£180 a month for a 1 bed flat!?!?

Cdegwi

First and foremost, I'm fully aware of the energy price increase. I was with Green, and they were charging me £30 a month. In October, I was moved over to Shell, and straight away my bills went up to £115 a month.
I live on my own in a very small one bed flat. I work full time, and I'm away two weekends a month. I turn everything off at the wall (even the oven) unless in brief use, I never charge things over night, the only things left switched on are my WiFi and fridge. I have one light on whilst I'm in. I have two storage heaters, one on low, one off entirely. Because of the hike in prices, I go to bed every night in jumpers and socks because the place is so cold. I cannot afford £180 a month. I mean, living on their own, who on earth could!?
I have spoken to plenty of people about this. My bill seems to be higher than people I know in three-four bedroom houses. I am solely electric, no gas, but this still screams as extremely inaccurate and I feel like I'm being taken advantage of under the guise of the price increase. I understand that £30 a month is not realistic now, but neither is £180.
I have spoken to my landlord who agrees it can't be right, he's sending an electrician to have a look at things, and I'm getting a smart meter.
Does anybody have any advice? I want to put together a complaint to Shell but I need all the information I can get. 

m-holland

Fellow board members will need you to post meter readings to get any idea of whats going on.

Electric is the most expensive way of heating a house

Have you been giving regular meter readings? If not, you may also be paying back debt that has built up

ProDave

If you were only paying £30 per month, you were likely under paying on low estimates, and the increase is to reflect actual usage and pay down a debt probably.

When will people learn to submit accurate monthly readings (if you don't have a smart meter that does that for you) so you pay actual usage not someones guess at your usage?  then you won't get nasty surrprises like this.

Cdegwi

ProDave said:

If you were only paying £30 per month, you were likely under paying on low estimates, and the increase is to reflect actual usage and pay down a debt probably.

When will people learn to submit accurate monthly readings (if you don't have a smart meter that does that for you) so you pay actual usage not someones guess at your usage?  then you won't get nasty surrprises like this.

Thanks for the reply, however please don't patronise me. 
I submit meter readings on time every month, and I cleared debt with Green when I moved over. 

Cdegwi

m-holland said:

Fellow board members will need you to post meter readings to get any idea of whats going on.

Electric is the most expensive way of heating a house

Have you been giving regular meter readings? If not, you may also be paying back debt that has built up

Yes I give meter readings. I've gone through my account with Shell; the £180 a month is a prediction of my useage, and excludes any existing debt.

QrizB

Cdegwi said:

I submit meter readings on time every month, and I cleared debt with Green when I moved over. 

Excellent. so how much electricity have you used in the past 12 months?

The_Fat_Controller

Is this £180 the Direct Debit amount you are contributing to your account or the actual amount you pay for the energy you are using including standing charges ?

How many kWh are you consuming each month ?

ProDave

Cdegwi said:

m-holland said:

Fellow board members will need you to post meter readings to get any idea of whats going on.

Electric is the most expensive way of heating a house

Have you been giving regular meter readings? If not, you may also be paying back debt that has built up

Yes I give meter readings. I've gone through my account with Shell; the £180 a month is a prediction of my useage, and excludes any existing debt.

Then if they are going to make a ridiculous high estimate of how much you are going to use, and ignore your actual previous usage, then this is a good reason for the rest of us to avoid this supplier, and choose a different one that has a more sensible policy.

you should start by telling them your actual usage in the last 12 months then calculate what your bill will be over the next 12 months, divide that by 12 and see what figure that comes out as.  If substantially lower than £180, tell them that is how much you want to pay.

Cdegwi

ProDave said:

Cdegwi said:

m-holland said:

Fellow board members will need you to post meter readings to get any idea of whats going on.

Electric is the most expensive way of heating a house

Have you been giving regular meter readings? If not, you may also be paying back debt that has built up

Yes I give meter readings. I've gone through my account with Shell; the £180 a month is a prediction of my useage, and excludes any existing debt.

Then if they are going to make a ridiculous high estimate of how much you are going to use, and ignore your actual previous usage, then this is a good reason for the rest of us to avoid this supplier, and choose a different one that has a more sensible policy.

you should start by telling them your actual usage in the last 12 months then calculate what your bill will be over the next 12 months, divide that by 12 and see what figure that comes out as.  If substantially lower than £180, tell them that is how much you want to pay.

This is really helpful, thank you.

EssexHebridean

As a ballpark - we're in a larger property than you, although still a flat. We don't obsessively turn things off but I'd say we're pretty careful with use. We are also heating with electricity - storage heaters - and make the best use we can of the overnight rate for things like charging stuff, appliances etc. Our use is around 5800kwh P/A with a split of approximately 305 day/70% night. (Currently we're paying £70 a month and even through this winter we've stayed in credit - we're expecting to need to set aside an extra £40 a month for the increase from April.)

How do those usage figures compare with yours? The only thing we don't use electricity for is cooking, that would make a difference, but would undoubtedly be offset and more by our additional use of heating (Currently 2 heaters on - 1 older style one with input set 2/3rds of the way round the dial, and one quantum set at 22/23 degrees depending on outside temperature, to give a temperature of 20 degrees in the centre of the building.

If Shell's prediction of your use is out of line with what history confirms that you actually use, they need to explain why they are assuming you will use an increased amount going forwards. The other question here is how much debt does that new DD figure take account of? If you've been underpaying for a while there may be a significant amount to recover. (As a guideline, in the summer months we could still *just* get below a cost of £1 a day very occasionally last year - that will definitely not be the case this summer though and even then really was only the odd day!)

PRAISETHESUN

Cdegwi said:

m-holland said:

Fellow board members will need you to post meter readings to get any idea of whats going on.

Electric is the most expensive way of heating a house

Have you been giving regular meter readings? If not, you may also be paying back debt that has built up

Yes I give meter readings. I've gone through my account with Shell; the £180 a month is a prediction of my useage, and excludes any existing debt.

The £180/month prediction is just that, a prediction. Shell has chosen for whatever reason to overestimate your consumption. BG did the same with me. It should hopefully get revised downwards when your monthly usage is shown to be lower after a few months meter readings, otherwise you'll just end up with a big credit which will ultimately be refunded.