Energy price query

StuMan

hello,

This is my first post here and I'm just looking for some info/advice on energy bills.

My fiancee and I live in a one bedroom, ground floor flat in London and for the first year we paid £55 per month for our gas and electric. When that tarriff ended in March my direct debit amount leaped up to £167. I then submitted a reading to make sure it was all correct and the amount jumped again to £235. I spoke to one chap at EDF who said the meter may be faulty. I then spoke to another person there who said it was because the old tariff ended and I was now on the variable tariff. She suggested I change tariff and lowered my dd payment.

I looked at the available tariffs and the 'cheapest' one was projecting we'd use £1436.00 in the coming year. £119.00 a month.

The electricty useage seems to be consistent but the gas useage and projection for coming year seems huge.

Heres what I got from edf
Gas
Useage 37,209kWh
Cost £976.04
Use last year to 0kWh
projected cost £1,364.46

Elec
Useage1654kWh
Cost£268.16
use last year to 0kWh
projected cost £317.28

(side note, whats that "use last year to"?)

What I want to know isdoes this look legit?
even perhaps we used a bit to much heating on a few occasions but surely it wouldnt be that big a bill.

Theres only 2 of us in a small 1 bedroom flat. few radiators turned off. double glazed throughout.
We used to share with 2 others and have energy on a meter. We'd pay 10 on each per month. so eighty a month and that was that. that was 3 bedroom flat with 4 adults living there and signle glazed windows. and that came to about £960 per year. so i cfant get my head round the fact that 2 of us in a one bed can have a bill this big.

any advice/opinions welcome. thanks

Stu

StopIt

Get your meter checked out ASAP.


I live in a 2 bed detatched house that is old and not well insulated and hit around 12,000 kWh in the last year because of extra heating requirements for a new baby.


Unless if you're heating half of London you will not be using that much gas.


How much gas have you actually used according to the meter? Take a reading today and one next week. As you should not need heating on, you would only need gas use for water and that should average less than 10 kWh a day really.

Cardew

I suspect that when your £55 a month Direct Debit ended in March you had built up a considerable debit balance; probably caused by a series of estimated meter readings. Thus the DD increased to cover the new outgoings and pay off the outstanding debt.

There is no way a little 1 bedroomed flat could use 37,209kWh in a year. You have either been paying for the previous occupants gas, or possibly you have a metric gas meter(cubic metres -m3) but are being incorrectly billed as if you have the old Imperial meter(measures in cubic feet)

Look at your gas meter and see if has 'm3' or 'cu ft' marked on the casing.

Also look at your bill and see how many kWh you are billed for per gas unit.

StuMan

Thankyou for your replies. I feel better reading them.
I will do as you say StopIt. Thanks.
I'll also check what kind of meter I have cardew thanks. What would it mean if I did have a metric gas meter. How wild that be causing the issue? Thanks again

Cardew

StuMan wrote: »

Thankyou for your replies. I feel better reading them.
I will do as you say StopIt. Thanks.
I'll also check what kind of meter I have cardew thanks. What would it mean if I did have a metric gas meter. How wild that be causing the issue? Thanks again

Most gas meters these days are Metric i.e. measure in Cubic metres(m3) and 1 gas unit is approx 11.2kWh.

Metric meters have mainly replaced the older Imperial meters that measure in cubic feet. 1 gas unit is 100 cubic feet and is approx 32kWh.

There have been many cases of the meter being changed from Imperial to Metric but the supplier not changing their billing so the bills are nearly 3 times too high.