NPower keep increasing our monthly payment

JP1901

Hi - Please can someone offer me some advice, I am at the end of my tether & not sure what to do next. We have our gas & electric with NPower, in 2012 I had a baby so I was on maternity leave until Jan 2013, because of the baby the heating was on more than usual & we had to use the tumble dryer (still do but it is an A grade machine as is the washing machine), anyway last March the new NPower bill came & it was just ridiculous & I ended up agreeing to a payment plan with them which meant that we were paying £109.00 per month for the current gas & electric usage then another £56 to repay what we owed them so £165.00 a month (it didn't help that for some reason they decided to stop collecting our payments for 4 months as well for no reason...anyway we have been struggling with money but we are making the payments, the new bill is here today & now they want to put the payments up to £143 for regular gas & electric usage plus they still want the £56 a month for the debt so now £209 per month - we simply cannot afford it & I honestly have no clue as to how we can be spending that much, we have cavity & loft insulation (fitted by British Gas), most doors & windows are UPVC, we have a combi boiler, electric cooker, we are out 7.30 - 5.30 Mon - Thursday, heating comes on at 5.30am, goes off at 7.30am then back on at 4.30pm, off at 9pm, we never use the gas fire & if I am in on my own & wrap up well, weekends we tend to just boost the heat in the house if we have to for an hour but we rarely leave it on all day & never all night. I just don't know what to do next, I am sat at work feeling sick at the thought of having to find all this extra money, we are not entitled to any help with anything so all the bills & childcare are for us to find & I just don't know what to do or where to turn next, I could sit here & cry, the car needs its brakes doing, nursery bill is due, mortgage etc etc

benwarwick123

Ask npower what your yearly usage in kwh is for gas and elec, also what tariff are you on with npower. Once you've been given the yearly usage in kwh go onto uswitch or other websites and see tariffs available. As npower is my 3rd and 4th cheapest at the moment?

matelodave

The only way you'll control your costs is by reading the meter yourself regularly - weekly is ideal so you can see when you are using your energy and then you can do something about it. If you don't measure it you can't control or reduce it.
If you wait until the bill comes in then it's too late because you will have used it and will have to pay for it.


Even a A grade washing machine or tumble dryer won't help if you use them a lot - it's difficult in the winter but try to avoid the dryer if possible and only use the washing machine & dryer with full loads - they cost just as much to run when they are half empty as they do when full. Save hot water by having shorter showers or shallower baths or even fewer of them and don't let hot water run down the sink when washing or rinsing stuff.
You could try turning the heating on half an hour later and off half an hour earlier to see whether you'll still be comfortable. Try setting the thermostat down by a degree to see if that reduces your costs.
The only way to save is to turn stuff off, turn it down or don't use it as much.

JP1901

I have checked & we are on an online tariff which was (at the time) the cheapest around.

I will try reading the meter each week & as for the washing machine we only use it full & I have got to use the dryer because otherwise we would never have any dry clothes in winter, I only do the washing & drying one day a week anyway and surely that will all be electric not gas usage? I have checked the meter when I am using these though in the past & it doesn't shoot up like crazy - it seems to be the gas usage which is bonkers but maybe we need a new boiler which isn't a combi...I am going to call them about it anyway & see what they say

WestonDave

Nothing much you can do about the debts, the question is what the current usage is which the current £143 won't entirely reveal - it may be that some of that is a further catch up due to under setting the DD in more recent times.


You should be able to get (from your online account) details of the gas and electricity consumed in the last 12 months or in a recent 12 month period. Come back on here with that and we can start seeing whether its high or not.


For comparison we're running a 3 bed house with good insulation but draughty windows on around £100 per month (combi boiler as yours). So my gut instinct is you are using too much but without seeing the numbers its hard to be sure. One thing which you might want to consider is swapping your timed heating set up for a thermostat one - we've had a relatively mild winter and if your heating is running uncontrolled for 6.5 hours per day you could easily be over heating - you won't notice that because you'll get used to it but on the odd colder day you'll be cranking it up to heat up to the temperature you are used to. A programmable room thermostat like we have enables you to set a house temperature (ours is 18C by day, 14C by night although it rarely falls to that level) and work by science rather than "I feel a bit cold tonight". The cost of swapping that in could be as low as £150 including fitting.


The other things to look at is how long you spend in the shower, is the baby getting half a bath of hot water every evening and other ways of using a lot of heat, because heating air or water is expensive.

Nada666

I agree with Weston - if there are just the three of you then turn off the timer and just use heating on demand when necessary. And when necessary is not as often as you think. Unless there is absolutely no insulation in the property or you live on the side of a hill in a wind corridor a great number of days and weeks it should warm up enough as the day progresses to not need any heating.

matelodave

Both my daughters have had combi boilers fitted in the past couple of years and we used to have one previously. Instead of time switches they've both had programmable thermostats installed (you can get wireless ones for lest than £50) which have given then significantly more control over their heating. They adjust the temperature for different times of the day, for each day of the week. One daughter has saved well over £100 a year (she was pretty frugal anyway) and the other over £200 as she's suddenly seen how much she can save by turning stuff off or down. She's up at 6 in the morning and out by 7:15 so the heating comes on at 05:30 but off at 06:30 as she is dressed and showered by then and the house is still warm enough for the kids to get up & dressed. Likewise the heating is on about half an hour before she gets home and goes off an hour before bedtime.
The thermostat controls the temperatures to suit what they are doing over the weekend so it's not as warm during the day as it is in the evening because everyone is more active - better control of your heating can make a lot of difference to your cost. A combi boiler should be cheaper to run than a conventional boiler

MallyGirl

JP1901 wrote: »

we are out 7.30 - 5.30 Mon - Thursday, heating comes on at 5.30am, goes off at 7.30am then back on at 4.30pm, off at

If you are out at 7:30 then the heating could go off at 7am - you will not notice the cooling down as you rush around getting ready for work.
I would definitely submit regular meter readings and do your own calculations too as there seem to be some significant issues with nPower's new computer system.
I am having similar issues with them keep putting up the DD based on insane forecasts for the coming year and it is only the record of monthly meter readings that is allowing me to argue my case each time.

daveyjp

My parents are £300 in credit after their latest quarter bill i.e. The coldest of the year. They pay £85 a month and NPower now want £105!

Once they have their refund they will be going back to quarterly pay on bill account as getting the £300 back is proving to be an expensive process in terms of wasted time.

90 minutes in a call queue on friday, 60 minutes today and no positive action by anyone to get a refund paid.

JP1901

Thanks everyone - we have decided that we are going to read our meter every week for a couple of months just to see what happens, I am going to call them next week & basically refuse the higher amount, according to our account we have actually used 17% less energy than last winter so in theory by the next bill in September we should be back in credit as we actually only owe them £300 and now we are heading to the warmer months where the heating isn't on & the dryer isn't used at all.

We shall see what happens....

we are going to investigate upgrading the heating system too, see how much it would cost and if we can afford to do it in time for next winter.

molerat

Upgrade the heating system ? If that means replacing the boiler then don't do it, if you are struggling to pay a £300 energy debt where are you going to find up to £2K to replace the boiler. Use what you have got more efficiently. Replacing a working boiler will not save you money, it may reduce your gas costs but that saving will be more than used up paying for and maintaining the boiler which will probably need replacing in 10 years and will break down regularly. My boiler is 30 years old so owes me nothing. I look out of the window of my nice warm house on the first freeze of winter and see the gas van outside my neighbour's houses and ask if they did the right thing replacing that old, inefficient but totally reliable boiler