Huge rise in energy since move

Nooglienoo

Hi there,
Me and my partner moved from a small two bed house into another small two bed house and have since seen our bills nearly double between the properties that we cannot get to the bottom of. Our energy consumption has been pretty much like for like - so I am wondering if there could be a significant difference between the two houses causing this. 
For background, we are a young couple who currently work full time, but was at home for the furghlough period returning to work a few weeks back. Off for just about 10 weeks. In the previous house my boyfriend had bouts of unemployment and working nights which leads me to believe us being at home during furghlough was probably similar to his time at home in the previous house. We had a year long billing battle with two energy providers that have since gone bust (Solarplicity & Toto energy) so I dont really have accurate billing to hand for the old house. We was with Scottish Power before that and initially was on a £57 a month tarrif which was down to £25 by the end of the contract with a refund of £30 back to us. The house was a small two bed semi detached. Double glazed except for the front door. Pretty old house, thin walls EPC rating high E low D as far as I can remember, combi boiler and gas central heating and a crappy little gas hob and oven with an imperial gas meter. Current house is another two bed semi detached.  Marginally bigger but barely so. Uses a metric gas meter, newer build, better insulated with thicker walls, a hot water tank (no combi boiler) which we have on for two hours a day (1 hr morning 1hr evening) and EPC is C. Gas central heating, and a new fan oven. Our current consumption for the house for 232 days is 18995.16kWh of gas and 2280 units of electricity. So gas is working out at about £605 according to our tarrif and electricity is at £390. 

We are currently in debt to British Gas £181 and our monthly direct Debit is £92 (up from our initial estimate of £51) and I'm just at a loss on if we are genuinely using a craptop more energy or if there is a significant difference between the two houses that could cause this. This house is marginally bigger but much newer and better insulated with a significant difference of EPC. I've never really analyzed the energy closely because at the old house it was so low I scarcely even considered it. Just wondering if anyone has any shoot in the dark suggestions on what could cause sudden rise in energy between two houses? Or if something doesnt seem right and what to check. Just at a loss atm and causing so much stress.

Gerry1

Nooglienoo said:

I dont really have accurate billing to hand for the old house.

Our current consumption for the house for 232 days is 18995.16kWh of gas and 2280 units of electricity.

Sorry to be blunt, but those are the only relevant facts in your post.  How much you put into the kitty is irrelevant, it may or may not be sufficient to pay for what you are using.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits/#whatyoupay

Your consumption isn't outrageous.  What's more important is to know the energy rates and daily charges that you are paying and to submit monthly meter readings.  If your gas is more than about 2.5p/kWh or the electricity more than about 13p/kWh you're probably being ripped off, depending on your region.

Read the gas meter on the wall, turn it off overnight and make sure the reading doesn't change.  Also look for a 'b' symbol if it has an LED screen, it denotes a failing battery.

Make sure you don't have a metric meter that's being billed as imperial.

Petriix

On the face of it you're using a comparatively large amount of gas. However, that assumes your bills are correct and based on actual meter readings. Ignore the monthly amount, it just represents an estimate of how much you need to pay to clear the debit balance and build up credit for the winter. Focus on the actual meter readings and energy costs (per kWh and standing charges).

Firstly: did you provide meter readings when you moved in, and are these reflected on your first bill?
Second: do any of your bills show (E) next to any of the readings and are these significantly different from the actual readings? (you do provide regular readings, right?)

The significant difference between the properties is the boiler. It might be that you are heating too much hot water each day and wasting the heat. An older system boiler will not be as efficient as a modern condensing combi and you might be losing lots of heat from the tank if it's old and not well insulated.

How much gas do you use heating water in the months when the heating is off?

victor2

As Gerry1 said, that isn't outrageous usage.

If you want to get an idea of what is using energy and when, try reading your meters daily at about the same time for a few weeks. You won't have any heating running at present, so gas should be pretty low (convert the units to kWh - the formula should be shown on your bill). See what your daily electricity usage is and convert both gas and electric kWh to monetary values using your current tariff details to see where your money is going.

Nooglienoo

Gerry1 said:

Nooglienoo said:

I dont really have accurate billing to hand for the old house.

Our current consumption for the house for 232 days is 18995.16kWh of gas and 2280 units of electricity.

Sorry to be blunt, but those are the only relevant facts in your post.  How much you put into the kitty is irrelevant, it may or may not be sufficient to pay for what you are using.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/lower-energy-direct-debits/#whatyoupay

Your consumption isn't outrageous.  What's more important is to know the energy rates and daily charges that you are paying and to submit monthly meter readings.  If your gas is more than about 2.5p/kWh or the electricity more than about 13p/kWh you're probably being ripped off, depending on your region.

Read the gas meter on the wall, turn it off overnight and make sure the reading doesn't change.  Also look for a 'b' symbol if it has an LED screen, it denotes a failing battery.

