Avro Energy reviews: Give your feedback

youravinalarrrf

That's my understanding from the info I remember reading. I think you need to flick back through the thread and draw your own conclusions from what has been posted earlier.

reg091

Another thought on the estimated reading situation and whether they ever recalculate and adjust based on your readings.
The test would be to never submit readings. All bills would be estimated, most likely showing higher usage than actual and your account would build a sizeable debit.  If then after, say, ten months you submitted readings would their system recalculate and (probably) reduce that debit, possibly put you in credit?

brewerdave

reg091 said:

Another thought on the estimated reading situation and whether they ever recalculate and adjust based on your readings.
The test would be to never submit readings. All bills would be estimated, most likely showing higher usage than actual and your account would build a sizeable debit.  If then after, say, ten months you submitted readings would their system recalculate and (probably) reduce that debit, possibly put you in credit?

Possible - but more likely the all seeing computer would say "NO" and invent some more estimates!!

youravinalarrrf

reg091 said:

Another thought on the estimated reading situation and whether they ever recalculate and adjust based on your readings.
The test would be to never submit readings. All bills would be estimated, most likely showing higher usage than actual and your account would build a sizeable debit.  If then after, say, ten months you submitted readings would their system recalculate and (probably) reduce that debit, possibly put you in credit?

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this line of thinking and you seem to be ignoring the fact that suppliers are obligated to physically read your meters at least once per year. Any estimated readings used by a supplier are worked out using a combination of actual readings you have submitted to them and the historical data held on the central database for your property.

If your billing date is the 23rd of each month as you suggested earlier in this thread why are you submitting your meter readings on the 21st when the email reminder arrives? Doing this is causing estimated readings to be used. As I explained earlier in this thread your billing date (23rd of each month) is the correct date for you to submit your readings each month and is the only way to ensure that no estimated readings are used on your account and that you are accurately billed each month.

In your situation I wouldn't be wasting my time pondering about stuff like this I would be much more concerned about concentrating on trying to reduce your overall usage/spend on gas and electricity from the extremely high figure of £1800-£2000 per year you stated earlier. I consider my own usage/spend to be high and well above average at around £1150 per year but can put a lot of that down to an inefficient gas boiler which is over 35 years old and still reliably chugging along, multiple fridges/freezers and no LED lighting so there's plenty of room for possible improvement.

reg091

youravinalarrrf said:

reg091 said:

Another thought on the estimated reading situation and whether they ever recalculate and adjust based on your readings.
The test would be to never submit readings. All bills would be estimated, most likely showing higher usage than actual and your account would build a sizeable debit.  If then after, say, ten months you submitted readings would their system recalculate and (probably) reduce that debit, possibly put you in credit?

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this line of thinking and you seem to be ignoring the fact that suppliers are obligated to physically read your meters at least once per year. Any estimated readings used by a supplier are worked out using a combination of actual readings you have submitted to them and the historical data held on the central database for your property.

If your billing date is the 23rd of each month as you suggested earlier in this thread why are you submitting your meter readings on the 21st when the email reminder arrives? Doing this is causing estimated readings to be used. As I explained earlier in this thread your billing date (23rd of each month) is the correct date for you to submit your readings each month and is the only way to ensure that no estimated readings are used on your account and that you are accurately billed each month.

In your situation I wouldn't be wasting my time pondering about stuff like this I would be much more concerned about concentrating on trying to reduce your overall usage/spend on gas and electricity from the extremely high figure of £1800-£2000 per year you stated earlier. I consider my own usage/spend to be high and well above average at around £1150 per year but can put a lot of that down to an inefficient gas boiler which is over 35 years old and still reliably chugging along, multiple fridges/freezers and no LED lighting so there's plenty of room for possible improvement.

Thanks for your take on this. The reason I submit the readings when I get an email telling me to is that I had not realised until a few days ago that not doing it on the exact date was causing estimated bills. As others have mentioned, the email states that you need to do it with in the next three days, so they haven't made it clear.
My question now that I see what is happening is will their systems/humans ever catch up with the actual usage? My suggestion to not submit readings and see if they catch up when you do submit one was purely to see if they do "catch up" once they have an accurate reading.
You say that they have to read once a year, I didn't know that. But for that to be of any benefit they would have to do it on the correct day or their readings will be ignored like mine are.
My last house but one was a one bed flat in Victorian house, all electric, economy seven, just me living their and elec was approx £700 pa. Next was 3-bed Edwardian semi and yearly usage there was approx £1400. Now in 4 bed detached 1970's house and, as I said, expect to pay approx £2K based on accurate consumption figures for the first year here and the quotes from suppliers for that.
Three person household, extremely energy conscious. LED lights, carefully timed use of heating and hot water, boiler new in 2015 and serviced annually, new fridge. washing machine, drier last year. Energy is expensive!

