Shocked by our outstanding bill

ali_19

Emam198 said:

My partner and I are fairly new to looking after all bills, having moved in together a year ago, previously having lived with family. So I don't know how much of this is down to naivety, or if we are being charged too much. My OH was 'in charge' of monitoring the energy bills, but I've recently taken a look. He didn't understand that the account was in debit, not credit, to the amount of £1300

We're on a dual fuel supply with Avro energy. Fixed payment per month ofn£64. Standing charge around £11 per month. Tariff is 12.5p per kWh for electric, 2.7p per kWh for gas. The stinger is how much we have apparently used. Around 12.5 kWh for the year on electric and 13.5 kWh. I'm clearly no expert, but this seems over-the-top high to me, particularly on the electricity side. Google estimates suggest this is about 4 times the national average. We live in an average size 3 bed end of terrace. 
Myself, partner and baby live here. I started maternity leave November 2019. So I would expect to see an increase, through the winter especially, just not this much! 

My OH supplied the meter readings online each month. We had someone visit from Avro to read the meter, on one occasion.

Could there have been a mistake somewhere along the line? How can we go about working out how we've incurred high usage? Or am I clutching at straws... 

I'm not sure how your OH could ever believe he was £1300 in credit when it seems he's probably v arely paid half of that to the supplier in total, ignoring any cost of usage.
i.e. 12 x £64 = £768

You ask whether it is down to naivety, or whether you are clucthing at straws?

Really difficult for me to decide when I then see you have been an MSE member for 8 years.

Emam198

ali_19 said:

Emam198 said:

My partner and I are fairly new to looking after all bills, having moved in together a year ago, previously having lived with family. So I don't know how much of this is down to naivety, or if we are being charged too much. My OH was 'in charge' of monitoring the energy bills, but I've recently taken a look. He didn't understand that the account was in debit, not credit, to the amount of £1300

We're on a dual fuel supply with Avro energy. Fixed payment per month ofn£64. Standing charge around £11 per month. Tariff is 12.5p per kWh for electric, 2.7p per kWh for gas. The stinger is how much we have apparently used. Around 12.5 kWh for the year on electric and 13.5 kWh. I'm clearly no expert, but this seems over-the-top high to me, particularly on the electricity side. Google estimates suggest this is about 4 times the national average. We live in an average size 3 bed end of terrace. 
Myself, partner and baby live here. I started maternity leave November 2019. So I would expect to see an increase, through the winter especially, just not this much! 

My OH supplied the meter readings online each month. We had someone visit from Avro to read the meter, on one occasion.

Could there have been a mistake somewhere along the line? How can we go about working out how we've incurred high usage? Or am I clutching at straws... 

I'm not sure how your OH could ever believe he was £1300 in credit when it seems he's probably v arely paid half of that to the supplier in total, ignoring any cost of usage.
i.e. 12 x £64 = £768

You ask whether it is down to naivety, or whether you are clucthing at straws?

Really difficult for me to decide when I then see you have been an MSE member for 8 years.

I've been a member for 8 years, because I joined when I was a student. Life was very different then, this is the first time I've been directly responsible for managing a household. 

But thank you for your take on it anyway  

GunJack

I'd ignore ali_19, looks very much like something that lives under a bridge.......

greyteam1959

Be nice if they came back with an update.

Emam198

greyteam1959 said:

Be nice if they came back with an update.

It's been a long difficult day and evening with my baby. Update as follows.

I called Avro and they logged the corrected meter readings for us. It will take a week, until our billing date, for the change to be reflected in our statement. So now we wait, in anticipation of everything balancing out as it should be.

Big thanks to forumites who went out of their way to help me, very greatful. 

bsms1147

Thanks for the update. These things happen so no big deal, and you’ve learnt something moving forwards. Next step if you wanted to take it would be shop around to make sure you’re getting the best deal.

Talldave

You could be paying around £800 a year if you grabbed the Ebico gas deal on (limited time) offer at the moment along with Symbio or Neon Reef for Electricity.  Beware though, Symbio are incompetent at anything apart from being cheap.  If you used Zog for gas you'd be up at the £820-£830 level.  All depending on your local region of course. I used 13500kWh gas, 3120kWh electricity.

Emam198

Talldave said:

You could be paying around £800 a year if you grabbed the Ebico gas deal on (limited time) offer at the moment along with Symbio or Neon Reef for Electricity.  Beware though, Symbio are incompetent at anything apart from being cheap.  If you used Zog for gas you'd be up at the £820-£830 level.  All depending on your local region of course. I used 13500kWh gas, 3120kWh electricity.

Excellent thank you for the heads up.
 I'll have a look at these offers. I think it's me in charge of the bills now, by default 🙈

patman99

Emam198, with some meters, when they are showing the night and day readings, the tariff that corresponds to the time you are taking the reading may have a flashing dot beside it.

IE. if you read the meter at 0500, then when it is displaying the night reading, a dot will flash to indicate that you are looking at the night reading. When the display switches to the day reading, the dot will not be flashing.

If you are reading the meter at 1700hrs then the opposite will apply.

matelodave

Thanks for letting us know and that you've managed to resolve it.

Now you are in charge it would be a good idea to set up your own spreadsheet and organise yourself to read the meter every month,send in readings and check your account and to ensure that it's all correct. I also download a copy of the bill as a PDF file and save it for a couple of years - it means you've always got a copy of the bills and it makes is so much easier to backtrack when you've got your own. Especially when you've left a supplier and the account is closed or not available anymore. It only take 5-10 minutes a month but can save a lot of grief and aggro in the future

The other benefit of a monthly check is that any anomalies get discovered very quickly and can be sorted out just as quickly without having to trawl through months or even years worth of bills or statements. You also shouldn't get unexpected ginormous bills because you'll know whats going on

Good luck