Who is responsible for this electricity bill?

[Deleted User]

Most utility providers will offer payment plans for arrears if you're in a difficult financial position, although it doesn't solve your problem it does mean if you are held liable you'll be able to spread the cost.

With regards to the problem, do you live in a semi-detached, detached or terrace house? You say that the meter still shows power being drawn when you don't have anything running, could a neighbour have been involved?

G_M

The meter readings need checking. Clearly the fact that you are closing your account has meant the provider is bringing your account up to date.

Is the closing reading shown on the bill in line with the meter?

Since you say this large usage has occurred 'in the last 7 months' and yet also that you have been giving them readings 'every 2 months', then either
* they have been ignoring your readings, and under-estimating until this final reading was produced or
* you must have realised each time you gave the 2-monthly reading that your usage was increasing, but presumably your direct debit was not increasing (thus resulting in the debit build-up.)

It may also be that yes, your readings match the readings on the bills, but the direct debit payments were insufficient to cover the usage. Providers don't immediately alter the DDs. Particularly in winter they may allow you to build up a debit, knowing that in summer your usage will drop and by keeping the DD the same throughout the year it balances out your payments.

Either way, the answer lies in examining your bills against the meter!

Yes, IF you can prove that the electrics are faulty and the LL has been negligent, then you could claim against the LL.

The problem is, he could only be negligent if he knew there was a problem. And since you have not told him (despite the electricity usage increasing over a 7 month period) how could he have known? How could you expect him to fix a problem he was not made aware of? The negligence, if any, was yours in not reporting the problem in a timely fashion.

Can faulty wiring cause this?

No. The electricity has to go somewhere! If through the lights, the bulbs would blow. If earthed to ground, the mains fuse would blow/trip switch be activated.

Are you sure
* your electricity charges have not risen? Most have.
* you have not been using more heating over the winter?

candypanda

Yes the reading on the bill is in line with the meter.
i live in a 3 bed detached house. Nope I didn't notice, I work 50 hours a week and I am doing a degree so I just took the numbers down as a routine thing. Something that's bothering me, on the reading history Npower are only mentioning 4 readings that have been given. Even though obviously a LOT more have been given, we've had more than 4 people alone round to take their own readings, so I don't know why those aren't being mentioned.

Would a faulty meter cause the lights alone, no other appliances, to make the numbers increase so much?

hazyjo

I had a similar thing when my last house was sold last April.

EDF decided to take a final amount by direct debit of around £700 (our total bill being in excess of a grand for a quarter!!!!!) (Some had been paid with our £75 direct debit.)

We'd been a few pounds in credit at the end of the previous quarter!

They'd bu**ered up the account in the first place so we waited 17 months for a gas bill as they kept telling us we had no supply with them - which we quite clearly did - and that bill came in at around £1,200. So how can 17 months be approx £1,200, yet three months be over a grand?!

Basically, they wouldn't send anyone to examine it (even though I said there must be a gas leak) as the sale had gone through and we were out of the house.

Had no choice but to pay it. Was livid. Had taken meter readings and everything seemed to tally up, but I still can't understand how that much electric was used. I wasn't even in the house at that time, it was only my ex and he rarely had the heating on (even in winter). He had to pay half of it, so not like he was trying to rack the bill up for me!

Good luck. Try to put up more of a fight than I did!

Jx

Jenniefour

fishpond wrote: »

I can only guess that your supply has been tapped into.
Please let us know what the electrician comes up with.

That's my best guess, someone's tapped into OP's supply. How can the meter be registering usage with everything turned off?

The only other reason, apart from faulty meter, I can think of is cannabis farm - and I doubt very much that any cannabis farmers are going to be on here complaining about their electricity bills so I'm ruling that out.

It's not the increased cost of power that's the issue, everyone's been affected by that, it's the usage in units, which far exceeds by big multiples, the average usage for an average property in the UK.

candypanda

Jenniefour wrote: »

That's my best guess, someone's tapped into OP's supply. How can the meter be registering usage with everything turned off?

The only other reason, apart from faulty meter, I can think of is cannabis farm - and I doubt very much that any cannabis farmers are going to be on here complaining about their electricity bills so I'm ruling that out.

It's not the increased cost of power that's the issue, everyone's been affected by that, it's the usage in units, which far exceeds by big multiples, the average usage for an average property in the UK.

Does it even exceed other people who have 15 x 50 watt bulbs?? I do have 5 on for around 12 hours a day but I used an online energy calculator and it still only totalled around a quarter of what they're saying x

[Deleted User]

candypanda wrote: »

Does it even exceed other people who have 15 x 50 watt bulbs?? I do have 5 on for around 12 hours a day but I used an online energy calculator and it still only totalled around a quarter of what they're saying x

From personal experience I don't think it's possible that your usage could be from genuine day to day electricity usage. I live in a large detached 5 bedroom house that has over 50 lights (all using 50W bulbs) of which at least a dozen are in use at any one time (I work from home >110 hours a week), on top of that we make liberal use of electric heaters and I have a lot of computer hardware that uses a lot of electricity 24/7, as a result my yearly power usage is identical to what you're reporting NPower say that you've used: ~8,000 KWH every 6 months.

I cannot see how the way you use electricity in your house could come close to using the same amount of electricity that I use.

G_M

Jenniefour wrote: »

....

The only other reason, apart from faulty meter, I can think of is cannabis farm - and I doubt very much that any cannabis farmers are going to be on here complaining about their electricity bills so I'm ruling that out.

Lets cover that possibility just to be sure:

OP - are you running a cannabis farm?

G_M

I still suspect

It may also be that yes, your readings match the readings on the bills, but the direct debit payments were insufficient to cover the usage. Providers don't immediately alter the DDs. Particularly in winter they may allow you to build up a debit, knowing that in summer your usage will drop and by keeping the DD the same throughout the year it balances out your payments.

maninthestreet

'We have 50w bulbs, about 5 per room in 3 rooms.'

That's 750w, so in 4 hours will all those lights on you would have used 4KWh, or 8kw in 8hours. However, 8000KWh in 7 months is about 40KWh per day. Do you have an immersion heater in the hot water cylinder???