HELP! Excessive Gas Bill... Confused.

Wywth

lottica wrote: »

Hi all.

I'm looking for some advice on the gas bill which I received yesterday and wonder if anyone could help me? I was a student last year (until 1st July 2013) and our Gas & Electric supplier was Glide, a company used by students so you can split bills individually. They set up a weekly payment of:

Electricity £3.87
Gas £4.72
Weekly Fee (per person) £8.59

We have paid this without fail over the year, but as an account closure statement yesterday, all four of us tenants have received an individual bill for an extra £545.61!? It does not seem reasonable to me that they are asking for a total of £2182.44 on top the weekly payments that we have already made for the year. I have had a look at the meter readings, and am unsure what could be wrong - can anyone see anything glaringly obvious?

30/06/2012 40894 Customer
19/07/2012 42305 Actual
31/08/2012 42383 Estimated
25/09/2012 42512.08 Customer
30/09/2012 42512 Actual
31/10/2012 42687 Estimated
30/11/2012 42916 Estimated
31/12/2012 43189 Estimated
09/01/2013 43859.975 Customer
17/01/2013 44017 Actual
28/02/2013 44300 Estimated
31/03/2013 44622 Estimated
17/04/2013 45670 Customer
30/04/2013 44823 Estimated
31/05/2013 44950 Estimated
04/07/2013 46098.014 Customer

I am unfamiliar with gas bills as I haven't had much experience with it, if anyone could give me a bit of advice on all this it would REALLY be appreciated as I need to phone them today to query this for the second time.

Thankyou in advance!!!

Lottica

Wow! :eek: 60,000 kWh of gas used in a year!
(The average is just 16,500 kWh)

I would suggest that perhaps your start & end readings were incorrect, but mid year readings (Sept & Jan) you took are backed up actual ones, so I don't think you've misread the meter. But then in April, it appears the supplier decided you misread the meter!

So you might have done.
In the just first 2.5 weeks of July 2012 it seems you used almost the average annual household gas consumption.
Yet in the next 2 months you only used 2200kWh? The question is was the house unoccupied during this time (as is typical for most student houses) and if so, what was this gas used on?

Then in June 2013 you again used almost a years typical average households consumption. :eek:

Perhaps the start reading should have been 41894 and the final reading 45098. This would only reduce your annual consumption by 22000kWh, so making your year total 40,000kWh approx

...but that is still high and would still cost you almost £1900 per year for gas consumed. But it would knock off about £1000 the total demanded,

But If I'm right, it doesn't explain why you used twice as much gas in the first 6 months of the year compared to the last 6 months, so I'm not so sure.
Perhaps just the start reading was wong? (but that is unlikley too, as they would compare to the final reading given by the previous tenants)

StuC75

whats the format of the numbers on the meter?

some have dials that go in alternative direction for each of the dials making misreads possible..

Cardew

StuC75 wrote: »

whats the format of the numbers on the meter?

some have dials that go in alternative direction for each of the dials making misreads possible..

Are there any cubic metre dial meters? I thought they were all cubic feet.

molerat

Who actually read the meters for the "customer" reads (especially the first and last ones), was it you or maybe the landlord ?

Many of those readings are quite feasible, the Oct-Dec quarter shows around 13 units per day, yes high but with students probably correct. In fact the only one that seems dodgy to me is the first.

macman

Can you currently access the meter (ask the current residents)?

Nada666

You are paying for more than 1200 meter units of the previous residents gas for a start - enough to easily pay for two or three rooms central heating for a whole year stolen from you just to begin with.

(About £650 stolen (that is, assuming it was stolen.) - but's still £160 to take off the last demand.

Nada666

That is some deal you are on.

An astonishing £1800 per year standing charge (but, hey, that's what Ofgem say consumers want and what Ofgem wants - makes choosing simpler, don't you know?) compared to a more normal £200 (at the very most).

... and still paying above average tier 2 unit prices

... and paying £650 of the previous tenants' consumption.

Nada666

Wywth wrote: »

Then in June 2013 you again used almost a years typical average households consumption. :eek:

But that was 22,000 between Jan and Jun - the other readings are estimates and an ignored customer read (the meter was going backwards over April and May!)

Pincher

46,098 - 40,894 = 5,204 units of GAS!

I thought 5,204 had to be electricity, and for four students it's OK. 5,204 units of gas in either metric or imperial is crazy.


44,950 - 42,305 = 2,645 units of gas in metric is reasonable for a houehold of four for a year.

So, I agree with Nada666, your first reading and final reading are bogus.

sharnad

spiro wrote: »

Looking at the figures you have provided your gas bill for the whole period is £2793.07 and for elec £986.95 giving a total cost of £3780.02.

For electricty you have used nearly double the national average, for gas you have used 3.5 times the national average.

That's really high.