Huge utility bill, faulty thermostat?

Minbee

Hi all,

My bf and I are about to move out of our current (1bed) flat and have received a closing bill from N-Power for the last 4 months of £1889, which seems like an awful lot!

We've previously paid £93 p/m by DD at their suggestion.

We live at the top of a terrace, with 3 studio flats below us. I do not think two of the flats have been occupied much if at all this year, but there is an occupant in Flat 2 - I know because a few weeks ago he asked us whether we'd had any problems with our water temp (he had hot from both taps). We had, but it was relatively minor in that the cold water was occasionally warm but as we weren't around that much it didn't cause us too many problems.

A couple of months ago, I found a man exiting our flat, saying he was a plumber (he's also been an electrician and carpet-fitter on different occasions ) in to fix something for Flat 2, he had to do something with the thermostat, which is in our kitchen (for three years I had no idea what it was), and the tank, which is in the loft above our bedroom.
At the time, all I took in was that this man had been in our flat without our permission or knowledge.

NOW however I'm beginning to wonder...

1) Is it normal that someone else's thermostat/tank should be in our flat?

2)Are we paying to heat the other tenant's water?

3)Could we be paying for other tenant's electricity?!

4)If the thermostat is at fault/poorly set-up, is the landlord liable for any part of this bill?

I have contacted the landlord to ask them to check out the thermostat and voice my concerns about the bill, broaching the subject of joint liability if the excess energy consumption has been caused by a faulty/poorly mended thermostat. After 4 days waiting for a response I was fobbed off, obviously. They stated that as we have never complained about our water temp or thermostat, there is no problem and they are not responsible.

I responded immediately asking whether Flat 2 has its own tank and thermostat - if so, it's unlikely that our bill has been caused by Flat 2s problems as the odds of both failing are quite slim.

I'm still waiting for a response to this - it's been 3 days. We move out on Monday.

I don't mind paying the bill if it turns out that we've used excessive units, but I do mind paying if this over-the-top usage is the result of an electrical fault or poor maintenance by the chap they send around to fix every problem we have - he once did a terrible job of fixing a water leak. :eek:

Sorry if I've posted in the wrong place, I'm a noobie

giddypenguin

Can't help you with the thermostat issue, but I just thought I'd check - were your previous bills based on estimations or were they taken off the meter readings?

We thought we were giving regular meter readings (and stupidly didn't check the bills - just paid the DD) turns out, for 3 years, they had been rejecting these readings as they were very different to what they were expecting (they installed a new meter - didn't update their records, so they were expecting much larger readings than we were giving) as a result we had been underpaying every month - leaving us with a £790 final bill! In the end we got them to write this off (but it took almost a year, a lot of stress, and consumer direct's involvement)

Just thought it was worth a mention.

Minbee

They have been a mixture of both, apparently there have been some readings taken but not at times when either of us or the downstairs tenant were in, so not sure how they would have gained access!

Carys84

Is the loft exclusive to your flat? Often in flats the loft is still considered as 'shared' (even though access is through your flat-that's jsut poor planning). If it is shared then I would say it's fairly understandable that the loft would house several water tanks-however the individual water tank themostats should be, I would have thought, co-located with the water tank itself, and not somewhere within your flat.

How did this guy gain access to your flat exactly?!?! That would freak me out no end (and I'm pretty sure invalidate your home insurance!)

The DD you pay to your energy company are just 'guestimates' unless you are giving them regular meter reading updates. They base it on the known size of your flat (1bed, 2bed etc) and number of people living there. It doesn't take into account individual useage ie. if you use a tumble drier, are mad-keen compter gamers, generally a bit generous with your energy useage. Could this be the case for you in fact?

Minbee

Hi Carys (that's my name too )
I don't know about the loft, nothing is mentioned in the contract and it's never been mentioned to us by landlord - although they also neglected to mention that the white boxy dial thing with nails in was a thermostat for our hot water.

I think its unlikely that bf (account holder) would have been giving regular meter updates, he didn't even know where it was until I pointed it out when we got the bill.

I'd be surprised if we used as much energy as we seem to have, we both work full-time and don't have a tv, no tumble dryer, no heavy games console or computer usage. I would think the biggest energy eater we have is an electric heater, the only heating in the whole house, which would have been in use for 2-3 hours every night during dec/jan/maybe feb.

Tixy

So on the previous bill - presumably from 4 months ago does it show an estimated or actual reading?

If estimated keep going back through older bills until you get to the last actual reading. Then you can assess how long a period the electricity bill has been run up against.

£1889 for 4 months for a 1 bed flat, even one heated by electric heaters is exceptionally high. If its actually a catch up of underpaid electricity for a whole year then that would be different.

giddypenguin

Tixy wrote: »

So on the previous bill - presumably from 4 months ago does it show an estimated or actual reading?

If estimated keep going back through older bills until you get to the last actual reading. Then you can assess how long a period the electricity bill has been run up against.

This would be my advice also - we had people from the energy company round to do readings also, and even then it wasn't picked up.

If they are all estimates, and you didn't give meter readings you might have limited options. The only reason we were 'let off' was because we had given them the meter readings and they had rejected them without notification or further investigation, which was a breach of the 'back-billing code' - this states that energy companies can only charge you for the debt accrued in the previous 12 months if it was their mistake that caused the arrears to arise. As it took a year of phone calls etc this amounted to £0.

angrypirate

I suggest turn off the master fusebox in your flat for an evening and go to the pub. See if the fusebox is either magically turned back on (ie your LL has gone in to turn it on) or whether you get an angry phonecall from your LL