Very high gas bills

Davearia

Hi,

Just received our gas/electric bill from Eon for the 3 month period end of October 2017 - start of January 2018 for £963.26. We live in a 3 bedroom detached house on the coast of north west England. Wouldn't say it's massive house but being realistic the location and the windows being quite large we expected the bills to be more than the house we moved from just under 2 years ago.

Of the bill amount £963.26, £633.83 is gas. That seems an awful lot of gas. We have a 28 KW Glow worm boiler and a gas fire. Being honest we tend to use the central heating and the gas fire rarely gets used. We have moved from gas hob/oven to electric a few months ago also.

In the bill summary its states the we used:
6,626 kWh of electricity in the last 12 months
33,892 kWh of gas in the last 12 months

Looking at ukpower site (not allowed to post the link on here as I am a new user )

It suggests:
3 or 4 bedroom house - gas usage of 12,500kWh and an electricity usage of 3,100kWh
5+ bedroom house - gas usage of 18,000kWh and an electricity usage of 4,600kWh

So according to this we are using nearly twice as much as someone in a 5+ bedroom house.

I just don't understand I'm starting to think the meters are faulty. But both gas and electric seem really high. The gas being the most expensive.

Have emailed Eon and my wife is phoning them later.

But is this usage actually possible in a house this size?

Thanks,

Dave Johnson.

Robin9

Electricity is average
Gas suggests a meter error- look at the meter itself does it say m3 or ft3 ? Look at your bill does it say m3 or ft3 ?

Davearia

Hi Robin,

Both meter and bill are in m3

Davearia

For the last quarter the bill says we used:
1891 KW hours of electricity
14721 KW hours of gas

So my gas usage according to this bill is pretty much 3 times what you used. Doesn't seem possible.

NineDeuce

Dont get your hopes that this is a meter error. Check the reads on your bill and compare them against your meter. £200 per month is a lot but not inconceivable if you have been using a lot of heating, either because you are being wasteful or your building is not well insulated; and if you use gas for cooking and hot water.

Even though you are looking at the UK average, you are living in a slightly colder than average location.

I would also check what you say about costs and consumption. £633.83 for 33,892kWh equates to around 1.87p/kWh. That is particularly cheap for a domestic rate.

Bigphil1474

OP, if its end of Oct to start of Jan then it's only 2 months usage, so highly improbable to be using over 7000kwH a month. I live in a 3 bed mid terrace and use about 12,500kW gas a year.
Worth checking whether the start or end reading are actual readings or estimates, did you provide the readings, and check whether there could have been a mix up with the numbers e.g. did you enter 920 instead of 290 etc.

Davearia

My mistake - 15/10/2017 - 18/01/2018

Rechecked the meter readings I gave and can't see anything wrong

Cardew

NineDeuce wrote: »

I would also check what you say about costs and consumption. £633.83 for 33,892kWh equates to around 1.87p/kWh. That is particularly cheap for a domestic rate.

The OP has not stated the cost of 33,892kWh of gas. The £633.83 refers to the gas cost in the latest bill - "Of the bill amount £963.26, £633.83 is gas."

Annual consumption of nearly 34,000kWh gas is obviously very high, but not impossible. There are many factors that affect usage - insulation, temperature of rooms, lots of baths, efficiency of boiler etc etc.

NineDeuce

Cardew wrote: »

The OP has not stated the cost of 33,892kWh of gas. The £633.83 refers to the gas cost in the latest bill - "Of the bill amount £963.26, £633.83 is gas."

Annual consumption of nearly 34,000kWh gas is obviously very high, but not impossible. There are many factors that affect usage - insulation, temperature of rooms, lots of baths, efficiency of boiler etc etc.

Oh yes. My mistake

Robin9

please give us the reading as you sent to your supplier

Mine is a modern digital meter looks like 01234.567 - does yours look like this or does it have a series of clocks ?

PS to give my reading I ignore the numbers after the decimal point ie 567 and I give 01234 when I give readings online

Merlin139

You state you moved in just under 2 years ago. You must have some idea of your usage since you moved in. Are you still with the same company and on the same tariff?

What was your usage in the period Oct 2016 to Jan 2017?

Has anything changed in that time? Have you had your heating on 24/7?