Advice Please!!!

nicolula87

Hi

I switched to Scottish Power recently for their fixed rate. I have submitted my first meter reading today and my gas bill is astronomical.

I will give usage figures as I know this is the easiest way to tell:

Meter readings (m3):
Nov 7th: 992
Jan 30th: 1349

We live in a 3 bed house, heating is on for an hour in the morning and 4 hours in the evening at the moment. We have a combi boiler so water heats up as and when we use it. I have rang Scottish Power and all they said was it's because it's the winter months but this seems very high to me! For two of the three months we had a gas hob but now electric.

Any advice very much appreciated. Is it likely to be inaccurate? Or do we just need to be more careful about how much gas we use?

Thanks

SEE

nicolula87 wrote: »

Hi

I switched to Scottish Power recently for their fixed rate. I have submitted my first meter reading today and my gas bill is astronomical.

I will give usage figures as I know this is the easiest way to tell:

Meter readings (m3):
Nov 7th: 992
Jan 30th: 1349

We live in a 3 bed house, heating is on for an hour in the morning and 4 hours in the evening at the moment. We have a combi boiler so water heats up as and when we use it. I have rang Scottish Power and all they said was it's because it's the winter months but this seems very high to me! For two of the three months we had a gas hob but now electric.

Any advice very much appreciated. Is it likely to be inaccurate? Or do we just need to be more careful about how much gas we use?

Thanks

I don't know the answer, but I'm pretty sure people will be taking to the streets soon to demonstrate against fuel and heating hikes. It is getting absolutely ridiculous!

daveyjp

Just shy of 4 units per day in winter doesn't seem OTT.

What temp is the stat at and where is it located? How many baths, non electric showers per day?

new_owner

nicolula87 wrote: »

Hi


Meter readings (m3):
Nov 7th: 992
Jan 30th: 1349

So thats

((1349 x 2.8) x1.02264 x 38.9)/3.6

Are you sure the reading is m3 or kWh (mine are all kWh on scottish power)

Unless my calculation is backwards that is almost my years worth of gas. So something must be wrong??

OK just checked here http://www.mycosts.co.uk/gas2kwh.html and it seems that the reading in m3 would be 15098.314 kWh Which is huge.

nicolula87

I think I've worked it out. My meter reads in metres cubed therefore 357metres cubed have been used. To convert this to kilowatts (Scottish Power have charged me for 11279 kw) it should be multiplied by 39.7 and then 1.022 then divided by 3.6 (it says this on their website) which equals 4059kw. BUT if you have an imperial measure which I don't you have to multiply that by 2.83. I'm pretty sure they have charged me as if I have an imperial meter when I have metric.

If any of that made sense....

victor2

That is about 4000kWh and not unreasonable given the cold spell we have recently had.
Over the same period our house, with gas central heating, hot water and hob used 39% of our annual usage in the same period. Using that ratio, it equates to you using 10,256 kWh of gas in a year, which is by no means astronomical.

Edit:
Just seen your last post. It does sound like they are charging you for imperial units, so a call to them should sort it out and get you back on track - possibly with a bit of credit!

new_owner

nicolula87 wrote: »

I think I've worked it out. My meter reads in metres cubed therefore 357metres cubed have been used. To convert this to kilowatts (Scottish Power have charged me for 11279 kw) it should be multiplied by 39.7 and then 1.022 then divided by 3.6 (it says this on their website) which equals 4059kw. BUT if you have an imperial measure which I don't you have to multiply that by 2.83. I'm pretty sure they have charged me as if I have an imperial meter when I have metric.

If any of that made sense....

Ah that makes more sense

Give the a call

nicolula87

They have definitely been doing that! We have only lived here since April and I had thought our bills were a bit high through the summer as well but just figured bigger house, different boiler etc. Turns out British Gas were doing the same thing previously. So I should get 8 months worth of approx60% of my gas bills back. Bonus!