Unbelievably high Energy bills (£500+ pm)

Ezra_W

Hi all,
Need some fairly emergency advice regarding energy bills.
I am a student living with two other students in a student property.
Our issue is that we are receiving insanely high bills, and when I say that I mean it.

Our meter readings are going up by sometimes nearly up to 3000 units on the day reading each month, and our bill for April 2018 was nearly £550!
We are 3 students, who are rarely in during the daytime (spend time at university campus). We do have rubbish electric radiators, but they haven't been turned on since early march, and even during the winter we where careful with them. We all just have laptops, and just a single TV in the living room. We don't have a tumble dryer or dishwasher, just a washing machine, oven, fridge and microwave and immersion water heater.
This also happened for the month of November 2017 where the bill was £450 for a 19 day period.
I just don't see how it would even be possible to use that kind of energy.
So far I have called the supplier (bulb) several times, and they won't do anything.
I have conducted several tests with the meter, turning things off and watching it, and even switching the entire ring off (apart from fridge) while we where away for 3 weeks, only then did I not see it go up as much but it still went up 250+ units.
The Landlord/letting agent isn't being very helpful with this issue. I plan on going in to see them tomorrow.
We have had someone round to test the meter but never actually told us if anything was wrong, we've also had 2 out of 7 radiators replaced. I have noticed that the electrics in the house where last serviced in November 2015 and was due in August 2017 but never happened.

If anyone could offer any advice, because even with increased monthly payments, the account is -1100 in debt.

Thanks.

Shavuot

Ezra_W wrote: »

Hi all,
Need some fairly emergency advice regarding energy bills.
I am a student living with two other students in a student property.
Our issue is that we are receiving insanely high bills, and when I say that I mean it.

Our meter readings are going up by sometimes up-to 3000 units on the day reading each month, and our bill for April 2018 was nearly £600!
We are 3 students, who are rarely in during the daytime (spend time at university campus). We do have rubbish electric radiators, but they haven't been turned on since early march, and even during the winter we where careful with them. We all just have laptops, and just a single TV in the living room. We don't have a tumble dryer or dishwasher, just a washing machine, oven, fridge and microwave and immersion water heater.
This also happened for the month of November 2017 where the bill was £450 for a 19 day period.
I just don't see how it would even be possible to use that kind of energy.
So far I have called the supplier (bulb) several times, and they won't do anything.
I have conducted several tests with the meter, turning things off and watching it, and even switching the entire ring off (apart from fridge) while we where away for 3 weeks, only then did I not see it go up as much but it still went up 250+ units.
The Landlord/letting agent isn't being very helpful with this issue. I plan on going in to see them tomorrow.
We have had someone round to test the meter but never actually told us if anything was wrong, we've also had 2 out of 7 radiators replaced. I have noticed that the electrics in the house where last serviced in November 2015 and was due in August 2017 but never happened.

If anyone could offer any advice, because even with increased monthly payments, the account is -1100 in debt.

Thanks.

Please post a legible image of your latest bill. :cool:

What you studying?

PennineAcute

Your need to check that the immersion heater is not on constantly. That is my bet.

Ezra_W

Shavuot wrote: »

Please post a legible image of your latest bill. :cool:

What you studying?

Thanks for the reply
I am Studying Computer Science!
Here is an image of the statement.

[cannot post links, new user. go to 'imgur(dot)com/oX0cSrc' for image]

The £69 is the basic rate they predicted, we expected this to be a bit low, and the several 90-120 'estimates' is probably more accurate for our usage, especially during winter. Now obviously it's only taking the £69 at a time, and we definitely owe more than that each month, and we where planning on just topping it off at the end of our tenancy in July.
Even if we totalled up the worst case scenario for each month, say £150+, it's still over by loads considering we have been still paying £69 each month....
In regards to the actual meter readings, I don't have all those to hand currently, but around 1/3rd of those are based of user-submitted readings and the rest are estimates. The expensive ones are user submitted. Here at the ones I have:
daytime, nighttime (2017-2018)

05879 - 13th July

---

first reading after moving in.
01683 - 13th july(night)

06610 - 30th sep
01828 - 30th sep (night)

