British Gas - advice

mickeypip

Hello,

I'm new to the forums and wondered if anyone might be able to give me any advice.

I moved into a new rented house 4 months ago and have found my energy bills have tripled compared to my previous home.

Previously I lived in a 1970s flat with 2 beds and 2 rooms (kitchen, lounge). I now live in a 1910s end terrace with 2 beds and 3 rooms (kitchen, lounge, second lounge).

There are 2 of us living here. In just 4 months my bills have come in at about £300/month (about £250 gas, £50 electricity), when in my flat they were £300/quarter at the very most. The main change is that we now have gas and electricty, whereas previously we had just electricity. But our consumption in terms of showers/cooking/heating is basically the same.

We have the heating thermostat on 20 between 7am-8:30am, and then 6:30pm-11pm - so approx 6 hrs/day. I'm not sure if this excessive for gas as I've never had gas before, but the house is really cold otherwise and takes a good while to heat up.

All bills have been based on actual readings by me, which I've taken regularly as I'm concerned. It works out our daily usage as 15kwh for electricty, and 155kwh for gas - which seems sky high to me... I've checked and the meter is metric, which the bill calculations also reflect.

Is it possible there could be an issue, or are we simply having our heating on too long? The water is heated as we need it by a Worcester boiler (which recently had to be fixed due to a leak).

I am really at a loss as there is no way I can really afford £300/month for energy bills. Our supplier is British Gas which the landlord has set up (we were Eon at our old place).

Any advice would be much appreciated as I am panicking that we will simply have to turn everything off as we can't afford it.

Of course I'm going to contact British Gas too, but haven't found them the quickest/most helpful so thought I'd see if I could pick a few brains if I can.

Many thanks.
Michelle

HappyMJ

You just moved in so you should have an EPC. What does the EPC estimate your annual energy usage would be?

155kWh a day is not sky high for an uninsulated end of terrace property.

mickeypip

Thanks for the advice HappyMJ, I will double check to see if we received one of these and see what it says.

Really, that seems ok? I have friends living in 4 bed uninsulated semis paying half what I'm being charged. I've never known anyone get bills of £300/month for energy so it was really unexepcted.

I will check for an EPC, thanks.

HappyMJ

mickeypip wrote: »

Thanks for the advice HappyMJ, I will double check to see if we received one of these and see what it says.

Really, that seems ok? I have friends living in 4 bed uninsulated semis paying half what I'm being charged. I've never known anyone get bills of £300/month for energy so it was really unexepcted.

I will check for an EPC, thanks.

Try here.

https://www.epcregister.com/reportSearchAddressTerms.html

£300 is high but it is winter. The bills will decrease over summer. Have you done a comparison to see what you could get your bills down to based on your estimate of 155kWh per day?

mickeypip

I will check that website thanks, will definitely be speaking to my landlord too about her previous experience and asking to switch suppliers if we can find a better deal.

It is just a shock to triple our bills for a property that's probably only 10% bigger. (our highest bill last year for 3 months was £350 in winter in a very cold flat, compared to £900 that I've just received for dec-feb).

For now i think we'll just have to switch the heating off and put up with the cold. Hopefully our spring/summer bills will reduce.

Thanks for the tips, much appreciated.

macman

I don't think your gas usage is unreasonable, given the cold weather. As stated above, it will average out much lower across a full year., so your will be much less than £300pm. But your electricity figure indicates an annual consumption of about 5,475kWh pa. That's about 60% higher than the UK average for such a property. Assuming you have gas CH and DHW, you need to identify why that is so high. Immersion heater switch left on 24/7 is the usual suspect?
And you are probably on BG's Standard tariff, which is the most expensive(default tariff). Get yourself off onto the cheapest online discount via a comp site and you'll make an immediate saving.
Insualtion? You cannot compare the costs in a 70's flat to an old Edwardian house with no cavity walls, and possibly no double glazing or decent loft insulation.

Wywth

mickeypip wrote: »

Hello,

I'm new to the forums and wondered if anyone might be able to give me any advice.

I moved into a new rented house 4 months ago and have found my energy bills have tripled compared to my previous home.

Previously I lived in a 1970s flat with 2 beds and 2 rooms (kitchen, lounge). I now live in a 1910s end terrace with 2 beds and 3 rooms (kitchen, lounge, second lounge).

There are 2 of us living here. In just 4 months my bills have come in at about £300/month (about £250 gas, £50 electricity), when in my flat they were £300/quarter at the very most. The main change is that we now have gas and electricty, whereas previously we had just electricity. But our consumption in terms of showers/cooking/heating is basically the same.

