Massive Utility Debt and utility usage out of control.

brightondave

Hi, daughter lives in her privately rented flat as a single parent with her little 6 year old, gets universal credit, pays all her other bills etc but has had this ongoing build up of debt with a electrical utility company over the last 7 years. The amount now is over £7000 and they never seem to resolve it with her, people don't get back to her and things just drift, collection companies have never been involved and she has not heard a thing for ages?  I know this has gone too far now and I started to pay £55 per month myself (dad) into her electricity account and get the money each month from her, so she herself has not paid anything for over 7 years. 
I recently ran a check on her electricity meter the last week and I was staggered, the day and night read combined works out at £59 per week and all she runs in the flat (all electric) is the usual stuff (no tumble dryer) and the heating is only 3 oil filled radiators in the whole flat and temperatures being what they are at the moment its all a bit hopeless.
(She us classed as vulnerable on their system)
Questions : who would be best to help with this as a first port of call?
Could any of the debt be written off?
What alternative heating could be used to get the usage down?
Thankyou for taking the time to read this and any advice on the 3 points is appreciated.

Gerry1

The best solution would be to move to a property with gas central heating.  Electric heating will always be expensive because each kWh costs about four or five times as much as gas.

The energy has been used, so it can't be written off.  However, assistance may be available; see Citizens Advice.

Oil filled radiators are not a good idea because they use daytime electricity.  Virtually nothing is more expensive for heating.  If moving is not an option, night storage heaters on a competitive Economy 7 tariff would be the least worst solution, especially if she can get assistance towards the capital and installation costs.

In the meantime, do a comparison with Citizens Advice and 'Switch with Which?' to make sure she's not paying more than is necessary.  Unfortunately she will probably be limited to tariffs from her existing supplier until the debt has been paid off.

Robin9

Have you the meter reads from the last 3 weeks and of the tariff ?

brightondave

Robin9 said:

Have you the meter reads from the last 3 weeks and of the tariff ?

Well I checked from a reading from 4 months ago that I did and it averaged then about £144 per month so did a read last week from sat to sat and it was £59 for the week. Tariff i believe is 22p day unit and 7p night unit.

Robin9

The actual meter readings please not £

molerat

What type of heating system is hard installed in the property ?

E7 is not typically designed to run on demand heating outside of the off peak times.  I suspect she is currently using loads of on peak expensive electricity and a minimal amount of off peak cheap electricity.

As above please give actual meter reads / unit use of both peak and off peak. Which energy company is she with and what are the first 2 letters of her post code ? (will not identify her but will enable someone to give a more tailored answer to the problem)

Gerry1

brightondave said:

Well I checked from a reading from 4 months ago that I did and it averaged then about £144 per month so did a read last week from sat to sat and it was £59 for the week. Tariff i believe is 22p day unit and 7p night unit.

There's no way she should be using Economy 7 or similar if she's not using storage heaters.  Switch today to the cheapest single rate tariff the supplier offers.  That should immediately reduce the bills significantly.

brightondave

molerat said:

What type of heating system is hard installed in the property ?

E7 is not typically designed to run on demand heating outside of the off peak times.  I suspect she is currently using loads of on peak expensive electricity and a minimal amount of off peak cheap electricity.

As above please give actual meter reads / unit use of both peak and off peak. Which energy company is she with and what are the first 2 letters of her post code ? (will not identify her but will enable someone to give a more tailored answer to the problem)

Day rate last Saturday 88604
Day rate this Saturday 88779
Night rate last Saturday 83463
Night rate this Saturday 83699
Supplier SP
BN area East Sussex
When she moved in the flat had an old block type storage heater in the lounge and really old panel heaters in the bedrooms both of which we didn't really want her to use. Her private landlady who is the type that everybody would wish to have is unaware of the situation about the energy supplier or the fixed heating not being used, so would there in fact be a grant that she could use to update?        Thanks for your consideration.

stewie_griffin

By telling her not to use the storage heater and use oil filled rads instead you've made the situation much worse for her. I'm surprised her supplier have allowed her not to pay for so longer and haven't force fitted a prepayment meter a long time ago.

Robin9

Taking the storage rads out and replacing them by panel heaters was not a wise decision. Retaining E7 after  the change was also not a good one.

Her day consumption now is 175/7 = 25 units (typical average about 10) all due to panel heaters; night is 236/7 =  35 (so is she leaving the panels on overnight ?) (typical for a gas house perhaps 2)  No wonder she has such big bills.

%night is 57% which is staggering considering no storage rads  (over a year this will drop - providing she doesn't use the panels  to perhaps 20%) so E7 probably not a good idea.

Panels in bedrooms are used just as a top up before bed and getting up - not all night.

Get her permission and contact SP direct - 

welshmoneylover

Stand alone oil filled radiators are very expensive to run, as she has 3 of them I am not surprised her usage is high. 

If she is in benefits I would imagine she has not been paying enough to cover the usage nor debt.
as others have said she should look at a cheaper tariff and it might be a good idea to get a smart ore payment meter installed so she can monitor tithe usage herself plus the debt will not increase any further.
she has used the electricity and it won’t be fair on those who do pay for her to have a grant to pay it off.
the electricity company may be able to make direct deductions from her benefits to cover usage plus arrears to stop the debt increasing.