51% Gas usage increase on last year - what to do and check?

Mee

Hi All,

I have noticed that my gas usage seems to have jumped by 51% on last year (April 2015 v April 2016), yet I only use 30 minutes on water and put heating on for an hour during cold spells. I have an electric cooker and my thermostat is normally at 17.
I did notice that my immersion heater was on a few months ago due to bedding falling on it, but turned it off. I thought immersion heaters affected electricity usage - or have I misunderstood?
Any advice on what other checks I should make would be welcomed.

dogshome

The Immersion heater & cooker will have no effect on the gas billing.

First thing that springs to mind is a meter misread, if yours is the type with a series of dials these easily misread, even by Meter Readers.

For more help you need to post the meter readings on the bills you had over the period

Cardew

Was your April 2015 consumption based on an estimated meter reading on Bill? Or even April 2016 consumption?

matelodave

Most people end up with a big bill because they haven't been checking their bills against the meter and have been accepting estimated bills.

It then comes as a bit of a shock when a bill comes in that's based on an actual reading and you then discover that you seem to have used a lot more than you've previously been billed as they've all been under estimated.

Robin9

And go back to April 2 0 14 if you can - that might have been a high estimate and would distort the 14/15 year.

Mee

Thanks for the responses.

I only ever use my own readings even when they say they have done a reading.

However, looking at 2014 as a comparison as Robin9 suggested I can see perhaps unit wise this is not unusual, but I thought I was using less:


Apr-2016 £28.49 54 units
Apr-2015 £21.60 36 units
Apr-2014 £26.97 44 units

matelodave

Dunno what it's like where you live, but March & April have been a lot colder this year out in the Cambridgeshire fens.

We are all electric and our consumption was up by about 29% this March compared with last year. February was about the same but we've already used more this April than we did for the whole of April last year and there's still 12 days to go

JJ_Egan

Yep using more gas this last two months than normal .

brewerdave

Same here in South Wales - much higher heating usage between Feb. and now when compared with last two years.

Mee

Update:

FYI:
I asked my energy supplier whether they could detect any change / peaks in my gas usage. They pointed out a rather longer billing period this time:

I can see that last years this quarters bill was calculated on a 90 day period whereas this year it has been calculated on a 100 day period, this is the amount of days between the meter readings. The increase is not due to an increase in your usage but the amount of days the period has been based upon...