Extream Bills

clare.purvis

Hi


We are currently trying to sort out our debt etc following my husbands redundancy (he is now back in employment).


We have been having difficulty keeping up with our gas and electric bills. We live in an ex local authority 3 bed semi, 2 adults and 3 kids.


We have been on a payment plan with EDF for years (longer than I can remember) that pays our usage and a little off our owed. I called EDF last week about difficulty keeping up with our bill. We currently pay £100 a month for Gas and £100 a month for Electricity. I gave the lady a meter reading and she said it pushed our debt with them up to £1800 combined!! The lady explained that we were using 6000units electricity and 15000 units gas more than an average house hold. Now I understand our electricity maybe higher than average given the usage of our washing machine, tumble dryer and pond pumps etc but the gas I have no idea, we both work full time and the children are at school every day. The heating is on for 5 hours a day max and we have a combi boiler (these are the only things we run gas for). If you lived with my husband you would find this hard to believe also as he permanently turns things off including the heating.


EDF advised us to contact their trust to see if they could help us with our debt but they have refused any help listing potential reasons why.


We are at our wits end now and just don't know how much longer we can keep racking up what seems like an impossibility gas bill. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I_have_spoken

Do you use gas or electric for cooking?

You really need to tell us actual gas usage over 12 months in kWh, this should be on your bills. Over 12 months 20,000 kWh would be reasonable with 5 in the house. The Spring of 2013 was very cold, so heating would have cost.

macman

You are also heating all your hot water by gas-not just the space heating.
The figures quoted to you by EDF are not feasible: you would be using 300% more leccy than the UK average of 3,300kWh, and 200%+ more gas than the UK average of 13,500 kWh.
For meaningful advice post your annual kWh usage on each fuel, as that's the only figure that matters. £££'s pm on DD tell us nothing, because if you owe £1,800, then a vast part of your monthly DD will be repaying the arrears, plus the ongoing usage. If the debt is still rising, then clearly you can't manage your usage and you should consider voluntary fitment of PPM's before EDF compel you to do so,

matelodave

Try reading your meters weekly and recording them so that you know what you are using and can try and reduce your consumption. If you don't measure it yourself you can't actually see if any of your energy saving actions are working.
Look at what you are using - if you have showers or baths then take shorter ones - less than 5 minutes each and shallower baths (or fewer of them). Adjust your thermostats and timers so that the house is comfortable and not being heated when you aren't there. Reduce drafts etc. Use less hot water by washing up or washing yourself in a bowl or sink rather than letting it all run down the plughole.
If you aren't heating or producing hot water by electricity then you must be using a hell of a lot on other things. Turn stuff like games computers, computers, TVs, chargers and anything else off at the wall, don't leave them on standby. Likewise set your skybox to eco mode so it shuts down overnight. Have all the kids got their own TVs & games consoles, if so you could be using quite a lot - try all sitting together to watch just one TV.
Turn lights off in rooms when you aren't in them. Only use the washing machine, tumble dryer and dishwasher with full loads. Only fill the kettle with as much water as you need. Don't use fan heaters or any other form of additional heating that uses electricity.


The only way you'll save money and reduce your arrears is by turning stuff off, down or using it less - so you've got to train the kids to do it as well. The other thing that you can do is to improve your insulation in the loft or have the cavity walls filled if you haven't already done so.


If you take charge of your consumption and monitor yourself you'll be able to reduce your bills rather than waiting for the next big one to drop through the letter box.

clare.purvis

Thank you very much for your responses. The money I'm paying at the moment is usage only. I will dig out my bills to see the usage also.


We are going to start to keep a diary of what we use and meter readings as requested by EDF.