So confused, electric bill.

kizzie_nikita

Hi,

We joined First:Utility in July, these are our combined bills. During July-Oct We had no heating on, but used the same amount of electric. 3 bedroom, but only the living room used and occasionally one bedroom.

1 August- £29 - Elec £9/Gas £20

Sep- £22 Elec £9/ Gas.£13

October & November we realised they didn't imput our starting meter reading correct so they charged us £800 for one month, which they 'gave us back':mad:.

In December we had a friend come and stay with us for a couple months (still here at the moment) & from October we had/have the heating on for 2-3 hours a day, gas heating.

Dec- £56, Gas £21/ Elec £35.

Jan- £103, Gas £26/ Elec £76

Jan-Feb 3 weeks - £108, Gas £26/ Elec-£86 And that still leaves us another week before the 'final' bill comes in, and this is already more than the previous month.

We're all really having to stick to budgets for many reasons, so have always been very strick on how much gets spent on electric and gas so it's always been very low.(and often cold lol)

And i really don't know why. From £9 when we moved in for months for electric, as we don't really use 'lots' to now it's £86 for 3 WEEKS!

Yes End of Nov-Now we do have a friend staying, so before we used 2 PCs, electric oven which gets used once a day for normaly 20-30 mins and a television which is normally on for around 4 hours a day.

Now, we've got 2 PCS and a laptop, the TV is now on for 8 or so hours a day.

Why could our bill have gone up/been going up so much?

We barely even use more (apart from the tv) to raise the electric more than this...

Last month, we apparently used over 650 units of electric, stressing me out so much

Anyone know the average Unit use for a 3 bed house?

macman

££'s spent tell us nothing about your actual consumption. If you quote your actual kWh consumption figures, then meaningful help can be given.
Is all your heating and hot water done by gas?
Did your 'friend' maybe turn on the backup immersion heater and leave it on 24/7?

vannz1983

hi i work for one of the energy companies and before i did let me tell you it was all foreign to me...there is no set average consumption for the building,a number of factors come into play
to me the first pont of call is to check the breakdowns very carefully...the meter reads...are they what you provided and most importantly..RATES..
are you fixed...check your agreed contractural rates are the ones you are paying and that there are no hidden extras...
after this you need to ask to speak to the metering team...they can look into anomalies if the above has shed no light....

hope this helps

Norman_Castle

Your heating will need to work harder in the cold weather and electric showers or water heating is expensive.

kizzie_nikita

macman wrote: »

££'s spent tell us nothing about your actual consumption. If you quote your actual kWh consumption figures, then meaningful help can be given.
Is all your heating and hot water done by gas?
Did your 'friend' maybe turn on the backup immersion heater and leave it on 24/7?

Yes heating and hot water is done by the gas.

Last month KWH was 583 & the price is 11.57p per unit. & standing charge of 28p a day (which isnt the problem as it's always been this)

Where as the other months (appart when they they got everything wrong) the KWH have been from 70-230 units a month for electric.

It's hard to tell because of the 2 months they messed up our useage was all over the place due to them putting all the details in wrong, so i can only go by the 1st 2 months we were with them and the last month, which was 9KWH, 7KWH & 230 KWH.

After these it's suddenly gone up to 583 (and this months which i've read as 650 KWH for 3 weeks!

Friend lives in the livingroom, where we all spend our time and he's not touched anything.

kizzie_nikita

Norman_Castle wrote: »

Your heating will need to work harder in the cold weather and electric showers or water heating is expensive.

My water heating and shower is both gas, gas is fine, it's the electric.

molerat

Where are these kWh figures coming from, are they actual or estimated reads, who is taking the readings. The average consumption with non electric heating is around 300 units per month which equates to around £45 - £50.

macman

Have you checked the immersion heater switch as suggested?
Does your resident friend use the tumble drier a lot?

amiehall

This might be way off the mark but are you sure you are reading the meter correctly? Most meters require that you ignore the last digit when taking readings. Failure to do this could mean your readings are off by a factor of 10.

If this isn't what is happening, I would be taking readings daily or twice a day to try and work out what is using the electricity. You must be able to work out what it is as it is a LOT of electricity! 650 units is almost my annual daytime usage!

timjim

How can the electric only be £9 for each of August and September when the standing charge at 28p per day would be £8.68 for August and £8.40 for September?

The bills cannot be based on actual readings.

victor2

kizzie_nikita wrote: »

It's hard to tell because of the 2 months they messed up our useage was all over the place due to them putting all the details in wrong, so i can only go by the 1st 2 months we were with them and the last month, which was 9KWH, 7KWH & 230 KWH.

Less than 10kWh in a month is nothing! Don't you have any electrical appliances, or a TV? Just having a TV on for 1 hour a day would probably account for most of that.

Read your meter on at the same time each day for a week or so and get an idea what you are actually using.