Electric only with astronomical first bill - please help!

SarahS11

Hello

I hope you can help me.

We've just moved into a 2 bed, city center apartment. We provided meter readings and got a 2 week bill for £90!

I can't understand how we are using £45 per week electric. We've not had to turn the heating on at all, we turn / unplug most appliances off at the socket when not in use, we don't leave lights on.

Might it be the hot water? I have never been electric only but £180-£200 for electric for 2-3 people a month with no heating on seems madness.

TIA for any replies

dunstonh

How is your water heated? (immersion heater on all the time maybe?)

Is your heating/water meant to be used under economy 7 but you are on a normal tariff?

Do you have a smart meter? if not, consider getting one or pop onto Amazon to get a reader that shows your usage in real time. From there you can see the idle usage (typically around a few pence an hour) and when it is using high amounts and then you can see which items are using the most and if you can make changes.

molerat

Did you provide the supplier with an accurate opening read taken by yourself ?
Is the bill based on actual opening and closing reads ? - just because you supplied readings does not mean they used them !
Is the meter being billed the one actually supplying your flat ?

SarahS11

Thanks for your replies.
We've actually been in 4 weeks and this is a bill for our supplier from our old house taking over.

I dont think we're on economy 7, i'll look into that.

Without meaning to sound dumb, i've no idea how it's heated. There's a large cylinder tank in the cuboard, i'm not sure if that is an immersion heater? would that cause the huge bill (there's a button on a keypad to turn it off an on)

Good point on the right flat, I'll ask them to check it. Also we can't get a smart metre where we live, we dont even have the meter in the apartment - we have to ask the maintenance people to get us a reading.

Thanks for your help

D_M_E

As molerat says, how do you know that the maintenance people are reading the correct meter for your premises?

There's many a tale - even here on this forum - of the wrong meter being allocated to a flat with the result that the occupiers are being billed for someone else's usage.

Another point to consider is are you being billed for some or all of the previous occupiers - or builders if it's newbuild - consumption?

SarahS11

thanks, i'll ask them to check the metre readings and investigate more