Average Electricity Costs Poll

theauth0r

I pay..

British Gas - £66
British Gas Electricity - £60

3 bed terraced house 2 adults, 2 children... i turn the central heating off and make the kids wear extra clothes

Complete rip off if you ask me.... £126 per month is awful

emweaver

i pay £40 mth for elec and £25 for gas

last yr we used £540 of elec and about £350 of gas

we have 2 adults and a baby, live in a semi detached house, gch, elec cooker

does this sound about right ?

british gas have said for the size of our houshold its less than average but still seems expensive to me

Ken68

One of these will help.

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/proxy/view/full/165/homeenergycheck

Saved me £200 a year...forever.

mikeD

Can't find the poll,however we spend less than £30 both winter and summer, but gas bill is higher in winter but lower in Summer. We are with Scottish Power e.g. for gas £45 in winter and £15 in summer. This is mainly due to gas central heating.

patwa_2

Our bill for March to July was £716.22! Or £179.06 a month! Working out a repayment plan with EDF now, as we've been grossly underpaying all this time. And of course they hadn't carried out any review checks or anything to advise us of this.

H.

Mrs_Wossinge

We have no gas and are on Economy 7 with Scottish Power's green energy plan. Just had this quarter's bill stating that our direct debit is being reduced from £45 to £40.50. In the quarter May-July we used about £16 off-peak and £22 peak rate, plus standing charges of £13. We are currently £43 in credit...

Terrylw1

Hi everyone,

I've read a few posts and have some advice for you. I have been working in the electricity industry for years in all sorts of roles and a lot of the points you have been making are heard day in day out.

1 - Don't underestimate the limited training offered to those you speak to. Often call centres are trained in a general way so they have very limited knowledge and only learn by experience. Back office staff are often more specialised and when you speak to them they will be more efficient at sorting your billing concerns. So, fight to get to the right people!

2 - Whenever you move house or change suppliers you MUST take your meter readings. Suppliers really on poor estimates based on (in the case of the company I worked for) very basic calculations that continue to estimate based on even a previous customers usage until readings catch up.

3 - Never let them bill you estimates, supply your COR (Customer Own Readings) This will keep your bill correct, stop your direct debit falling too low or too high and make your reading history as accurate as can be. This means any estimates will also be spot on.

4 - Always check that your readings have been billed the correct way round if you have a multiregister meter. Transposition is often the reason you see an OAP receiving a bill for £3000! Suppliers have thresholds for diverting bills in for checking but then it's over to the human beings and dispute the most obvious system errors you would be surpised how many bills still go out due to staff making mistakes.

5 - If you think you are being billed to much take your readings 7 days apart and then try to calculate your bill for an estimate usage. It'show it's done on the 1st instance by a suplplier when you raise this issue.

6 - Don't be fobbed of with an energy efficieny booklet. It's often the 1st thing they will send you but more often than not, if you bill have jumped or you have moved into a similiar premise and had a large jump it will be a billing problem. Any of the points above can cause over billing and it happens to people all the time, everyday. For instance, you move into property and your starting reading from your moving in date is based on an estimate but in your 1st quarter you get sent a bill for £700. You know it's wrong but you can't see whats on the suppliers system. This may have been caused by the supplier's underbillign of the previous customer. A good supplier should NEVER send you a boklet about saving power without checking your bill and any previous customer, change of supplier event or readigs received by their Agents or customers against the property. Honestly, most energy investigations don't yield faulty meters or even a ustomers massive usage, it usually incorrect billing records.

I've noticed comments on even using 34 units a day in a house. Unless your very lucky in that by house you mean mansion or you've got something massive plugged in like large spotlights, you won't ever come close to this. Take it from me, it will be poor records with your supplier!!!

When I first started in this industry these queries were coming through all the time and most were resolved in 10 minutes after spotting the problem. Very few continue to the energy efficiency side. There are a whole lot of procedures from there, not just a booklet. You can have the suppliers energy efficiency people come out to you, you could request a check meter to make sure your meter is running at the correct speed, you could have a standard load test to see if it's faulty or even have it referred for a meter examiner visit which is an independant check by a representative of Energywatch which is the final check.

Remember, be firm!!!

andrew_b_5

Sorry for digging up the thread again but it REALLY would be helpful if everyone posted the UNITS in kW/Hr or units of electricity used. Prices for energy vary from supplier to supplier and stating "My bill was X amount or Y amount" doesn't really help with a statistic of actual energy usage.

Would it be better to start a new thread with a format like this?....

Electricity units used
Gas quantity used
# of rooms in house, exc bathroom and substantially unused rooms
# of people in house.
Main space heating fuel
Cooking fuel
Water heating fuel



I would really like to quantify what is "average usage" of enegy, not how much it costs.

We use 8.24 units of Electricity a day
We use 0.68 Cu.M gas day
3 rooms
2 people
Gas
Gas
Gas

stryker1355

Firstly, thank you to terrlw1 for your inputs, gonna need them for my case!

i dont know if im average or what but here goes my consumption!

Type: Flat 1 bed (tenement)
Meter: Economy 7
Supplier: Scottish Gas
Fuel: Electircity only

4_Pete's_Sake

We (2 adults & 2 children) live in a 4 bed deteched house.
Our annual energy usage is as follows:
Gas 21490 kwh
Electricity 4707 kwh

Our monthly costs having just switched to Scottish Power Online energy saver 4 are:
Gas £44.50 a month.
Electricity £27.50 a month.

With gas central heating on in the winter, our usage at that time is far higher than in the summer, but it balances out over the year.

We have cavity wall insulation and good thick loft insulation, which may explain why most people are surprised by our fairly low gas usage.