Help with electricity bill

tubaboya

I’m trying to help an elderly man I know, he is a single pensioner living in a 2 bedroom house. He runs his washing machine and dishwasher once a week, has a PC, a TV, fridge and the usual lights/phone charger etc. He has gas heating and a gas cooker. This is to do with the electricity bill (gas seems about right)

Last month his energy supplier told him they were upping his direct debit from £150/m to £389/m. I phoned up and queried it and was told he was £1893 in debt but that the readings on his meter didn’t look right and was probably a faulty meter. They replaced the meter last week and recalculated his bill. He has been sent a new bill for £2599. I’ve just sat and went through his bills/meter readings and it just doesn’t seem right. Could someone with a bit more knowledge look at this and see where they think the problem is. Up until January this year his account was always in credit.

These are his bills for this year

Date	kWh used	Cost
01/01 – 31/03	4570.8	£1,587.35
01/04 – 30/06	-1275.9	-£365.25
01/07 – 30/09	542.7	£216.23
01/10 – 14/11	3593.0	£992.95

Up until January he was using an average of 180kWh/m but if I’m reading it right these new bills say he is using an average of 675kWh/m which seems crazy as he’s not made any real changes to his house or lifestyle. I don’t know what he should be using but I use about 400kWh/m (family of 5, run dishwasher/washing machine almost daily, 3D printers, tortoise lamps/heaters, and loads of phones/laptops/consoles/handheld devices)

These are his meter readings for 2023, I don’t understand how they can be going up and down like that. He has a smart meter which is supposed to submit readings for him so he hasn’t done any himself.

date	reading
01/01/23	5024
17/02/23	10363
01/04/23	9595
01/06/23	8319
11/09/23	7435
01/10/23	8862
15/11/23	12455

I phoned again today and spoke to a very rude woman who pretty much said “well that's how much he owes” and they want to increase his monthly direct debit to £498/m . He cannot afford to pay this much.

HillStreetBlues

It certainly doesn't seem correct.
Can you read new meter to see what that says about usage per day.

Reddleman79

For what it's worth, I'm usually on my own in my four bedroom house, two fridges, several radios and electric cooker, weekly washing machine, occasionally electric radiant fire. I use on average about 31kwh per week for comparison.

molerat

He needs to open a complaint in line with the suppliers procedure which will be on their website.

Does he have records of previous reads ?

If he has an on line account he needs to download all previous bills NOW

Which supplier is this ?

tubaboya

HillStreetBlues said:

It certainly doesn't seem correct.
Can you read new meter to see what that says about usage per day.

I'm not there just now but going back tomorrow so will check it then

Reddleman79 said:

For what it's worth, I'm usually on my own in my four bedroom house, two fridges, several radios and electric cooker, weekly washing machine, occasionally electric radiant fire. I use on average about 31kwh per week for comparison.

from that sounds like 180kWh/m might be about right then

molerat said:

He needs to open a complaint in line with the suppliers procedure which will be on their website.

Does he have records of previous reads ?

If he has an on line account he needs to download all previous bills NOW

Which supplier is this ?

I'm going round to his to do a complaint tomorrow.
I cant get his meter readings from the online account that used to be there as after the first time I phoned the man I spoke to wiped out all the electricity bills and readings from January so they could recalculate it after the new meter went in. I can some of the meter readings on his old bills though which is where the figures in my post came from. He never done manual readings but I have started now for him.
I've already downloaded a copy of all his bills.
It's Octopus Energy

Newbie_John

If they recently replaced his meter then he must have a smart meter, what are the readings for the past days, past week?

The numbers in the bill you posted are totally random - 50kW per day Jan-March..

First you need to rule out if it isn't him causing the problem - submitting wrong numbers, having electric heating on and open windows, or something broken and constantly heating like immersive heater/storage heaters.. I know you mentioned that he has gas - but the numbers are really high - we have 3 bed (no gas) and been using 30kWh / day for the past few cold days..

tubaboya

Newbie_John said:

If they recently replaced his meter then he must have a smart meter, what are the readings for the past days, past week?

The numbers in the bill you posted are totally random - 50kW per day Jan-March..

First you need to rule out if it isn't him causing the problem - submitting wrong numbers, having electric heating on and open windows, or something broken and constantly heating like immersive heater/storage heaters.. I know you mentioned that he has gas - but the numbers are really high - we have 3 bed (no gas) and been using 30kWh / day for the past few cold days..

he got his new meter on the 15th of november but there are no readings shown up in his online account, i'm going round to do manual ones tomorrow.

I cant see how he could possibly be causing the problem, his heating/hot water is 100% gas, he lives on my street and has the same system as I do. He doesn't even own an electric fire/heater he could use. His cooker is gas, barely uses his microwave. He doesn't have anything in his house that I could imagine would use that sort of power. His washing machine and dishwasher are <2years old, fridge is <4 year old. He does have his PC and TV on or on standby most of the time and a Nespresso machine that he uses about 6 times a day but that shouldn't come close to that usage. 

I've been putting all the information into a spreadsheet to try and make sense of it, until the end of last year he has been using about 6kW a day for the past 3 years then
20/12/22 - 31/12/22 - 114.2 kW/d

01/01/23 - 31/03/23 - 50.8 kW/d

01/04/23 - 30/06/23 - -14 kW/d

01/07/23 - 30/09/23 - 5.9 kW/d

01/10/23 - 14/11/23 - 81.6 kW/d

Krakkkers

Well it is much higher in the winter months so some kind of heating involved, he must be using some form of electric heating as well as his central heating.

Spoonie_Turtle

Or, do a meter sanity test to check it's only supplying him and not anyone/anywhere else.

Robin9

The new Smart will have read 0000.0 when installed. What is is now ? Is Octopus using the Smart readings or are they guessing. Check that the meter serial numbers on the bill and the meter itself are the same

Gerry1

tubaboya said:

Newbie_John said:

If they recently replaced his meter then he must have a smart meter, what are the readings for the past days, past week?

The numbers in the bill you posted are totally random - 50kW per day Jan-March..

First you need to rule out if it isn't him causing the problem - submitting wrong numbers, having electric heating on and open windows, or something broken and constantly heating like immersive heater/storage heaters.. I know you mentioned that he has gas - but the numbers are really high - we have 3 bed (no gas) and been using 30kWh / day for the past few cold days..

he got his new meter on the 15th of november but there are no readings shown up in his online account, i'm going round to do manual ones tomorrow.

I cant see how he could possibly be causing the problem, his heating/hot water is 100% gas, he lives on my street and has the same system as I do. He doesn't even own an electric fire/heater he could use. His cooker is gas, barely uses his microwave. He doesn't have anything in his house that I could imagine would use that sort of power. His washing machine and dishwasher are <2years old, fridge is <4 year old. He does have his PC and TV on or on standby most of the time and a Nespresso machine that he uses about 6 times a day but that shouldn't come close to that usage. 

I've been putting all the information into a spreadsheet to try and make sense of it, until the end of last year he has been using about 6kW a day for the past 3 years then
20/12/22 - 31/12/22 - 114.2 kW/d

01/01/23 - 31/03/23 - 50.8 kW/d

01/04/23 - 30/06/23 - -14 kW/d

01/07/23 - 30/09/23 - 5.9 kW/d

01/10/23 - 14/11/23 - 81.6 kW/d

You're confusing kW with kWh so that may have something to do with it.