Student Son's Electricity Bill - Help!

Esskay_2

Hi

I do hope someone can help me out here. My son and 3 friends live in a rented house via a student accommodation agency. They have just received their first bill from NPower - and it's a whopper!

The electricity bill from 7 September to 16 January is for £952.09

We think that such large consumption could only be explained by large heating load. The fact is that the room heating system is motion triggered and so most of the time it is actually switched off and the boys have often complained of being cold. The boys have confirmed that they haven't been running additional room heaters, and even if they had it would not explain such usage. They were all away for a month at Christmas too... They don't have gas at the property, so everything is electric - cooker, washing machine, heating.

According to the stats on the NPower bill the boys would have had to be boiling over 378 kettles of water each day or watching 168.16 hours of television each day(!) to achieve this level of energy usage - 42kWh per day! Bearing in mind they are at uni most of the time, or asleep for the rest of the time it seems highly improbable that they could be using so much electricity.

The personal projection on the NPower bill suggests that the bill for heating the house would be £2547.75 over the next 12 months, according to ukpower, the average cost of heating a medium family house for a year is £1,068.00 - which clearly indicates that something is wrong with the energy usage at this property.

I've just chatted to NPower with my son's authority and they have generated a bill for the 3 weeks that they have been back and it comes to £298.89 - almost £100 per week, which seems outrageous. The student accommodation agency insisted that the bill was put in my son's name, but a friend has suggested to me that this should not be the case and they should have the agency name on the bills as the students pay rent which includes money for the bills direct to the student accommodation agency and then the agency pays the bills which are in my son's name.

What can I do to help? I've emailed the company several times asking them to look into this but they have been of little help and are very slow to respond. Any advice/suggestions gratefully received.

Cardew

IMO 42kWh a day is not excessive for a 4 bed? all electric house in autumn/winter; for heating, hot water for baths/showers, lights, appliances etc. Student houses are not normally that well insulated, and if my experience of my student children and friends are anything to go by, they are not the most economy minded.

However what seems to be excessive is the unit rate. 7 Sep to 16 Jan is 131 days. You state it is 42kWh a day so 5,502kWh. It should have been possible to get a tariff for under 12p/kWh last Sept(I pay less than 10p/kWh) So that would be £660 plus say 20p a day standing charge = £26 so well under £700.

Esskay_2

Thanks for the help, the new reading for the three weeks is actually over 42kWh, the last few days have been: 58, 53, 62, 86 and 97 kWh - and the boys aren't there much at all. They don't cook 4 course dinners either and complain about being cold. I'm not sure about changing the tariff as they leave in June and don't want to get tied into a contract - which is where my question about whose name should be on the bills comes in... Is what the agency doing legal - insisting my son have his name on the bills then my son pays them and they pay the bill?

footyguy

Esskay wrote: »

Hi

I do hope someone can help me out here. My son and 3 friends live in a rented house via a student accommodation agency. They have just received their first bill from NPower - and it's a whopper!

The electricity bill from 7 September to 16 January is for £952.09

We think that such large consumption could only be explained by large heating load. The fact is that the room heating system is motion triggered and so most of the time it is actually switched off and the boys have often complained of being cold. The boys have confirmed that they haven't been running additional room heaters, and even if they had it would not explain such usage. They were all away for a month at Christmas too... They don't have gas at the property, so everything is electric - cooker, washing machine, heating.

According to the stats on the NPower bill the boys would have had to be boiling over 378 kettles of water each day or watching 168.16 hours of television each day(!) to achieve this level of energy usage - 42kWh per day! Bearing in mind they are at uni most of the time, or asleep for the rest of the time it seems highly improbable that they could be using so much electricity.

The personal projection on the NPower bill suggests that the bill for heating the house would be £2547.75 over the next 12 months, according to ukpower, the average cost of heating a medium family house for a year is £1,068.00 - which clearly indicates that something is wrong with the energy usage at this property.

I've just chatted to NPower with my son's authority and they have generated a bill for the 3 weeks that they have been back and it comes to £298.89 - almost £100 per week, which seems outrageous. The student accommodation agency insisted that the bill was put in my son's name, but a friend has suggested to me that this should not be the case and they should have the agency name on the bills as the students pay rent which includes money for the bills direct to the student accommodation agency and then the agency pays the bills which are in my son's name.

What can I do to help? I've emailed the company several times asking them to look into this but they have been of little help and are very slow to respond. Any advice/suggestions gratefully received.

If the rent they pay includes payment of their utility bills, why are they (and/or you) worried about the cost???

footyguy

Esskay wrote: »

Thanks for the help, the new reading for the three weeks is actually over 42kWh, the last few days have been: 58, 53, 62, 86 and 97 kWh - and the boys aren't there much at all. They don't cook 4 course dinners either and complain about being cold. I'm not sure about changing the tariff as they leave in June and don't want to get tied into a contract - which is where my question about whose name should be on the bills comes in... Is what the agency doing legal - insisting my son have his name on the bills then my son pays them and they pay the bill?

There is nothing illegal in this arrangement, as I see it.

You should refer to the tenancy agreement for how the bills should be handled.

Esskay_2

Because their contract makes an allowance for a certain amount of electricity usage, the student accommodation service says anyone hardly ever goes over but they only have £100 left in the kitty to see them until June. The contract says if they go over the allowance then they have to pay the additional money - which looks like it could be almost £2,000 going on current usage. I'm surprised that the bills are so large, as they made it clear that hardly anyone ever goes over the allowance, they are already almost over that with 2 terms left to go.

footyguy

Esskay wrote: »

Because their contract makes an allowance for a certain amount of electricity usage, the student accommodation service says anyone hardly ever goes over but they only have £100 left in the kitty to see them until June. The contract says if they go over the allowance then they have to pay the additional money - which looks like it could be almost £2,000 going on current usage. I'm surprised that the bills are so large, as they made it clear that hardly anyone ever goes over the allowance, they are already almost over that with 2 terms left to go.

Then if that is what the contract says, it sounds like the bills are supposed to be in the students name - otherwise the agency will need to do the debt collecting rather than the energy supplier.

I must say, it seems a very odd arrangement. I think I would prefer to have the £1000 (or whatever amount they are willing to refund) off the rent, than have to supply bills to reclaim that amount. Less work for all involved too!

You seem to have extapoloated winter usage to the whole yaer. Is that an accurate reflection of how you have actually used energy over all the years you have brought up your son???

Good luck!

Esskay_2

Ha ha! My son is very careful with his budgeting, and he is only one of 4 in the house - I can't vouch for how the others were brought up. I just can't see how the bills can be so high when they say the house is always cold. The contract has no mention of a tenant having to put their name on the bills.

macman

Esskay wrote: »

Because their contract makes an allowance for a certain amount of electricity usage, the student accommodation service says anyone hardly ever goes over but they only have £100 left in the kitty to see them until June. The contract says if they go over the allowance then they have to pay the additional money - which looks like it could be almost £2,000 going on current usage. I'm surprised that the bills are so large, as they made it clear that hardly anyone ever goes over the allowance, they are already almost over that with 2 terms left to go.

Yes, but you are ignoring the fact that the heating has been on probably since the start of the academic year last October, and , after 2 mild winters, we've had a cold one. For the last 3 or 4 months of their tenancy, they shouldn't need heating on at all, so the usage will drop by up to 80%.
Are they on Standard tariff by any chance (the most expensive)?
The bills are large because single rate electric heating is about 300% more than gas would be.