Electric & gas bills in previous property were huge, can I complain?

Technosaurus

Hi,

My wife and I used to live in a rented 2 bed flat in a single glazed 'character' property. The electricity/gas bills (from Eon) were absolutely colossal - £150 per month when we first moved in, rising to £175 during winter. We tried all tricks to reduce usage but the bills kept going up - Eon even sent a graph showing our use vs average users in a similar property and the bar chart looked like the Empire State in the middle of a row of terraced houses.

When we moved out we had to go onto a payment plan as even with these monthly payments (which were as much as we could afford) we still owed over £800, and we only lived there for 15 months ! Having moved out on the Sunday but when we went back on the Monday with the letting agent for the itinerary check, the electricity meter had gone up 40kwh which even the agent said was strange as nothing was plugged in nor used overnight except gas heating.

We did complain to Eon at the time and just got told that the meter readings generated the prices - they installed a new gas meter about 6 months into our tenancy so had no reason to think anything was wrong.

Due to this and a few other factors, it was actually cheaper per month to buy a new build 4 bedroom house nearby, so we did. The heating/hot water is on for the same times and our usage is roughly the same - dishwasher/washing machine used similar amounts per week. Our bills are now £60 per month and we have just had a statement for the year saying we are £170 in credit so our real usage is closer to £46 per month

From this, we believe there must have been something wrong with the meter in the old flat. I know insulation etc helps but surely not to the tune of over £150 per month difference?! We used to joke that maybe someone was running a hemp farm on our meter, but having had our annual statement in the new house we now think that might be a reasonable explanation!

I saw a news story about people being overcharged for incorrect meters - does the forum:
1) think I have good reason for complaint?
2) know how I would go about complaining
3) know how anyone prove actual usage from 18 months ago now?

Thanks for your help,
Technosaurus

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hello Technosaurus.

Have to say, 40 kWh in 24 hours is a lot of electricity for the type of property described. Did you take regular meter readings whilst at the property? Were bills based on these? Was the amount of electricity being used consistent with the amount noted on the Monday you mention or higher/lower?

Usage at different properties can vary widely. Type and size of properties, levels of insulation, number of occupants, appliances, methods of heating, attitudes to energy efficiency and lifestyles differ to such an extent as to make comparisons difficult.

How did you heat the property and water? Was it all gas or partly electrical heating? For instance, did you have a water immersion heater? Not saying this is the case here, but I've known many instances where immersion heaters have been left on 24/7. This would rack up the usage.

On the gas meter, check we billed to the right number of dials. The older imperial gas meters have 4 dials and the newer metric ones have 5 dials (both not including any red digits). If you had a metric/imperial meter but we were charging as imperial/metric then this would've been wrong. We'll rebill to put this right.

Still with the gas meter, did this usage come down during the summer or were you still seeing high levels or inconsistent fluctuations? When it was changed, did you make a note of the closing readings on the old meter/opening readings on the new. The engineer usually notes these on a label and attaches it to or near the meter. Did we bill to these readings?

What tariff were you on whilst at the old property? During the time you were there, we had a number of competitive deals on the go. If you missed these it's likely this would've increased the costs.

Don't worry it's been a fair time since you left. You can raise a complaint anytime by phone, email, letter, social media or via the new Live Chat channel on our website. As you complained about this before, the original complaint will be re-opened and backdated to this time. A Complaint Manager will investigate and offer a resolution/explanation. If you're not happy with this, the case will be referred to our Complaints Review team for a second opinion. If this is still unsatisfactory, we'll issue a Final Resolution Offer letter that you can use to go to the Energy Ombudsman for an independent assessment. Although, if the complaint is over 56 days old, which I'm fairly sure it is, you'll be able to go the Ombudsman straightaway. No need to wait for a letter. The Ombudsman's decision is binding on us but not on you. There's more information about how we look after complaints on our website.

Do you still have a payment plan with us? If you so, talk to us about this too. It might be possible to spread the balance over a more manageable period.

Sorry for all the questions Technosaurus. Trying to understand what happened. It'll speed up the investigation if you're able to have as much information to hand as possible when you contact us.

Malc

Cardew

Presumably your suspicion is that you had a metric(cubic metres) gas meter, but were being charged as if you had an Imperial meter(cubic feet)

1 unit on a metric meter is 1 cubic metre and equates to approx. 11.2kWh

1 unit on an Imperial meter is 100 cubic feet and equates to approx. 32kWh

It would be easy enough for Eon to show what type of meter was used for charging purposes on your bills. Even better if you have copies.

The new gas meter fitted during your tenancy would have most certainly been Metric.

The above obviously would not account for the electricity meter increasing 40kWh overnight.