Thanks for the reply. My bad for over providing information - wasn't sure what was relevant and what wasn't, as the price has increased significantly but I cant gauge if our energy usage has due to being unable to access the old properties details. I was hoping the housing details could have provided some insight into a potential cause for the difference in cost, but if it was irrelevant that my bad.

We are paying 2.777p/kWh gas and 14.408p/kWh so maybe the problem is we are being ripped off (we are based in the east Midlands). I switched to British Gas as it was the best price last October based on a price comparison site - and I have switched energy every year regularly to get the best price. 

Gerry1

You're being well and truly ripped off, especially for gas.  Start searching with Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?' and don't forget to repeat the exercise with separate suppliers.  Make sure that small suppliers such as Neon Reef, Avro, Gulf, Yorkshire Energy, Zog etc show up.  And do the metric / imperial check and battery check right now !

Nooglienoo

Petriix said:

On the face of it you're using a comparatively large amount of gas. However, that assumes your bills are correct and based on actual meter readings. Ignore the monthly amount, it just represents an estimate of how much you need to pay to clear the debit balance and build up credit for the winter. Focus on the actual meter readings and energy costs (per kWh and standing charges).

Firstly: did you provide meter readings when you moved in, and are these reflected on your first bill?
Second: do any of your bills show (E) next to any of the readings and are these significantly different from the actual readings? (you do provide regular readings, right?)

The significant difference between the properties is the boiler. It might be that you are heating too much hot water each day and wasting the heat. An older system boiler will not be as efficient as a modern condensing combi and you might be losing lots of heat from the tank if it's old and not well insulated.

How much gas do you use heating water in the months when the heating is off?

Yes, provided meter readings the day we moved in and semi regularly provided meter readings (not as regularly as we should have which was an error on my part). I can work out from the day we moved in to today (232 days) we have used 18995.16kWh of gas and 2280 units of electricity.
I am unable to view the bills currently as theres a technical error with the website but I distinctly remember my last two readings asking "are you sure this is correct?" When I submit which I thought was a little odd. In hindsight they were probably saying "this seems too high for what we've estimated for you" 

I was thinking the boiler could be the cause. I havent got any actual gas readings for the boiler alone in winter unfortunately as we never did base measurement. But I can try and use meter readings over the next few weeks to gauge it as the heating is currently off. I've never had a hot water tank boiler so getting an idea about how much I really need to heat it for vs. how much I am heating it for is a learning curve.

Nooglienoo

victor2 said:

As Gerry1 said, that isn't outrageous usage.

If you want to get an idea of what is using energy and when, try reading your meters daily at about the same time for a few weeks. You won't have any heating running at present, so gas should be pretty low (convert the units to kWh - the formula should be shown on your bill). See what your daily electricity usage is and convert both gas and electric kWh to monetary values using your current tariff details to see where your money is going.

Thanks for the advice Vikor - I'll give this a go. I'm also thinking about turning off the hot water boiler for a couple of days to see if the gas continues to rise over these days. Glad to know our usage isnt outrageous though. We were well below average in the old house and are slightly above average in this house according to the online calculator I used.

Nooglienoo

Gerry1 said:

You're being well and truly ripped off, especially for gas.  Start searching with Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?' and don't forget to repeat the exercise with separate suppliers.  Make sure that small suppliers such as Neon Reef, Avro, Gulf, Yorkshire Energy, Zog etc show up.  And do the metric / imperial check and battery check right now !

Ouch! Good to know. In October it was apparently the cheapest bar a few small providers with very low ratings, but the difference wasnt a huge amount and after the problems I had with Solarplicity - then Toto energy, with them both going bust on me and the terrible customer services I was hesitant to go for another small company for fear of repeating problems. Took me a year to win my case with the Oburdsman against Solarplicity so wasnt in a rush to do that again!

The meter is photographed below:


I know its metric thanks to the m3 but I assume the battery check is not relevant as it's not a smart meter. I've been battling to get a smart meter for months and unfortunately the pandemic has done nothing but delay that even later.

Gerry1

Stay with your existing meters.  They can't cut you off or ration you, and there's no battery to fail and clock up silly amounts !

I've found Neon Reef, Avro, Gulf, Yorkshire Energy all to be fine.

Nooglienoo

Gerry1 said:

Say with your existing meters.  They can't cut you off or ration you, and there's no battery to fail and clock up silly amounts !

I've found Neon Reef, Avro, Gulf, Yorkshire Energy all to be fine.

Just did a switch with which comparison as you recommended and found a few of the ones you've mentioned above cheaper. Our tarriff ends August so will make sure to use this site to switch. Thanks for the recommendation! 

I'll not chase up the smart meter then haha! I dont expect in the current climate they have any plans to get me set up before we inevitably leave them in August anyway. But I'll not push for one anymore!