Energy bills OTT

Spoonie_Turtle

JSHarris said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

I dont use the central heating anymore due to the cost .

Most people will stop using their heating around April-May time as its not needed after that.

 My bills went up from £97 per month for both gas and electricity. I'm now paying £226 per month and had an email to say they want to put my monthly payments upto £260. I think this is crazy for a 2 bed house.

What you pay per month and what you actually use are two different things.   
For example, £97 sounds very low for a 2 bedroom house for gas & electric.   Certainly possible if its one person who is frugel.   
It could be that you were not paying enough when it was £97 so the increase to £226 is partly catching up your arrears and your current use.

Talking in pounds per month doesn't tell us a thing about your use.    Its all about YOUR use and that is the unit count on your meter.    Tell us what your meter readings have been (ideally over a year) and whether they are actual readings or estimates.

There's a massive variability in energy use/cost …  We are currently paying £68 per month for all our energy, heating, hot water, cooking, even charging the car.  We are over-paying slightly, as my tally of energy used so far this year suggests our DD should be around £64 per month.

Obviously this is a lot lower than for a poorly insulated home of a similar size, but it does serve to illustrate just how challenging it can be to estimate energy usage based on something as ephemeral as the number of bedrooms.

Do you have solar/battery, I assume that's the only way charging an EV plus normal domestic use is possible at that low cost?  Usually things like that are mentioned in the context of comparing usage/bills.  If that's the case, the cost of your energy imported from the grid is not reflective of how much energy you actually use.  Whereas if you compare kWh then yes there's still wide variability but at least then you're comparing the same thing rather than two different things.

Yes we do, but then we don't know if the OP also has these, do we?

No but my point was usually it's a major thing people include when they discuss energy bills - and someone with solar hopefully understands a bit more about how energy costs and billing work than simply 'my bill* has gone up'  (no disrespect intended towards the OP, I previously had no clue until I came to this forum).
*most likely Direct Debit here, not actual bill.

But anyway, we won't know at all until OP comes back with more information.

JSHarris

Spoonie_Turtle said:

JSHarris said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

JSHarris said:

dunstonh said:

I dont use the central heating anymore due to the cost .

Most people will stop using their heating around April-May time as its not needed after that.

 My bills went up from £97 per month for both gas and electricity. I'm now paying £226 per month and had an email to say they want to put my monthly payments upto £260. I think this is crazy for a 2 bed house.

What you pay per month and what you actually use are two different things.   
For example, £97 sounds very low for a 2 bedroom house for gas & electric.   Certainly possible if its one person who is frugel.   
It could be that you were not paying enough when it was £97 so the increase to £226 is partly catching up your arrears and your current use.

Talking in pounds per month doesn't tell us a thing about your use.    Its all about YOUR use and that is the unit count on your meter.    Tell us what your meter readings have been (ideally over a year) and whether they are actual readings or estimates.

There's a massive variability in energy use/cost …  We are currently paying £68 per month for all our energy, heating, hot water, cooking, even charging the car.  We are over-paying slightly, as my tally of energy used so far this year suggests our DD should be around £64 per month.

Obviously this is a lot lower than for a poorly insulated home of a similar size, but it does serve to illustrate just how challenging it can be to estimate energy usage based on something as ephemeral as the number of bedrooms.

Do you have solar/battery, I assume that's the only way charging an EV plus normal domestic use is possible at that low cost?  Usually things like that are mentioned in the context of comparing usage/bills.  If that's the case, the cost of your energy imported from the grid is not reflective of how much energy you actually use.  Whereas if you compare kWh then yes there's still wide variability but at least then you're comparing the same thing rather than two different things.

Yes we do, but then we don't know if the OP also has these, do we?

No but my point was usually it's a major thing people include when they discuss energy bills - and someone with solar hopefully understands a bit more about how energy costs and billing work than simply 'my bill* has gone up'  (no disrespect intended towards the OP, I previously had no clue until I came to this forum).
*most likely Direct Debit here, not actual bill.

But anyway, we won't know at all until OP comes back with more information.

I agree, but having done a fair few energy assessments now I'm still constantly surprised by the degree of variation between outwardly very similar homes.  Some is due to differing lifestyles, some due to differing levels of building efficiency, some just down to near-invisible differences, like microclimate impact.  The latter has a massive impact for some homes.  Easy to get a four to five times energy use variation between seemingly similar houses, when one is at the bottom of a steep valley, facing south and another is in and exposed position on the top of a hill.

FWIW, our house only has two bedrooms, despite being not far off double the size of an average UK two bedroom house, so would be a case where the use of the number of bedrooms may be deceptive as an indicator. 

Scot_39

AfterDark said:

My energy bills are through the roof at the moment. I've got a 2 bed semi, I dont use the central heating anymore due to the cost . My bills went up from £97 per month for both gas and electricity. I'm now paying £226 per month and had an email to say they want to put my monthly payments upto £260. I think this is crazy for a 2 bed house.

Has everyone else jumped up this much ? Its just about £200 extra each month.

For context we need times and any changes to tariffs like fixes etc expiring.

Switching off gas and using electric plug ins etc - often an expensive mistake too - so have you been using electric heating ?  (Gas will be c7.5p/kWh next month - electric still c30p - +/- regional variations)

Given energy prices have just lowered - it would seem you annual usage and any past debt hasn't been covered by the £226 - at current rates - but some posts suggest suppliers might be increasing in part just because 2022/3 a mild year etc.

Were you actually paying £226 - over the EBSS rebate period - or paying less / refunded the £66/67 ?

Energy - despite the new drop come July - is actually still twice what it was 18m-2 years ago.  So if those are 3 years of monthly DD figures - they are not silly numbers - especially if you have switched from cheaper gas heating to electric - part or full time in winter months.

No 2 people use the same - even in ostensibly similar properties.  Different room temps for different lengths of day and night - cook differently, do laundry differently etc - secondary insulation measures like thermal curtains, draft excluders etc - all make differences. 

Utilita website now estimates 1C temp - worth over £220pa on typical bill - at current prices (that few years ago the rule of thumb used to be £100)

https://utilita.co.uk/campaigns/high5

And rather than worry about comparison with others - you first really need to check billing against meter readings - make sure actual and not estimated.

And usage estimate used to recalculate DD - reflects your current or typical annual usage.

But as I stated above - energy prices have doubled over last 18-24m - so 97 to 226 plus - not stupid at all. 

e.g.  https://www.energyhelpline.com/help/the-history-of-ofgems-energy-price-cap

From c£1000-1200+ rising slowly initially -  really took off April 22 - to £1970 - and capped by EPG at £2500 until this July.

Winter 20/21 - £1042 - this winter £2500 / £1042 = 2.4 times

Winter 21/22 - £1277 - cf this winter £2500 / £1277 = 1.96 times

Winter 22/23 - £2500 under EPG

And would only have to use 170 kWh pm in electric heating at SR rather than gas at this winters EPG rates based on c33p and c10p averages after EPG (<6kWh a day - thats one 2kW heater in one cold room for 3-4 hrs) - to trigger another £40 - over gas for same heat output.

If the cap changes above dont reflect what you have seen / seeing in your payments - to help further and fully make sense and help we would need

1) dates those payments cover,

2) tariff rates (especially if ever fixed)

3) usage in kWh for gas and electric - in matching time frames,

4) any running credit or debt at time of DD review - the supplier may have built into your annualised monthly direct debit.