Family of 4 and leccy bill of £1000 - options?

mumtimes2

I am with N power. My last bill was £656.69 in debit and my monthly payments were increased from £20.00 to £109.00. I spoke to N Power about this and they explained that the high monthly payment was to pay off what I owe so far and afterwards my next bill my costs are likely to be higher if I continued to use my leccy in the same way.

Now for the majority of the period this bill covered, we had no hot water. We are housing association and they spent a lot of time sending various plumbers and electricians round to solve the problem. My theory is that they left the immersion and booster over the quarterly period and that although we weren't getting hot water because of the fault, we were still using electricity. I have no evidence to support this and so cannot hold the Housing Association accountable. As this was a summer bill, our heating had not been on much.

To try and pay off this huge bill, we changed our ways. We have only two storage heaters on, the sitting room and hall. Our bedrooms, while freezing are not heated. Instead we rely on hot water bottles. The immersion heater goes on only when we need to bath the children, about once or twice a week. There is no heating in the kitchen. My applicances are rated at b or above. Our house is a very small two bedroomed bungalow. We don't even have a full size bath! the bathroom is not heated although it has a heated towel rail. We have an electric shower.

The next bill to arrive from 19/9 to 7/3 said I used £577.14 worth of leccy which brings my bill up to £777.83 and my monthly payments to £147.00.

N Power tell me that if I want to pay less per month I would have to have a pre-paid meter installed. I don't want this. We live in a rural area, my husband doesn't drive and I work shifts so if the leccy runs out its dependent on me, which isn't always possible.

My three year old has just told me she is cold, despite the layers she is wearing, it is snowing outside and I have reached the end of my tether.

WHat are my options?

Can i switch to another cheaper company and then ask N Power to lower my instalments as I wouldn't be using 'their' leccy anymore and as a result wouldn't increase my bill as I went along?

Please help me.

mute_posting

AFAIK, haveing a debt with a provider isn't a valid reason for them to prevent your transfering to another provider to save money (I believe NPower are one of the most expensive but I could be wrong on that count)

You still owe the debt to NPower of course and have to come to a seperate agreement with them to pay that off.

HTH

Cardew

mute_posting wrote: »

AFAIK, haveing a debt with a provider isn't a valid reason for them to prevent your transfering to another provider to save money (I believe NPower are one of the most expensive but I could be wrong on that count)

You still owe the debt to NPower of course and have to come to a seperate agreement with them to pay that off.

HTH

That is wrong I am afraid. If you have a debt the losing company(NPower in this case) can block the transfer and very probably will block it.

If that provision was not in place, some people would just run up huge bills and move from company to company and the losing company would just 'whistle' for their money!!

Much as I don't like NPower they are not one of the most expensive.

Cardew

mumtimes2 wrote: »

I

Now for the majority of the period this bill covered, we had no hot water. We are housing association and they spent a lot of time sending various plumbers and electricians round to solve the problem. My theory is that they left the immersion and booster over the quarterly period and that although we weren't getting hot water because of the fault, we were still using electricity. I have no evidence to support this and so cannot hold the Housing Association accountable. As this was a summer bill, our heating had not been on much.


The next bill to arrive from 19/9 to 7/3 said I used £577.14 worth of leccy .

Your theory for the high use of electricity is not correct I am afraid, an immersion heater and booster has got to heat water to use electricity. Once the water was up to temperature the thermostat would switch them off.

In an all electric house, £577 for 6 winter months(19/9 to 7/3) is not high, in fact it is below average.

mute_posting

Apologies OP I got muddled - I was thinking about broadband providers I can see it being on of "those" weeks

mute_posting

according to www.theenergyshop.com ofgem and energy watch are "looking into" changing when you have debts (by transfering debts to new supplier) but doesn't look like it will happen any time soon.

Can I switch if I owe money to my current supplier?
If you owe money to your current supplier, or have a bill outstanding for more than 28 days, you may be unable to switch until you have paid what is due. Ofgem and energywatch are putting in place measures that will allow you to transfer outstanding balances to a new supplier, so this restriction may not apply in future. Until then, we recommend that you clear any outstanding debts before you make the switch.

espresso

It is painfully obvious that a DD of £20 per month was not enough to cover your actual usage if using electricity for heating. 20 x 12 = £240 per year - get real!!!!! If you don't want a pre-payment meter installed, you will have to pay back what you have used. Check that your bills are based on actual meter readings.

Poppycat

My electricity consumption is around £25 per month and I dont use it for heating. I woudl have thought at least £50 per month is bare minimum for both assuming your out all day and dont have kids