Extremely high gas bill

MrTrav15

HI Guys,

Im new to the site and was looking for some advice.

I currently have gas and electric supplied by SSE through a monthly direct debit. I moved into my current house (3 bed, detached) about 18 months ago. After 1 year of living here (November 2012) I receive my bill to find I am using more gas than im paying for and owe SSE about £390. At this time I was currently paying £65 per month for my gas (which I already thought was slightly high). I increased my payments to £85 per month, had the boiler serviced, had a room thermostat fitted, had a few small repairs carried out on the boiler and insulated the loft myself.

Just me and the girlfriend live in the house, we both work full time, this means the thermostat turns the heating onat about 6am until 8am then off and then back on about 4:30pm and off at 10:30pm. We also have a gas hob (used most nights) and a shower running off of the hot water.

Today I received my bill from SSE from November 2012 until April 2013. I now owe SSE £776!! They say in the space of 6 months I have used 27162.43 kWh of gas.

I rang SSE this evening, told them something cannot be right and I am not happy. They flirted with the idea of a new boiler (not going to happen) and then suggested filling out a survey to see where I might be using a lot of gas! They told me that this year they have predicted I will have an annual cost of £1200 + the £776 which means they want me to change my direct debit to £165 per month! I simply refused but had no choice but to increase from £85 - £100 for now.

I am really unhappy and slightly worried, I stepped up from a 2 bed end terrace paying £40 per month to a 3 bed detached and feel I am getting absolutely ripped off. I am unsure of what to do, I doubt the gas meter would be faulty and it obviously costs to find out and I very much hope it isn't the boiler at fault. There is definitely no smells of gas in the house and so I doubt its a gas leak.

JSR

Have you confirmed all your bills are based on actual meter readings and not estimates? Also confirm the units on the bill are the same as the units on the meter? It can be ft^3 or m^3. 27K kWh is a lot for a year never mind six months.

Nada666

Have you checked for being billed for an imperial meter if you have a metric meter?

MrTrav15

Thanks for quick replies.

I made a slight mistake, the 27,162kWh is actually for 12 months not 6. Apparently I have used 19,493kWh since November. The bill is definitely taken from a meter reading as I supplied the reading myself (and the reading is on the bill). The meter I have measures in ft3. However I'm not great with the measurements so below I've copied the jargon supplied on the bill as to how they work it out.


How gas units are converted to kilowatt hours:

20 Imperial units used x 2.83 imperial to metric conversion factor x 39.30 Calorific value x 1.022640 Volume correction ÷ 3.6 to convert to kWh = 631.85 kWh.

Gas Unrestricted kWh 2738 (reading last time) 3335 (reading this time) 597 units

How gas units are converted to kilowatt hours:

597 Imperial units used x 2.83 imperial to metric conversion factor x 39.30 Calorific value x 1.022640 Volume correction ÷ 3.6 to convert to kWh = 18,861.38 kWh.

Units converted to kilowatt hours (kWh)
19493.23 kWh

macman

Your usage is above the average but not dramatically so. It's quite normal to use 70%+ of your annual usage in the coldest 3 months-especially given the very cold winter.

Ecodave

Are your walls insulated? Your detached house has all heat loss walls, your previous end terrace house would have had heat loss walls to approx 60% of the perimeter, big difference. How does the volume of space in your detached house compare to the end-terrace? How efficient is your boiler? Post the make and model if you don't know.

Do you need your heating on until 10.30? If your house is well insulated you might get away with turning the heating off an hour before you go to bed?