Gas and electric prices

ROBGILL

I live in a rented house and have been billed over £900 andhave moved from Scottish power to British Gas. We don't over have the heatingon all day and turn off at night. This seems to be excessive. I have spoken tothe supplier. But don't know what can be done to sort this out. This is thehighest energy charges I have ever paid.

molerat

How many kWh have you used, are the readings actual or estimates, is it a catch up bill on previous estimates, were correct opening readings used? Thinking the bill is excessive is of no relevance.

penrhyn

Be nice to know if you are heating with gas or electicity, and if the latter storage or panel.

harrys_nan

Did you ever check your bill against your meter readings?
Have you lived in the property long,if no did you read the meter on the day you moved in?

ROBGILL

I have spoken to British Gas and my neighbours. BG thinksthat my usage is high and that there may be a problem and my neighbours havecompared prices and also think that my bill is much higher than their own. Wethink that this may be either a fault with the metre or a very old and inefficientboiler. BG is sending someone out to check. All my readings were submitted byme on line and the suppliers have worked out the price per kw from there. Ithink (hope) that there is a fault in equipment as I have paid a years (almost)bill in 4 ½ months.

penrhyn

The word is spelt meter.
Anyhoo, assuming its gas have you checked whether you have an imperial meter ( i.e one that reads 100's cuft) and being billed as if it were metric. This could result in bills 3 times greater than they should be.

Metric meters have M3 stamped on them.

Ecodave

Have you checked that the readings you posted are correct?

Fire_Fox

Double check your readings and double check you typed them in correctly. Do you have photos of the meters when you moved in to double check that too?

macman

We can't give any help unless you post your actual kWh consumption figures, and tell us how the property is heated and hot watered.
And the dates that the bill covers.

chris1973

Comparing your bills with your neighbours is pointless, do they get up and go to bed at exactly the same time as you?, work the same shift patterns?, have the same number of people living there following exactly the same routines?.

More importantly are their thermostats set the same as yours?, do they run their heating at the same times?, do they heat their home using the same fuel as you?, cook and heat their water using Gas / Electric?, use a tumble dryer?

As you can see, many variables in the equation which can vary between households in the same street and have a significant effect on bills.

My neighbour heats & lights two indoor tropical fish tanks and has an outside pond heater running 24/7 at this time of year to keep an hole in the ice for his fish, would I consider his bills to be an average for my street?. Nah!

In short, you need to ignore what all of the neighbours' meters are doing and take some ownership for what yours is reading. That is the only way YOU can find out what YOU are using and what YOU should be paying.