Are We Paying Enough

RelievedSheff

We have in the last few months moved from a 1930's 2 bed semi into a new build 3 bed detached house. It is only a small detached house at 900 square feet but it suits us perfectly.

In the old house we paid about £90 per month for gas and electric with EDF. Shortly after moving house we switched energy supplier to British Gas and they have allocated a payment per month of £61.50.

According to our meter readings and smart meter readings we are currently using just short of £1 per day on gas and electric with British Gas so just under £30 per month at the moment. But obviously the heating is turned off and at the moment the combi boiler is only on for a few minutes each day to make hot water for washing the pots. The shower is electric.

I guess my question is do you think that the extra £30 or so per month we are building up in credit will be enough to cover our winter useage or should we be thinking about upping our direct debit amount a bit to cover the winter bills/

The new house should be better insulated and the new boiler should be much more effificient than the 30 year old Potterton in the old house. But is £30 per month less realistic?

Robin9

Your new home will be far better insulated and I would expect a reduction in consumption which will result in lower bills. A summer bill of £30 really is quite low - half of this will be standing charges.

Have a look at the bottom line of your bills are you in credit or debit.

Keep your own records and read your meters, check your own calculations and compare with the bills.

Talldave

You should probably focus on energy consumption and not price. E.g if the unit rates with EDF were significantly higher than the deal you now have with BG, you might think you're only paying for 2/3 the energy you previously paid for, but in fact it could be substantially more.

As Robin9 says, take regular readings and work out the cost monthly, you'll soon see if there's a deficit looming. I don't think there will be, new builds have great insulation.

Do BG provide monthly bills? If not it might be worth switching to a supplier who does. However, provide regular readings just before bill time so that bills are based on real usage not guesswork estimates.

RelievedSheff

I should add we are really quite low power consumers. We are out at work all day from 7am until about 6pm so the house is just ticking over for that time and we don't use much when we are in.

The washer dryer is our biggest power consumer. Looking at the energy consumption graphs on the BG website it is very obvious the days that we use this.

We are in credit at the moment but we really want to ensure that we build up enough credit to cover the winter bills. We don't suddenly want to find we owe a large amount after the winter period.

We have been keeping our own copies of meter readings and take the readings once a week and submit them manually despite being on smart meters which submit readings once a day as well. Just as a back up check that the readings BG receive from the meters are correct.

Cardew

Your electric shower is potentially the biggest load - assuming you both use it daily.



The amount of your DD has no bearing on your annual bill. If you are worried that a £60 a month DD is insufficient, then increase it, or open a separate bank account and deposit, say £20 a month.

RelievedSheff

Cardew wrote: »

Your electric shower is potentially the biggest load - assuming you both use it daily.



The amount of your DD has no bearing on your annual bill. If you are worried that a £60 a month DD is insufficient, then increase it, or open a separate bank account and deposit, say £20 a month.

Yes we both shower daily but the biggest spike on the energy graphs is on the days we use the washer dryer.

The shower does use a lot of power, you can see that on the energy monitor, but we only use it for five minutes each a day.

Robin9

RelievedSheff wrote: »

..............

We have been keeping our own copies of meter readings and take the readings once a week and submit them manually despite being on smart meters which submit readings once a day as well. Just as a back up check that the readings BG receive from the meters are correct.

This is very good practise - if only others on this forum who complain of high bills did the same.

Download your bills as well and look at the bottom line.

RelievedSheff

We sat down and cracked a few figures (as far as we could) on this last night. It is difficult as we have not had a winter in this house yet so the gas consumption for the winter months is somewhat of an unknown.

By our reckoning we are currently £78 in credit and this we believe will increase by about £30 per month for the next couple of months when no heating is required. So by the end of September we should be about £140 in credit. After that it depends how cold it gets as to whether we need the heating on or not.

So we think that we should have built up a bit of credit to run down over winter.

British Gas don't expect to send us a bill until May 2020, which will be 12 months after we signed up, so we will just keep an eye on the figures ourselves and if we don't think we are covering the cost will boost it with some one off payments.

Talldave

Sounds like you're ok and on top of it.

Unlike BG who's billing practice seems ludicrous. It's intriguing that the government like to meddle in the area of tariffs but seemingly haven't considered monthly billing as a necessity to help consumers stay on top of their energy consumption and costs.

Biscuit_Tin

RelievedSheff wrote: »

...

British Gas don't expect to send us a bill until May 2020, which will be 12 months after we signed up, ....

Why? :huh:

You should get one bill from each energy account, every three months (six months if you pay monthly by fixed Direct Debit) or every month if you've chosen to have your bills monthly.

Source: https://www.britishgas.co.uk/help-and-support/bills-and-payments/gas-and-electricity/faq/how-can-i-see-my-bill

RelievedSheff

Don't know why. It just says on our account that the next dual fuel bill will be May 2020.

We just want to make sure that we build up enough credit over the summer months to cover the over spend over the winter months. Obviously the amount of gas we will use over the winter is an unknown this winter as we are in a new house which is bigger then the old house and detached but on the upside is of modern construction, highly insulated and with a new energy efficient boiler.