Am I paying for someone else's energy use?

sam1970

I have just received the dreaded letter from EDF stating that my annual bill will be going up from around £1800 to just over £3300 for both elec. and gas. My expected annual gas use is just over 20,000 KW which I think is excessive. We moved into this house two years ago and in our previous house (4 beds detached) our annual usage was around 5000KW. We are a family of five with 3 children and very careful with heating (an hour in the morning and couple of hours in the evening. We installed a new central heating system so I know that my boiler is efficient. I supply monthly metre readings online to ensure accurate bills. but I cant understand where all this gas is going. My thoughts:
1- There is a gas leak from pipes somewhere under the floor!
2- The metre is faulty and over-recording!
3- The house is nearly a 100 years old and used to have a massive garden. That land was used 50 years ago to build 3 more houses. Could it be that somehow there is a pipe connection and Iam paying for the gas usage of one or more of those houses?

I would have accepted the quoted high usage if we were having the heating for long hours and enjoying it but we are not. It is driving me mad and I will appreciate advice. 

Robin9

Some basics - you cannot compare a modern house with a 100 year old one, - lots of draughts, no insulation ...........  

1) Unlikely
2) Both meters ?
3)   Very unlikely to be supplying the other houses - that would mean a connection after your meter (which I presume is in your house)

Basic things :   are you reading your meters at least monthly, are the bills estimated or actual, are the meter serial numbers the same on the bills, have you a big debt being carried forward.

Read your meters now  - do those readings compare with whats on the bills.

What is your actual annual consumption please?

markin

Solid walls  in the new house vs. ..?

bagand96

Few things to rule out first:

1) Check the meter point reference number (MPRN) for your address matches that on your bill.  (MPRN can be found here Find My Supplier)
2) Check your meter serial number from your meter matches that on your bill.
3) Check that the energy company are billing you in the correct units.  Older gas meters measure in cubic ft (ft3) whilst newer ones measure in cubic meters (m3).  These have to be converted into kWh for bills and it's not unheard of for energy suppliers to be using the wrong conversion. Your bill will show which units the supplier is using, check against the meter.

Once those have been checked then the final stage would be a sanity test of the meter reads.  Ensure your boiler and anything else using gas is off, and then monitor if the meter is recording use!  All that said, 20000kWh for a family of 5 in a 100 year old property (how well insulated is it?) doesn't seem outrageous.

pochase

sam1970 said:

. My thoughts:
1- There is a gas leak from pipes somewhere under the floor!
2- The metre is faulty and over-recording!
3- The house is nearly a 100 years old and used to have a massive garden. That land was used 50 years ago to build 3 more houses. Could it be that somehow there is a pipe connection and Iam paying for the gas usage of one or more of those houses?

What happens before your meter is not charged to you as it is not measured against your account:

1. Behind the meter I doubt that there will be pipes under the floor. If your pipes in the house would leak to that amount you would be dead already.
2. Not sure here how possible that is, but does not happen very often. You can ask them to check the meter if you think so, but you will have to pay for it if they find the meter has no problems.
3. What happens before you meter is not your concern.

On-the-coast

For what it’s worth, my approx 100 year old 4b detached, surrounded by 3 properties built on the original smallholding land typical of this area, uses approx 22,000KWh of gas per year. 

“Fortunately” that’s at a fairly profligate rate of comfort, which will certainly be dialled down come October… but I doubt you are paying for any neighbours.  

sam1970

Thank you very much all for the helpful advice. I will check the metre numbers and report back. 

Mobtr

If you’ve been there 2 years & take monthly reads then you will have 2 reads a year apart. Work out what you have used in the last year for both gas & electric, compare it to what EDF estimate you’ll be using & work out the yearly cost. If you want, post it all on here & someone will do it for you. Incidentally, if you have 3 kids, how do you get away with using your heating for only 2 hours on evening in the winter? 

Robin9

What is your Electric consumption please ?


Please  it's meter not metre.

If the tariff you are being offered a fix  of variable. The general advice is not to take a fix.

BooJewels

I'm with @On-the-coast - I live in a 140 year old stone cottage which is tall and thin and the upstairs is into roof space, so hard to insulate as well as I'd like.  I work from home and choose to be comfortable, so the heating is on most of the day - although with a new boiler and efficient thermostat (set to 19C) it's off as much as it's on when the temps are moderate as at the moment.  I use 20,000kWh, although that's dropping a little for various reasons.  But if your heating is coming on a couple of times a day and having to fire up hard to warm the place and with more of you in the house bathing, running hot taps and cooking more, then it sounds perfectly plausible to me.