Energy/Landlord Crisis... Where to now?

Mesweett

Hello everyone, 

This is really a long story (it's been an ongoing issue now for 13 months) so I am going to try and summarise all our points and ask if anyone has any advice/help/direction as we are pretty desperate for resolution. We moved into our apartment in December 2018 after relocating from South Africa. We didn't really know how utilities bills work here as, so as soon as we moved in, I enquired the process for payment of our electricity. We live in 54m2 electricity only apartment. After about a month of struggling to get information and assistance from the first energy supplier (SP), we decided to move supplies to energy supplier 2 (BLB).

We got an estimate of around £48 which was about half of what we paid the first month at supplier (SP). I then kept receiving bills from (SP) even though I had paid what I thought was the last bill (£201) which I thought was high, but didn't know enough about it all. It turns out that our supply has 2 MPANS (I'm STILL not entirely sure what this means, but a recent conversation with someone told me it's when they merge previous supplies into one that this happens) and (BLB) had only taken over one of the supplies this pushed our estimate to £55,88 a month. So on 23 Jan 19 they took over the second supply. Well, we continued to send meter reads in and finally got a bill about 3 months later (we paid the £55,88 via direct debit monthly) for £125 - considerably higher than the estimate we received, so I queried this. This was the start of energy dispute wars between (SP) and (BLB) and in September 2019 of NO resolution. I finally went to the Energy Ombudsman with supplier (SP) as they were just uncooperative and no matter how much I phoned or emailed (155 emails at that time) I didn't get anywhere. 

So Ombudsman finds they need to log the correct reads with the "Industry" (I also don't know what this means) and they confirm with a final bill that they've now done this. I thought this was the end, but I still wasn't getting any bills from (BLB) so after 35 more emails and 9 calls, I get an energy bill from (BLB) for £665 and an estimated electricity usage over 12 months of 9980 KW! According to the billing, we are using an average of between 31 & 50 Kw a day - something I cannot wrap my head around, especially after speaking to several other people with far larger households in our area on electricity only supplies.

I call (BLB) and they say well one of the disputes to (SP) is still not resolved, so they'll try and sort that out. I know it won't happen without another case with the Ombudsman. However, we do some independent testing switching off different appliances and find out that the boiler seems to be using around 27kw a day minimum. I started reading up a lot to try and find out whether my landlord should have made us aware at least of the inefficiency of the boiler or some guides on "by the way, you will pay through your nose for electricity if you don't turn it off at times because it doesn't have a timer", and read that we were supposed to receive an EPC certificate when we moved in. We didn't, but I asked for a copy and according to the EPC our apartment is supposed to be a D rating with an average usage of 4500kw over a 3 year period.

So I ask the letting agency to please send someone to look at the Boiler because there must be a problem with the thermostat or something? Finally today, after a lot of begging and pleading, they send out the electrician. He is in total shock about the setup of the boiler. It's on 80degrees c, is setup to the main DB board so doesn't have a timer, and the 2 switches (one for the timed boiler and one for the booster) are all connected to the setup, so he says that we are consuming 6kw of power an hour just with the boiler!

So my questions are this:

1) How is the EPC so far out from the actual usage? 

2) Should there be any liability from the landlord considering that this dispute comes from tenants way before us never submitting reads AND we couldn't have known about the problems of high usage because the correct reads were never on the billing until now?

3)The Ombudsman can give a resolution (for example the supplier should do XXX) but they have now power to enforce it according to them, so how do you actually get to a resolution with a power dispute if there's no enforcement allowed from the Ombudsman?
I know it's not as short as I had hoped, but I would very much appreciate any assistance, guidance, help, advice etc.

Best,
Mesweett

Gerry1

It's always going to be expensive if you don't have gas.  But you seem to be on the worst possible option, an electric boiler with wet radiators?  If so, there is presumably little or no heat storage so you'll be paying the expensive peak rate, probably a single rate because the daytime rate on Economy 7 is higher.

You may have a second supply if you have a hot tank with an immersion heater that's heated overnight at the cheaper off peak Economy 7 rate.  Ideally it should be on a supply that's controlled by the meter so that it's only live during the cheap rate hours.  There's often a boost switch which can be used in emergency to top up the tank if it goes cold in the day.  Leave it switched on by mistake and you'll be paying the expensive day rate.  Siimlarly, if you rely on a local timeswitch rather than the meter to control the overnight supply, you'l get bill shock if it gets out of kilter with the meter.

BTW, you are confused about energy usage, which is measured in kilowatt hours, kWh.  That's what shows up on your meter and what determines the bill.  The power rating of any appliance is measured in kilowatts, kW.  So a 6kW boiler at full whack for 2 hours will use 12kWh.

It's imperative that you think in terms of kWh not direct debit ££s, that you submit monthly meter readings, and that you find the best whole-of-the market electricity tariff.  But your only realistic option is to move, preferably to somewhere with gas central heating, or at least clever night storage heaters as a far-less-than-ideal workaround.

ElephantBoy57

Mesweett said:

I get an energy bill from (BLB) for £665 and an estimated electricity usage over 12 months of 9980 KW!

According to the EPC our apartment is supposed to be a D rating with an average usage of 4500kw over a 3 year period.
1) How is the EPC so far out from the actual usage?

An estimate of usage would not assume the heating/boiler was left on 24/7

It may be that the previous tenant didn't use the heating/boiler as much as you and perhaps only turned it on when required.

Mesweett

Thanks very much guys! The previous tenants never submitted meter readings, so they were always paying an estimated rate. When I submitted my reads, it became chaos, as SP then dismissed the reads as incorrect and so it was going back and forth. We are planning on moving at the end of our lease, I was just wondering if there should be any responsibility on the landlord's side due to the (according to the electrician) "appalling" setup of the boiler which is what was causing the excessive electricity bill.

Gerry1

Provided that it's safe, it doesn't really matter how an electric boiler central heating system is set up, by definition it will always be astronomically expensive.  Unless you have a tank the size of a bus there won't be enough storage capacity to allow it to heat up at night on Economy 7 and release it until late the next evening; unless you have 'box of bricks' storage heaters you'll have to use expensive daytime electricity.  To maintain any given temperature it'll always cost the same regardless of whether you're using a fan heater, an electric fire, a convector, an oil filled radiator or even a few dozen 100W incandescent bulbs !

Not surprisingly, landlords don't like hassle of the safety regime associated with gas devices: risks of fires and explosion from leaks, risks of deaths from CO poisoning, costs of annual inspections and certificates.  Even if gas is available, it's much easier to offer only electric heating and cooking.  They don't pay the electricity bills, so why should they make their lives more complicated?

If you have two separate supplies and two meters it may be cheaper to have the boiler circuit supplied from one company on a single rate tariff and the immersion heater and everything else on an Economy 7 tariff supplied by a different company. However, it won't be a magic bullet.

Mesweett

Thank you so much @Gerry1 for taking the time to give some insight! It does help a lot for our future decisions regarding where to live & what to take into consideration etc. I guess being informed is the magic bullet in this case

Gerry1

Mesweett said:

So Ombudsman finds they need to log the correct reads with the "Industry" (I also don't know what this means) and they confirm with a final bill that they've now done this.

Here's the mysterious industry process.

https://help.so.energy/support/solutions/articles/7000046241

mattpeter

thanks for the info