We have the heating thermostat on 20 between 7am-8:30am, and then 6:30pm-11pm - so approx 6 hrs/day. I'm not sure if this excessive for gas as I've never had gas before, but the house is really cold otherwise and takes a good while to heat up.

All bills have been based on actual readings by me, which I've taken regularly as I'm concerned. It works out our daily usage as 15kwh for electricty, and 155kwh for gas - which seems sky high to me... I've checked and the meter is metric, which the bill calculations also reflect.

Is it possible there could be an issue, or are we simply having our heating on too long? The water is heated as we need it by a Worcester boiler (which recently had to be fixed due to a leak).

I am really at a loss as there is no way I can really afford £300/month for energy bills. Our supplier is British Gas which the landlord has set up (we were Eon at our old place).

Any advice would be much appreciated as I am panicking that we will simply have to turn everything off as we can't afford it.

Of course I'm going to contact British Gas too, but haven't found them the quickest/most helpful so thought I'd see if I could pick a few brains if I can.

Many thanks.
Michelle

Your usage does seem very high

An average user consumes 3300kWh of electricity and 16500kWh of gas
This costs about £1300 a year even on a suppliers expensive standard tariff.

Where a customer uses gas as space heating, then their electricity usage really doesn't usually alter much throughout the year (especially if they have low energy light bulbs which nowadays means the effects of shorter days in the winter has negligible effect on lighting consumption)
You appear to have used over half the annual average consumption electricity in just 1/3 of a year. You are currently on target to use over 5000kWh per year.

Gas - Well this does change seasonally, but you appear to have consumed more than what the average household does in one year in just 4 months!
Are you sure they are billing you correctly?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/features/consumer-advice-reading-meters
(but based on your high electricity consumption, I guess your gas consumption is high too)

I suggest calling your supplier to discuss ways how to reduce your consumption (or look on their website)

If you really do want to continue using this level of energy, at least make sure you are on the best tariff for you.
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity

The average user could save about £250, but as a high user the opportunity may be there for you to save considerably more

mickeypip

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I'd be really surprised if we use a high level of electricity on purpose. We have the TV and two small lamps on between 8pm-11pm, plus a fridge and that's about it! Oh and the kettle a few times of an eve.

We're double glazed, but I do think the insulation is poor/non existent (which I'll check with the landlord).

Other than that: heating is gas and on thermostat for no more than 5-6 hrs. Quick showers daily, 2-3 dishwasher loads and 2 washing loads/week. We hang most of our washing, so not much tumble drying at all (electricity wise). Doesn't seem excessive to me...

I'm going to investigate all of your advice, thanks very much!

Wywth

mickeypip wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your advice.

I'd be really surprised if we use a high level of electricity on purpose. We have the TV and two small lamps on between 8-11pm, plus a fridge and that's about it! Oh and the kettle a few times of an eve.

We're double glazed, but I do think the insulation is poor/non existent (which I'll check with the landlord).

Other than that: heating is gas and on thermostat for no more than 5-6 hrs (it isn't needing to climb massive amounts though to regulate, other than on reeeeeally cold days). Quick showers daily, 2-3 dishwasher loads and 2 washing loads/week. We hang most of our washing, so not much rumble drying at all (electricity wise). Doesn't seem excessive to me...

I'm going to investigate all of your advice, thanks very much!

I can assure you, those do not use 15kWh per day.

Even if you have a rapid boil kettle that is going non-stop, that would only use 9kWh in those 3 hours.

I suggest you get yourself a couple of energy monitors to help you find out what exactly you are using your electricity on.

mickeypip

Thanks HappyMJ for that weblink. The EPC certificate estimates £1200 annually based on an assessment o he property. I'm going to investigate, get a monitor and see if I can find anymore out!

Thanks all.

mickeypip

Hello again,

We are still struggling to get to the bottom of this, though changing a couple of settings has brought down the usage slightly (either that or the milder temperatures last week).

However, our Worcester Bosch Greenstar 28i Junior boiler has gone into fault mode, and apparently died. The repairman is currently off buying it a new PCB(?) circuit board as we speak.

The boiler has actually faulted like this before, but we were able to get it up and running again. This time it has completely gone. My question is - in anyone's experience, could an issue with the PCB affect the gas consumption? For example, could it have been running constantly without us being aware? (I've never had a gas boiler before, so wouldn't be familiar with its regular or irregular noises/habits!).

Possibly a stupid question, but thought it might be worth the ask just in case! (As I'm still struggling to comprehend how we used the Ofgen national average annual gas consumption in just 3 months by having the heating on a few hours a day!).

Thanks!
Michelle