Technosaurus

@E.On Malc - thank you for getting in touch so quickly. At one stage I was doing meter readings every week as we were seriously panicking about the costs so they were based on readings!!! I have no idea about the plumbing/immersion heater query but the boiler certainly wasn't on 24 hours a day.

Unfortunately we can't really check anything as we moved out of the Property in May 2015. We knew it was high but put it down to the fact it was a listed building with single glazing and had some high ceilings. I feel a bit silly and naive querying this now but it's only since getting an annual statement for our 4 bed house that we thought something must be up. However we have very limited ways of getting any new information.

We cleared the payment plan last year.

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Morning Technosaurus and please don't feel silly or naive. Fully understand how seeing your latest energy bills causes doubt. I do agree, it's now very difficult to check as you no longer have access to the old property. It might be worth looking at how your new property compares with the old one in terms of energy efficiency.

You say the old place was a listed single glazed property with high ceilings. I assume it was fairly old. What levels of insulation were in place? Had it been re-developed with more up to date energy saving improvements? These types of property traditionally tend to leak energy unless major changes are made which are often restricted due the nature of the listing.

As you've moved to a new build, I suspect many of the latest energy efficient measures were already in place. These tend to be part and parcel of new developments nowadays. This makes comparing the two a little more difficult.

Similarly with the heating and hot water. How was the old property heated compared with the new? Heating is a major source of usage with older kit traditionally gobbling up a lot more energy than more modern systems.

By all means use our complaints teams. Contact them through any of the channels I mentioned yesterday. They'll follow the process I spoke about. Must admit, not sure what they'll be able to do after this length of time but might help ease your mind a little.

Malc

PS/ I'd delete your account number as could possibly compromise your security.

dogshome

All a bit late, so it will be a long road to identify problems

The new tenants in your old flat, that is hopefully not too far away, will be suffering the same problems as yourself, so a visit or phone call to them is where to start.
They would have automatically become customers of E.ON, but could have Switched supplier since moving in

THE GAS
First suspect is the meter change, which was probably from an Imperial type to Metric.
If this change wasn't correctly registered in all the back-offices, it would result in a 183% overcharge for Gas
You need to have a bill, preferably yours but could be one issued to the new occupiers. On the bill divide the number of KWh charged by the meter units used, the answer should be close to11.2, if it's close to 31.5 then billing is indeed on an Imperial meter basis that results in a 183% overcharge.
If this is the case it is E.ONS duty to sort out, and they will as soon as the evidence presented

THE ELEC
First suspect is the conversion into 2 flats, where the wiring might be set up so that all, or some of the supply to the other flat was running through your meter
If this is the case it is the Landlord/Freeholders duty to sort out, but expect to travel a long hard road before getting any recompense

Technosaurus

Thanks both.

I could sit and pontificate on insulation/heating/glazing/all other factors etc but the fact remains that the gas central heating (which was via a nearly-new boiler) was on from 6-7am and 7pm-9pm during the winter, maybe until 10pm on the weekends if we felt frivolous and not on at all at summer. This is the same usage as our current property, and the only 'energy guzzling' devices in use were the dishwasher and washing machine twice a week each and obviously fridge-freezer. No extravagant tumble dryers / power tools / floodlights etc!

I know there's limited comparisons to be made with a new build but I'm struggling to believe that in 15 months we racked up nearly £3,000 in energy costs considering there was just two of us and we were conscious of the issue so always used heating as last resort etc.

@Malc - I'll raise an issue via letter/email to Eon direct.

@dogshome - Good idea re contacting current tenant. I'll put a note through the door and see if they want to make it a 'class action'! The flat was in an Victorian mansion style house which had been converted into (I think) 8 apartments with communal meters in the basement so should be slightly easier for Eon to investigate. The landlord, I believe, has dementia and was in a convalescent home in Kent so if it gets overly involved I'll probably just put it down to experience, but fingers crossed if Eon investigate there might be some more 'obvious' flaw.

dogshome

Aaah - I assumed wrongly that the conversion was just 2 flats, not around 8 with the meters located in a common Service Room

With this set-up, errors in the wrong meter/s being allocated to the flats is quite common - A label on a meter saying 'Flat 6' should not be believed until checks have been made that really is the right meter.

You are going to have to get the new occupants to do this.
A) Check that the meter No.listed on the bills is the same as that on the actual meter - Even if it is, still go to step B

Turn off everything in the flat and look the meter which should be showing zero activity - Then whilst you watch the meter, have a friend in the flat with a mobile phone, turn the Kettle On/Off to your order - The meter should show bursts of activity that coincide with your On/Off orders - If it doesn't you are being billed for the wrong meter so get onto your supplier immediately.

This still leaves the problem of finding the right meter. - With all the poweroff in your flat at least one of the 8 meters will be showing zero activity, so run the kettle test again whilst you watch it - If there is more than one with zero activity, do each one in turn