Could really do with some help understanding my gas bills!

dogshome

YOU HAVE NOT LEFT THIS TOO LATE - You can reqiure BG to sort this out even if it happened 6 years ago, let alone 7 months.

I'm afraid it's a fact of life, that when dealing with Utility Co. problems, phone calls to a Customer Service Desk are one step away from useless.

WRITE the Complaint letter as my Post No.6
In strange world of Utilty Co's, an Email, phone call or letter is just a communication, but with the word 'Complaint' in writing the game changes - With this the supplier by the terms of their licence has to deal with the problem in 56 days, or you go off to the Ombudsman.

Re Your useage - A bit confused by you quoteing your Gas cost for a year as £800 as you say you moved in lastNovember, but putting that aside:

As Cardew has posted you are on BG's expensive 'Standard' tariff, so you need to visit some Switch sites to find something better, but to use these as a true measure you have to enter your yearly Gas Kwh consumption, but until November you won't know what this is

However from the figures you have given a rule of thumb guess can made.
If your Feb/April bill is doubled it gives a winter consumption of .........10,348 Kwh
In Summer your Gas use will drop by roughly 80%, so summer of ....... 2,069 Kwh
Total for year......................................................................................12,417 Kwh
Keep in mind this is a rough figure, but good enough for price comparisions on a Switch site
On your Elec consumption do as above, but reduce the winter billing by only 20% to get a figure for Summer

ilikebigsnails

Apologies, that's me not stating things correctly! I've been in my home just over a year, so it'll be November 2011 I moved in. Losing track of time...

I've just signed up to the utilities tool on here looking to switch, everyone I've spoken to thinks I am getting royally ripped off. I liked the standard tariff purely because it allowed me to give meter readings and pay quarterly rather than a monthly estimated bill.

So the reading when I moved in was 3972, it currently stands at 5843. That's for just over a year. In that time frame I've paid around £800 on gas, central heating only. I'm sometimes out of the house two weeks on the trot, in which case the heating is off. It's set on an evening to only come on from when I get in from work at 7pm, and only if the temp drops below 18 degrees, and I turn it off around 9/10pm. It's only a little house and warms up pretty quickly.

I'm aware utilities are all expensive at the moment, and that I must seem a bit naive, but as stated my family member is also with BG and pays the same as me on a three bed house with the heating on all day.

From what you guys say the numbers seem to add up though. Just a bit saddening when you've spent most of the winter wrapped up in a jumper to try keep costs down!

Cardew

Well at least your meter readings now make sense!

In 18 months you have used 1,871 metric gas units which is approx 21,000kWh and that indeed with BG's expensive standard tariff will cost over £800.

The average UK consumption is 16,500kWh pa and you have used an average of 14,000kWh. However bear in mind that the 18 months from Nov 2011 to May 2013 takes in two winters so your annual 'adjusted' consumption is around 12,000kWh which is what dogshome estimated.

So your consumption is certainly not excessive. Is your house modern (i.e. with good insulation) and how old is your boiler?

As dogshome stated you need to get the business with the DCA sorted - you may well find that the 'debt' you paid has affected your credit record - that needs checking.

DragonQ

Cardew wrote: »

That will confuse the OP! if it is an Imperial meter you have to multiply each gas unit by approx 32. It is 11.2 for a metric meter.

Oh right, sorry. So the OP has an electric meter and his kWh figures look fine.

Out of curiosity, why do even metric gas meters require conversion when metric electricity meters just show kWh directly?

Cardew

DragonQ wrote: »

Oh right, sorry. So the OP has an electric meter and his kWh figures look fine.

Out of curiosity, why do even metric gas meters require conversion when metric electricity meters just show kWh directly?

Because there are some variables in the calculation for a cubic metre to kWh. The Calorific Value of the gas is a nominal 40.0 but it can vary a couple of percent. So whilst 1 cubic metre is approx 11.2kWh it can vary.

macman

DragonQ wrote: »

Oh right, sorry. So the OP has an electric meter and his kWh figures look fine.

Out of curiosity, why do even metric gas meters require conversion when metric electricity meters just show kWh directly?

Electricity meters measure energy directly. Gas meters measure volume. The energy value of a given volume of gas is not a constant, hence the need for conversion in the billing process.

thor

I agree with the op. Even taking into account two harsh winters and Dogshome's adjusted average of about 12000KWH, that still seems too high when you think the op is living alone, sometimes is not home for weeks at a time, has no useable gas fire and thermostat and timer set to switch heating on minimally.
The only thing that I think could account for this(if the meter is not faulty), is maybe the op does not have a shower and instead has several baths a week. That does add up to a lot of hot water.