Very high final gas bill - "Budget Plan Reconciliation"

busquetts

Hi there, I've just registered with the website to ask about my current situation - a very large final gas bill. It'd be great to get an outside opinion to check if I need to contest this bill or if its fair.

This is for a student house of 5 people, from July 2023 to June 2024. We were with Utility Warehouse, on their "gold" tariff paying with the budget plan at £72 per month (we also got electricity and wifi through them). The final bill has come through with an extra cost of £1,149.74 under the heading "Budget Plan Reconciliation".

I've come to understand this cost is to reconcile the difference between what we've paid under the budget plan, versus the actual amount of gas we've used throughout the year. We did not give them any meter readings beyond the first and final ones, and in fact they seem to used an estimate for the final reading (slightly lower than the actual reading) despite me providing one.

So I've been investigating how this has happened. I've written out each monthly bill and cost and added each part up independently in excel, and made this graph showing our £72 budget plan (orange) vs the estiamted actual cost month-by-month (blue):

So this obviously shows that we were slightly in credit at the beginning, then very quickly very much in debit.

I checked if UW was treating our meter as imperial rather than metric, but it has got that right so it can't be that.

The thing is, our starting reading was 26551 and our final was 29072, meaning we used 2521m³ of gas, which comes to a massive 28072kWh! So I guess that tells the final story, we did use that amount of gas and so we need to pay. I'm just very very surprised, we were not liberal with heating (wearing lots of jumpers etc). We did have a gas oven but even so. The EPC rating of the property is D.

I guess it doesn't make sense to me that UW use usage estimates to calculate the budget plan amount (£72), but then their usage estimates for the month-by-month usage are so much higher. How did they get the budget plan so wrong?

Anyways, I suspect the conclusion of this story is we need to pay this bill and a lesson in how much energy really costs. Thanks everyone for any advice

On-the-coast

At least you can divide the bill by 5 (I hope). 

Hindsight now but £72 / month for gas / electricity and WiFi for what I assume is a 5b bedroom house was always going to be a large under estimate. 

The real learning point is that if you had sent in even a few readings once the heating had turned on you could have prevented this nasty surprise. 

MP1995

Looks to be the average bill expected during that time frame £2k ish

Good life lesson and plenty more to come

MidlandsGlory

I think your last statement sums it up.
If (counting your £72 pound payments and the final bill) you got a years gas, electric and internet for around 2 grand on a 5 bed house, usually with students a lot of occupancy and separate uses of the kitchen appliances - you all did brilliant!

FreeBear

On-the-coast said: Hindsight now but £72 / month for gas / electricity and WiFi for what I assume is a 5b bedroom house was always going to be a large under estimate.

Even a 3 bed house with typical occupancy is not going to get down to £72 per month. If I take broadband out of the equation, and cut energy consumption to the minimum, the best I can do on a fixed or SVR tariff is around £75. And that is just me and the cat.

Add in broadband and another occupant, £125-150 per month is going to be closer to the mark.

busquetts

Thanks everyone, at least I know nothing dodgy is going on.

On-the-coast said:

At least you can divide the bill by 5 (I hope). 

Hindsight now but £72 / month for gas / electricity and WiFi for what I assume is a 5b bedroom house was always going to be a large under estimate. 

The real learning point is that if you had sent in even a few readings once the heating had turned on you could have prevented this nasty surprise. 

Just to clarify, the £72 was just for the gas. For gas, electricity and Wifi the budget plan was £227.60/month (gas = £72, electricity = £115.24, Wifi = £31)

badmemory

I would like to offer my congratulations for your gas use as it is 2.5 times mine.  Everybody I know goes pale when I mention my usage.  That is quite a lot if you weren't walking around in shorts & Tshirts all winter.

t0rt0ise

If you have gas heating, it makes no sense that they estimated your electricity would be higher than the gas. If it were me I'd complain on that basis and see if they would offer a very slight reduction.

Scot_39

OFGEM  produce tdcv for 3 levels of use - actually the quartiles from measured sample data iirc

The main cap you get prices for in media is for the median - 11500kWh gas and 2700 kWh electric.  But that's only for 2-3 in a 2-3 bed home.  And at Jan prices - the gas alone would have been around the £70 mark. 

Not  far from UW - but IMO thats very poor estimation by them - given you were in a much larger home with 4 other adults.

Ofgem also produce a high user figure - third quartile or 75th percentile - 17,000kWh gas and 4100kWh electric.  That if iirc is for family of 4-5 in a 4+ bedroom.

At say Jan prices that 17000 kWh would have cost on ave regional svt - 7.42p / kWh - 30p SC - about £115pm on annual plan - so again showing the £72 estimate poor for such a large house.

But 25% of homes will be even higher.

And your 28000kWh is certainly that - more like £2200 @ Jan rates or £185pm. Over £100 pm more than were actually paying.  So the c£1150 demand seems fair.

Are you happy the start reading was correct ?  (You mentioned the end estimate slightly low).



Countering that many HMO style student properties may not be the best from an insulation point of view.

And it's easy to forget that space heating isn't the only major cost in larger households - possible even more so in HMO student type accomodation than normal family unit.

Where hot water could be a major cost, cooking / washing as individuals rather than as collective if gas based and showering per person if gas het cylinders or combi fed.

As above it is key to remember "budget plans" are just based on initial estimates - as are annualised dd payment plans many homes use. They are not your actual bills - just estimates - and the payments made - just a payment towards the final measured usage.

And so it is important to keep track of actual usage to calculate if able your own actual usage costs  - as above  - often easiest by submitting regular readings and lettingvsuppliers do so - but always wise to check suppliers responding and using them. Some will reissue bills - others will revise cost estimates and adjust monthly DD payments where required. 

My suppliers latest t&c say must submit readings monthly - smart or manual - what do Utility Warehouse ask for ?

If you collectively had been tracking actual usage and cost

a) might have allowed corrections to behaviour / usage to reduce any  excess consumption

b)  if reported readings - wouldnt perhaps now be facing a massive catch up bill.

And if unlucky, in student hmo possibly with some of those former occupants no longer contactable (as any / all named will be jointly or severally liable for their share of costs). 
A situation  sad to say that occurred when 1 of 3 others left country at end of year when final bills arrived for nephews accomodation - so the remaining 3 had to pay his share.



Anyway id try to get that final estimate corrected, get a new bill and hopefully get the 20% of excess (c£1150/5 = £230) from each of the other 4 occupants.

busquetts

Thanks everyone for the replies and info

- Yep the starting reading is definately correct. The end estimate they've used is actually slightly lower than the real estimate (estimate = 29072, actual = 29289). So I admit I'm inclined to keep quiet to avoid paying the difference, although perhaps for the sake of honesty I should let them know.

- Washing/cooking etc was all done individually, and heating/water/cooker were gas powered, which I feel explains the usage really.

- UW ask for monthly readings, or at a minimum every 3 months. Otherwise estiamtes are used, as in our case. I have certainly learnt the meter reading lesson.

- Luckily, I am good friends with the other housemates so the bill will be split.

- Furthermore, UW neglected to take off £219 of credit for the electricity usage so it has actually come down a little.

- re. the idea to complain about poor gas vs electrcity estimates due to gas heating, I'm unsure whether to try that, perhaps I may as well try but I'm not exactly comfortable with being cheeky, especially if I 'forget' to inform them of the final reading underestimate.

Thanks again all

Scot_39

Fix the final estimate - it will only come out later - e.g. at end of tenancy ultimately - if not before - e.g when you start submitting regular readings as per your T&C's.

As the first real reading will include the excess 217 units anyway.