Unusually High Gas Bills

CH121

Hi guys,

I hope you are all well. Just looking for a bit of advice if possible.

We have been monitoring our gas and electricity bills over the last few months.

We have just received our gas/electric bill from British Gas (Energy Plus Price Protection Green Jul 2020v2 is our tariff) for the 3 month period March to June for around £720.00. For context, we live in a detached 5 bedroom in Scotland and have done for some time and under our previous supplier SSE (who we were with until July 2019) our annual usage was 5340 kwh for electricity and 30,400 kwh for gas. This was broadly in line with historical usage that we had experienced in prior years as well.

However, since moving to British Gas in July of last year our gas usage seems to have skyrocketed without any real explanation that I can think of. In our most recent bill of £720.00 (for a 3 month period) we used 18,168kwh of gas at 2.644p per kwh and including the standing charge our gas usage cost £525.00. In our bill before that (covering 2 months of January & February 2020) we apparently used 20,819kwh of gas which again seems unreasonably high considering there have been no great changes in the way that we consume our energy. All this has led to British Gas giving us a personal projection for gas usage over the year of 72,500kwh which seems like an industrial quantity of gas to be using. Indeed, I struggle to think that it would be possible to use this much in a domestic house at all.

We did have a new boiler and Hive heating control installed in April 2019 and a new kitchen in July 2019 as well where we moved from gas to all electric cooking (our electric usage has actually come down since we did this) but apart from that there have been no changes in how we use or consume our energy.

I am struggling to get my head around how this has come to be so would be very grateful for any advice that anyone has to offer me and any potential faults or errors that could be the cause of this.

If anyone does need any further details in order to give some advice please do let me know.

Many thanks.

Gerry1

Make sure it's not a Metric meter being billed as Imperial.

What's the meter make and model?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6103628/rogue-smart-meters/p1

Talldave

Did British Gas change the meters? If not, it's got to be the new boiler. Has it been running 24/7 against TRVs that prevent a thermostat being satisfied?

Our 5 bed place can easily take 1400-1500kWh a week to heat in Jan/Feb. Reading the meters weekly gives you a good picture of consumption.  The recent warm spell dropped us to "hot water only" use but the last couple of cold days have nudged the heating back on a small amount. We'll be around 42,000kWh for the year.

CH121

Thanks very much for your replies, it's much appreciated.

In reply to the question about the meters, the meters are the same ones that were installed back when we bought the house new in 2005 and haven't really given us any issues before. As to the make and model I'm not too sure but will double check. I'll make sure to double check also that the conversion is being done properly and there is no metric/imperial error.

When British Gas came round to replace the boiler that was the really the only work that they did and the radiators/meters are the same as they were before. The only other work that they did was to replace our old thermostat  with a new hive one and we did have some problems with it not working initially. We are quite careful at checking the hive app and the timers etc. set on that are exactly the same as those that we had on the old system. I don't think that there should be an issue with the radiator values (but will make sure to double check them) but I'd be grateful if you have any more comments around this.

Many thanks again.

MWT

Have you checked the actual meter readings and made sure the bills are not using estimates?

Robin9

As per MWT - please look back at your  bills and let us know  the readings  for the  last  12 months or and note the letters A, E, or C against them.
On face value this is suggesting a low previous Estimated reading followed by an Actual one.  You do provide monthly reads don't you -  don't expect a meter reader to call.

Roughly 5000 kwh of elec at 16p is a £800; ; 30,000 kwh of gas at 3p is  £900 - add standing charges and VAT and you get £2000 a year . That's £500 on average a quarter so £700 for a winter quarter doesn't sound far out. Do your own sums on a simple spreadsheet.

CH121

Thanks again for your replies, it is much appreciated.

I must admit that beforehand I was not in the regular habit of reading the meter, however I have indeed learned the error of my ways and will ensure I do it much more regularly moving forward. Below I have attached a copy of all the meter reads and corresponding bill consumption that we have, and I hope this is helpful in possibly suggesting a reason for the high usage.

As again, if anyone requires any more detail or information please do let me know.

Kind regards.

Gerry1

That's a horribly expensive pence/kWh rate !

As previously asked, what's the meter make and model?  Have you missed the decimal point?  Does it have an LCD display showing a 'b' symbol for low battery?

MWT

Looks like a classic case of a metric meter being treated as imperial...

That is a 5-digit meter so it is metric... 842m3 = 9430kWh not 26,940.24kWh...

Check the meter and you should see it refers to measurements in cubic metres (m3) not cubic feet.

Contact your supplier and tell them you have a metric meter, not imperial and as a result they are massively over charging you by a multiple of roughly 2.83...

Robin9

If its a metric meter  - intriguing that all goes wrong when you change .
Have you got any old SSE bills - check the meter details

CH121

Thanks once again for all your help.

Just had it confirmed by British Gas that they have recorded our meter as imperial so it looks like this is the cause of the issue. Thanks for all your suggestions of this being the cause as I wouldn't have suspected this. Previous switches to and from EDF and SSE have been faultless so I'm not quite sure what has gone wrong this time. Regardless, this will certainly get me in the habit of regular meter readings and checking my switching documents more thoroughly. 

I will update once I hear back from them tomorrow.

Thanks once again, all your advice and suggestions have been invaluable