[Deleted User]

reg091 said:

youravinalarrrf said:

reg091 said:

Another thought on the estimated reading situation and whether they ever recalculate and adjust based on your readings.
The test would be to never submit readings. All bills would be estimated, most likely showing higher usage than actual and your account would build a sizeable debit.  If then after, say, ten months you submitted readings would their system recalculate and (probably) reduce that debit, possibly put you in credit?

I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this line of thinking and you seem to be ignoring the fact that suppliers are obligated to physically read your meters at least once per year. Any estimated readings used by a supplier are worked out using a combination of actual readings you have submitted to them and the historical data held on the central database for your property.

If your billing date is the 23rd of each month as you suggested earlier in this thread why are you submitting your meter readings on the 21st when the email reminder arrives? Doing this is causing estimated readings to be used. As I explained earlier in this thread your billing date (23rd of each month) is the correct date for you to submit your readings each month and is the only way to ensure that no estimated readings are used on your account and that you are accurately billed each month.

In your situation I wouldn't be wasting my time pondering about stuff like this I would be much more concerned about concentrating on trying to reduce your overall usage/spend on gas and electricity from the extremely high figure of £1800-£2000 per year you stated earlier. I consider my own usage/spend to be high and well above average at around £1150 per year but can put a lot of that down to an inefficient gas boiler which is over 35 years old and still reliably chugging along, multiple fridges/freezers and no LED lighting so there's plenty of room for possible improvement.

Thanks for your take on this. The reason I submit the readings when I get an email telling me to is that I had not realised until a few days ago that not doing it on the exact date was causing estimated bills. As others have mentioned, the email states that you need to do it with in the next three days, so they haven't made it clear.
My question now that I see what is happening is will their systems/humans ever catch up with the actual usage? My suggestion to not submit readings and see if they catch up when you do submit one was purely to see if they do "catch up" once they have an accurate reading.
You say that they have to read once a year, I didn't know that. But for that to be of any benefit they would have to do it on the correct day or their readings will be ignored like mine are.
My last house but one was a one bed flat in Victorian house, all electric, economy seven, just me living their and elec was approx £700 pa. Next was 3-bed Edwardian semi and yearly usage there was approx £1400. Now in 4 bed detached 1970's house and, as I said, expect to pay approx £2K based on accurate consumption figures for the first year here and the quotes from suppliers for that.
Three person household, extremely energy conscious. LED lights, carefully timed use of heating and hot water, boiler new in 2015 and serviced annually, new fridge. washing machine, drier last year. Energy is expensive!

Hi reg091.  When I first read your comment that you spend £1,800-£2,000pa on energy I thought Wow, that's high, but then thought maybe you've got a big house and a big family.  So, I'm really surprised to discover that your situation isn't dissimilar to mine - there's two of us in a 4-bed, detached 1970's house, new appliances (although our boiler's older than yours) and led bulbs in all light fittings, but our energy costs under £1,100pa (and we've just started our third year with Avro).  May I ask, do you have cavity wall insulation?

youravinalarrrf

My advice remains the same. Treat the monthly email Avro send only as a reminder but to avoid any estimated readings being used ensure that you submit your monthly meter readings online on your billing date (23rd of each month). This will usually be on the third day after the email arrives but be aware the email can arrive a day or two late or occasionally not at all. If you do that every month any over or under estimation should correct itself automatically and estimated readings will be a thing of the past.

The official annual meter readings Avro arrange to have carried out on their behalf can happen at any time and is used by them purely as a check against fraudulent or incorrect readings being submitted and ends up on the central database for your property along with all the other readings you submit. In the month this happens it will be shown separately on your statement along with the meter readings you would submit on the 23rd of the month.

If you believe your direct debit is currently set too high or too low ask them to review your account to correct it.

The only thing of note on your list is the extra bedroom and tumble drier. Your high usage could be down to these, heating unused areas of the house, poor insulation or possibly something else not yet mentioned? It could even be caused by the room thermostat being set at a higher than 'normal' temperature which some people do.

2010

I usually get an email covering "enter in the next three days"
My reading date, according to my online account is 29th Feb.
So far, no email this month.

Talldave

Surely the point is that any customer reading (eg one provided on the 21st instead of the 23rd) should be used to re-sync the supplier's estimates rather than be completely ignored? 

youravinalarrrf

If the meter readings are submitted during the 3 day window I don't think they're being ignored but if they're not submitted on the billing date (23rd in this case) estimated readings for the 23rd will be used by Avro to create the monthly bill/statement. If regular meter readings have been previously submitted by the customer in theory any estimate used should be reasonably or very accurate.

Having said that it's easy to see that problems could arise for customers who don't submit regular meter readings and estimates on top of previous estimates are used to create the monthly bill/statement compounding the size of any mis-estimation.