Excessive electric bill, any advice?

Tiger_greeneyes

I'm having a huge row with Powergen right now. We moved into our new house on 16 January, and asked Npower to take over the gas and electric. Powergen were the original suppliers and supplied us from 16 January to 20 March - nine weeks in total. I've always paid my electricity bill on a monthly basis, and I've never used more than £50 per month.

Npower have confirmed we use just under 14 units per day - there's only two of us and we're really careful about our consumption. British Gas supplied our electricity at our last house, and confirmed we used just under the normal amount of units per day. Normal usage is 15 - 30 units per day.

Powergen have billed us on the strength of our using 45 units per day for that nine week period, which works out at over £315 - which is what it would normally cost us for seven months.

Powergen are trying to tell us that it costs £27 per week to run a bog-standard fridge/freezer - that's £1,404 per year - more than double my whole electricity bill for a year with any other company (£600) :mad:

In addition, we never leave anything on standby. We use the washing machine twice a week, dishwasher 2-3 times a week, electric shower 15 minutes a day, tv 5 hours a day and pc 2 hours a day. We don't have anything else plugged in - not even a clock radio. We used two 1kw heaters for 6 hours a day (for four weeks during the nine week period) as our boiler broke down. Powergen told us that our entire consumption worked out at £93 per week for the four weeks we used the heaters, and £65 per week for the five remaining weeks. It looks like we're powering the national grid :rolleyes:

Anyway, any advice on what we can do to contest this? We can't find our meter readings now We've asked the estate agents we bought through to check their files for the readings and call us back. I'm hoping they have them. However, Powergen have told us that the meter readings from the previous occupier work out as per her normal consumption.

Could the previous owner have used copious amounts of units but given Powergen a low final reading? I can't think of anything else it could be

espresso

Tiger_greeneyes wrote: »

Could the previous owner have used copious amounts of units but given Powergen a low final reading? I can't think of anything else it could be

Did you not take a reading on the 16th January when you moved in and provide it to Powergen?

Tiger_greeneyes

We took a reading but can't find it now - we're renovating the house while we're living in it and put it somewhere 'safe' - hence asking EA's for their copy of the readings.

We only found out last week (when Powergen wrote to us) that they (Powergen) were the previous suppliers. The vendor didn't tell us and has 'disappeared' - ie no phone number or forwarding address.

tripled

You could take weekly readings for the next couple of weeks and work out your average consumption to get an idea of how far out it is.

Unfortunately there is very little Powergen can do - you say you didn't use that much, but don't know what the reading was when you moved in and the previous occupier did give a reading that ties in with their consumption. Even if you do find a reading which is different, Powergen may or may not accept it at this late stage, as the read the last person gave would be disputed it is basically between you and the last occupier to sort out.

The only other possibility is once you have taken your weekly readings if the supplier refuses to help go to energywatch and get them involved in the hopes the supplier will write off part of the bill to avoid the headache of dealing with it.

Tiger_greeneyes

Hi tripled

You could take weekly readings for the next couple of weeks and work out your average consumption to get an idea of how far out it is.

I've actually spoken with Npower who have averaged out our consumption over the past three weeks to be just under 14 units per day.

We only got Powergen's bill in today, so if we found the meter readings - or if the estate agent has a copy - I think Powergen would have to accept that... The last occupier has gone AWOL - nobody has a forwarding address for her. her mail redirection has run out too, we're getting mail for her now.

Thank you for the tip about Energywatch - I've not heard of them before. I'm going to do that

Gal

No longer relevant.

stewie_griffin

Does the final meter reading on your Powergen bill match the opening reading Npower have and did you provide this or was it estimated?

Also how were you heating your water when the boiler broke? If it was by an immersion heater then these can be very expensive to run.

To find out how much electricity appliances use have a look here http://www.powergen.co.uk/EnergyEfficiency/Appliances.htm?WT.svl=8