Why is my fuel cost so high.

pt1004

Hi, 
I can’t seem to fathom out why my gas and electric is still so high. Obviously the rise of cost I understand.
I live in a regular size 3 bedroom 1970s house. Very good insulation, inc cavity walls, there is three adults and a teenager. We have cust electric down, lights off, tv off when no one watching, and the killer electric shower has usage cut to one shower each a day and maximum 5 minutes use by my son 21 years old. Hot water is only fired up for 30 mins a day, and only just put central heating on in evening if needed for a couple of hours, so can’t cut back any more, but my energy supplier still wants £360 a month. I have spoken to friends and family who are same sort of house, same occupancy and there direct debits are around £200 - £230 a month. Supplier is Scottish power. 

Any opinions would be good. Are my meters wrong?

MikeJXE

When asking questions about energy costs you will get more informed help on here if you quote usage in kWh rather than your DD payment 

Alnat1

You've only said how much your DD is, this isn't your bill.

Do you give SP regular meter readings? Have they issued a bill recently? 

McKneff

Forget monthly payments. 
You have to go on your annual usage,

Your supplier makes an estimate for the year coming up, based on your last annual usage and then divides it by 12, that should be your monthly payment. 
Now it gets difficult vecause of the price rises,
If you double the amount you should be about there. 
What figure have you got after calculated the above

cymruchris

Have you been providing monthly meter readings? How's your real world use over the last 3 months compared to the same time last year? DD's are based on last year's use. If you are confident that you are using less than last year by analysing your meter readings, then you don't have to accept the proposed DD increase. You can either request a more suitable DD based on your last 3 months readings, or you can move to 'actual use' direct debit - where they take the amount used at each billing cycle (by doing it this way you get big bills in winter, and smaller bills in summer)

Robin9

Can you post copies of a couple of bills please - 12 months apart and with ACTUAL meter readings  -  not estimates. Blank out your personal info and the MPAN ?

Electric or Gas heating ?

pt1004

Thanks for quick responses.
I haven’t got the kWh at the moment, but I have noticed my last bill had a comparison of usage for the same period last year. It was mid September to end of October period and the electric was a little higher last year but the gas was about 3 times as much last year, on a usage graph, but can’t seem to think why this could be as heating would not have been used much. We did have a new boiler around November last year, so maybe that’s affected usage, but if they base our usage on lasts years that could explain the request for higher DD.

My last bill was 27th October so I have worked out a months usage of gas and electric and it came out around £260. 

I will try and get the usage figures and post them soon.
thanks again

Robin9

Have you had a gas meter change in the last year

k_man

pt1004 said:

Thanks for quick responses.
I haven’t got the kWh at the moment, but I have noticed my last bill had a comparison of usage for the same period last year. It was mid September to end of October period and the electric was a little higher last year but the gas was about 3 times as much last year, on a usage graph, but can’t seem to think why this could be as heating would not have been used much. We did have a new boiler around November last year, so maybe that’s affected usage, but if they base our usage on lasts years that could explain the request for higher DD.

My last bill was 27th October so I have worked out a months usage of gas and electric and it came out around £260. 

I will try and get the usage figures and post them soon.
thanks again

This October has been very mild too. Many users reported the heating didn't even come on this winter until November, and for most of us heating/gas is less than half of that for October last year.
November has been milder too, but next week's colder weather may close the gap.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63754070

macman

Gas usage over just 6 weeks in Autumn really tells us nothing, and that tripling could simply be down to switching the heating on earlier than the previous year.
Give us the annual kWh usage and meaningful advice can then be given. These figures are on your annual statement, or calculate from old bills approx 1 year apart.
As mentioned above, gas meter changed, imperial to metric maybe?
If so, are you being billed on an imperial conversion, rather than metric?

MattMattMattUK

pt1004 said:

Hi, 
I can’t seem to fathom out why my gas and electric is still so high. Obviously the rise of cost I understand.
I live in a regular size 3 bedroom 1970s house. Very good insulation, inc cavity walls, there is three adults and a teenager. We have cust electric down, lights off, tv off when no one watching, and the killer electric shower has usage cut to one shower each a day and maximum 5 minutes use by my son 21 years old. Hot water is only fired up for 30 mins a day, and only just put central heating on in evening if needed for a couple of hours, so can’t cut back any more, but my energy supplier still wants £360 a month. I have spoken to friends and family who are same sort of house, same occupancy and there direct debits are around £200 - £230 a month. Supplier is Scottish power. 

Any opinions would be good. Are my meters wrong?

Your supplier will estimate your monthly Direct Debit amount based on the last twelve months usage, they donot know have cut back based one month. 

There could be multiple reasons but if you get your annual kWh figures from your last bill we can work out what your provider is estimating and if it is accurate, you can then go some way to working out how any potential reduction might impact billing. If you have any dredit or debt on your bill let us know that as it can factor in to monthy Direct Debits, and finally what region are you in so we can see the correct SVR rates, presuming you are on SVR.