07766 - 30th Nov
02211 - 30th Nov (night)

10050 - 19th Dec

---

(when we noticed the issue)
03272 - 19th Dec (night)

11005 - 30th Jan
03272 - 30th Jan(night)

15012 - 4th April (21:00pm)
04539 - 4th April(night)

15050 - 5th April (10:00am)
04554 - 5th april(night)

15220 - 23rd April (whole electrics where switched off apart from fridge as we where all away from 5th to 23rd april)

also, the part about the £69 'being too low' has just updated a few days ago.

savemoney

https://imgur.com/oX0cSrc

Shavuot

I need the latest bill/statement, not just the account summary.

In the meantime, the good news is your consumption for May was only £160.82 (compared to nearly £550 you said you consumed in April) ... so you appear to be heading in the right direction.

Not sure why you allowed the balance on the account to get to almost -£1000 though :eek:
The -£1144.11 current balance does not include the £69.11 monthly payment probably to be collected Friday

Ezra_W

Shavuot wrote: »

Well the good news is your consumption for May was only £160.82 (compared to nearly £550 you said you consumed in April) ... so you are heading in the right direction.

Not sure why you allowed the balance on the account to get to almost -£1000 though :eek:
The -£1144.11 current balance does not include the £69.11 monthly payment.

I just do not understand how it is possible to use 400+ of energy in a spike like that, can't be right. It includes deduction of all £69 apart from this months, which still leaves 1k+ in extra.... the yearly estimate has changed from £900, then to £1100 in January, to now £2361 for the next year

edit - we didn't pay the spikes because I was told it was obviously wrong and to try and get it sorted with the estate agent.

Shavuot

Based on your readings posted, you appear to be on an E7 tariff

Are you using storage heaters that make optimum use of cheap rate overnight electricity?
In which case, it would appear your registries are transposed.

If you are heating your home using peak rate electricity (say using fan or panel heaters) then just over £800 a year is never going to cover the cost.

Shavuot

Ezra_W wrote: »

...

edit - we didn't pay the spikes because I was told it was obviously wrong and to try and get it sorted with the estate agent.

Your estate agent?

If the energy bill is wrong, then surely the energy supplier should be putting it right???

Ezra_W

Shavuot wrote: »

Your estate agent?

If the energy bill is wrong, then surely the energy supplier should be putting it right???

I've talked to them several times, according to them the issues lies with our Estate agent because it appears its an electrical issue, and because the house is furnished (student) it lies with them.

here is the the statement for this month, the readings are estimates for 30th April and 30th May. I didn't submit the meter reading for 23rd April, just the one on the 4th/5th
imgur(dot)com/ctzclPP

edit - during winter, we had electrical storage heaters on for a few hours in the evenings and early in the mornings, but we expected a higher bill anyway for those months. We make sure to make use of the overnight cheaper electric

molerat

https://imgur.com/ctzclPP

Your landlord / letting agent has no responsibility for you electric use apart from ensuring that your installed equipment is safe and in working order. Any queries on use is between the user and supplier. The people you speak to on the phone quite honestly do not have a clue and have no thoughts other than what the screen in front of them tells them to say and want to get you off the line as quickly as possible so they can move onto the next customer. The only way this is going to get sorted is by you taking responsibility and doing the leg work yourself. Meters rarely lie and yours is quite new, 2015 vintage, so you need to work out where this energy is being used and in all honesty the total consumption over the period for an all electric student house is not too bad.



Are all those readings actual ones that you have supplied or estimates (just because you supplied reads does not mean they used them) ? What are the actual readings now ?



How do you have "storage heaters on for a few hours in the evenings and early in the mornings" as they charge overnight on cheap rate electric. On the face of it, if you are correctly using E7, the readings are the wrong way round ( a bit of a clue is that on 4th / 5th Sept the day reading increased massively overnight). The night should have a far greater use than the day. You need to check which of those registers is increasing during the day. Take a read of both, put some heavy load on - kettle, electric fire etc - and take another set of reads to see which one has increased.


The way you are currently being billed means that for the 321 days you are being charged £1874, if the day/night readings are reversed then that bill becomes £1294.