Shocking bill

NeverEnough

We have a hot tub which has stood unused for 3 years now as it sends the electricity usage sky high.......even without the hot tub I am at a loss to understand why our usage is still higher than most. Definitely the hot tub, though, pretty ceratin your consumption will drop dramatically when that is off. Pity as its a most enjoyable and relaxing item, the hot tub!!

Our gas usage was also greatly increased by our gas-fired Aga, which has also stood unused for the past two years now.

CC-Warrior

Surely it's up to you how much you pay to a utilities company via direct debit. I had this problem with Eon until I rang them up and told them I would choose my own monthly payment. I'm not having the money sitting in their account gathering interest when it could be sitting in mine.

I pay £60 monthly (one person living on his own and out all day and 4 nights a week) for gas and electricity. Most of that goes on heating in the winter.

Don't know how you can possibly use that much, must be an expensive hot tub.

victor2

buster09 wrote: »

They have also given us an estimated bill for the next 12 months which comes to £2,554.66
we are currently (according to EDF" £750 in arrears now even adding those two figures together doesn't warrant a £450 a month DD
We would end up paying £5400 for the year?????

buster09 wrote: »

They must pull these numbers out of their asses, where on earth do they get £453 from?
They continually increase the DD yet we are NEVER in credit, they just say, "oh you have used more this year"
We have decided to pay off the arrears and go with someone else who can provide a smart meter or at least a readable bill.
I am going to do weekly readings as well on both meters.

!!!!!!.

Do you mean you are NEVER in debt? Yet your first statement says you are £750 in arrears. If you never have a credit balance, then you always owe them something.

EDF do have a history of inexplicably increased DD amounts. However, their estimated bill for the next 12 months could just be your usage over the last 12 months at the current tariff. They will also show the 12 month cost they have calculated for that usage. That's how my last EDF statement was. Look at the kWh usage for each fuel - so long as that reflects your actual usage, you can use that to confirm their calculation for the predicted cost. If that comes nowhere near what they have said they are increasing the DD to, then phone them up and argue the point. Your debit balance isn't huge, but they have told me they aim for a zero balance at the time of your annual review, which is on the anniversary of you starting the tariff.

buster09

Do you mean you are NEVER in debt? Yet your first statement says you are £750 in arrears. If you never have a credit balance, then you always owe them something.

I mean we are always owing them something, they increase the DD and even then the next bill says we are still in debt because we are using more.
If we allowed them to increase the DD to £453 a month it would have us overpay by over 2 grand based on next years estimated usage.
If we did this I guarantee next year they would claim we still owed them. :mad:

Blackpool_Saver

Sounds like a very inefficient water system, has it been serviced recently?

buster09

Been monitoring the consumption over the last three days
gas has gone up 1 digit and electricity up by 47.
As for the hot tub using a lot it went up 30 points Monday and 17 today, the only thing I did different Monday was 1 load of washing, so the Hot tub cant be that significant.
I am almost walking around in the dark as well.

victor2

buster09 wrote: »

Been monitoring the consumption over the last three days
gas has gone up 1 digit and electricity up by 47.
As for the hot tub using a lot it went up 30 points Monday and 17 today, the only thing I did different Monday was 1 load of washing, so the Hot tub cant be that significant.
I am almost walking around in the dark as well.

Electricity meters read in kWh, so 47 "points" is 47 kWh - you'll be charged for it at 47 times whatever your rate per kWh is.
Don't see how you can say the hot tub can't be that significant from the figures you have given. If it accounts for 10kWh per day (for example), I'd call it significant. The extra 13 kWh you used on Monday is a lot if the only different thing you did was one load of washing. You must have had some other high user running during the period between your readings.

As for almost walking around in the dark, don't kid yourself that lights have to use a lot of electricity. If you have energy saving bulbs (if you don't, get some!), a typical one equivalent to an incandescent 60W bulb will use something like 8 watts, so if it was on constantly for 24 hours, it would use just under one fifth of a kWh, costing a few pence. Not entirely significant in the scale of your reported usage.
If you really want to get an idea what your hot tub uses, take readings over a typical week with the tub in use, then a week without it.

buster09

The extra 13 kWh you used on Monday is a lot if the only different thing you did was one load of washing. You must have had some other high user running during the period between your readings.

The only things plugged in are tvs on standby and a pond pump (just turned that off after a quick Google search :eek:)

If you really want to get an idea what your hot tub uses, take readings over a typical week with the tub in use, then a week without it.

Just doing that this week, checking daily readings then turn it off from Sunday.

buster09

EDF are sending someone round to attach monitors to our meters to make sure they are running accurately, the guy at EDF who spoke to my wife couldnt believe our figures.
Im sure theres something drastically wrong.
If the electric carries on moving quickly next week I will turn everything off at every socket.

matelodave

Try recording your usage on at least a weekly basis, ideally daily to see when you are using it.

We are at home all day, usually got a couple of computers on plus other odds & sods, we cook with electric and heat our 3-bedroomed detached bungalow and hot water with it as well and we are currently using about 8-9Kw a day. Washing day with a tumble dryer puts it up to 10-15

Our worst month was January when we used 1500kw which averaged about 48kw a day. In June we used just 272kw = 9Kw per day.

You must have stuff turned on that you don't realise. X-box, Sky box, TV, video recorder, computer, printer etc, we turn all this stuff off when it's not in use and it saves us well over £100 a year.

My total energy usage last year was 8000kw, this year it will be about 9000 due to the long cold winter but we'll still pay less than £1000 and as I said we are at home all day with the heating on in the winter.