 is the right tariff for yu if you are only using 18% on night rate. That means that 82% of your usage is charged at a premium day rate.You either need to adjust your day night usage towards the latter, or switch to a single rate tariff.
You can easily check by putting your anual kWh consumption into any comp site and checking the difference in costs between E7 and Standard
If you are space heating using anything other than night storage heaters then E7 is fairly pointless.
No 'adviser' can help you over the phone, because they don't know the first thing about how your flat is heated and hot watered, or anything about your lifestyle.