Extremely High Electricity Bill - 1 Bedroom Flat

jackathy

Hi all,

My and my partner moved into a rented 1 bedroom, 3rd floor flat in June 15 and contacted Scottish Power who set us up on an estimated DD for £58 per month, it is an all electric flat.

We received a letter recently advising that our DD will be changed to £120 per month as from the period Nov 15 - May 16 we had been underestimated and actually used £900 worth of electricity, minus the DD we had paid meaning we now owe them £600. We cannot remember if the reading was actually took in November but will be asking for the date is was taken so we can check if we would have been in.

I took a reading today (Both the night and day rates, but these come up as 4KWH and 1kwh on my meter I believe?) and calculated that in 2 weeks we have used around £27 worth of electricity.

I can understand we may have used more in the winter months (We have storage heaters) .

Both of us work full time and will only do around 2/3 wash cycles a week.

We are convinced that somewhere along the line wrong readings have been provided as they're estimating we use about £1600 of electric a year.

Can anyone provide any advice of how to proceed?

Thank you,
Jack

System

Hi - welcome to the forum. If you haven't been providing actual meter readings then the supplier will be basing its assessment of usage on what is known as the Estimated Annual Consumption figure that the data collectors have on record for your property. This figure is adjusted each time a meter reading is provided and weather is factored into the equation.

Rather than go down various rabbit holes looking for reasons why etc, my advice would be to check your annual usage based on the meter readings that you gave the supplier when you moved in 12 months ago and now. If this calculation shows that your consumption is indeed high, then you need for look for reasons. The most likely culprits are hot water heating (an electric shower of say 15 minutes can use 2.5kWhs for example), and misuse of the storage heaters (e.g.; using high cost boost rather than low cost overnight storage)

That said, I am not sure how you how calculated that 5kWhs a day equals £27 worth of electricity in 2 weeks. What tariff are you on? My single rate tariff shows that I only spent £22 for 176kWhs of usage. Are you on your supplier's lowest tariff?

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.


Firstly they are not estimating that you use about £1,600 a year. As you now apparently have a £600 debit balance, they set the DD to recover that £600 on top of their revised estimate of your annual consumption.


A reason for high bills can often be that the incoming occupants(you in this case) did not read your meters immediately on occupation and give those readings to Scottish Power. This can mean you are paying for the previous occupant's consumption.


I am not sure what period the 1kWh and 4kWh covers, or how you have deduced that you have used £27 in 2 weeks.


If you are using £13.50 a week in late May - when the heating demand is low - then it is entirely possible that you are using around £1,000 pa.


However you need to find out what consumption in kWh you have been billed for over the period of your occupation.

jackathy

Thanks both,

By the 4kwh and 1kwh, these are what the labels read on my Meter ( I have to press a button to get a different reading for each rate) so assume these relate to the day and night rates.

Will double check my calculations tonight ( I used the kWh rate and standing rate on my bill), just seems extremely high that from nov - may we will have been billed £900 total considering we hardly use anything! Will be having a look at my water heater to see what settings its on,

System

jackathy wrote: »

Thanks both,

By the 4kwh and 1kwh, these are what the labels read on my Meter ( I have to press a button to get a different reading for each rate) so assume these relate to the day and night rates.

Will double check my calculations tonight ( I used the kWh rate and standing rate on my bill), just seems extremely high that from nov - may we will have been billed £900 total considering we hardly use anything! Will be having a look at my water heater to see what settings its on,

Sorry - but you are not making a lot of sense. Do you have the meter readings that you gave the supplier when you first occupied the property in June last year? If so, then take actual meter readings now and work out your annual consumption in kWhs. If not, then provide the meter readings to your supplier and ask them to calculate how much you owe. Remember, a credit/debit balance is only accurate if an actual meter is provided and then only on that day.

jackathy

Hi Hengus,

Sorry, I really didn't have much of a clue what I was talking about!

On my bill from 20th November to 17th May 16 says my total usage in the last 12 months is Day 8,232.300 kwh and Night 1977.500.

Trying to find out what initial reading we gave them, it was actually my partner who did it so hopefully as she's the organised one it should be noted somewhere.

Our initial DD was for £45 and then this went up in November to £58 as we were £58.73 in Debit (Can't recall receiving a letter or I would have enquired at the time).

I guess I never thought anything of it as my DD kept coming and we weren't informed otherwise, first time paying bills for us both so it's a learning curve!

jackathy

Update for everyone,

Spoken to Scottish Power and there's no disputes with the readings however they did say that they never offered us the cheapest rate possible at the time when we signed up, we are still on the standard tariff and so if we were to ask them they may backdate it for us as they should have done this initially. Just need to get the other half to put me as an authoriser on her account then I can give them another call.

Hopefully this will knock the debt down a bit and I will be selotaping the lightswitches off from now on.

HappyMJ

jackathy wrote: »

Hi Hengus,

Sorry, I really didn't have much of a clue what I was talking about!

On my bill from 20th November to 17th May 16 says my total usage in the last 12 months is Day 8,232.300 kwh and Night 1977.500.

Trying to find out what initial reading we gave them, it was actually my partner who did it so hopefully as she's the organised one it should be noted somewhere.

Our initial DD was for £45 and then this went up in November to £58 as we were £58.73 in Debit (Can't recall receiving a letter or I would have enquired at the time).

I guess I never thought anything of it as my DD kept coming and we weren't informed otherwise, first time paying bills for us both so it's a learning curve!

Are you sure you're reading it the right way around?

The night rate should be much higher than the day rate.

How do you heat the property?

If you're using fan heaters or convector heaters when you've got storage heating then it will cost three times what the storage heaters should cost so it's not actually high usage at all.

D_M_E

When you push the button to cycle through the readings, the display should eventually say END or FINISH or some such.

Now, with END displayed, one more press of the button should show the day rate reading, the next button push should show the night rate reading and the next button push should show the total reading, which is the total of the day and night readings added together.

Also, you should see either a 1 or 4 next to and a little above the reading, one should be next to the day reading and the other next to the night reading - I think it's 1 for day and the 4 is for night.

Also, make sure your supplier has the readings the correct way round - there has been several reports on this forum of the two readings being switched, resulting in extortionate bills.

davietich

Agree with a previous post, if you had storage heaters on then your night usage should be much higher than you state, it appears the supplier may have transposed the day/ night readings and is billing you night/ day, should be easy to check from your current statement against the meter.
Problem is there are so many different manufacturers of meters with different symbols etc for reading the meter, when I used to do meter reads for my company our (E7) meter had a push button which showed - t (total-added up both day and night reads)this reading you ignored! Next push of button showed 1 which was the day rate and 2 which was the night rate.
Many customers used to get confused and used the t reading which raised a very high bill. Check all the screens against your current bill and if you can not see any obvious mistake then raise a dispute with your supplier which should start with them sending an engineer out to investigate. Best wishes, Davie

jackathy

Hello all again,

I've just read it again using 1 rate for day and 4 for night and the 4 rate is much higher than the 1 rate but on my bill it is reversed. The rate with the lower numbers also says "Rate NOW" whereas the higher number says "Rate", our Night rate doesn't kick in for another 2 and half hours so i'm guessing it looks like the meter has been read the wrong way so I will be calling Scottish Power tomorrow!

Thank you,
Jack