Why is my gas use so high?
Hi all,
I moved into a tiny wee flat to save money and its been costing me way more since moving there. Been there only two weeks, already my gas alone has cost £60.
My life now revolves around my gas metre.
The flat is a VERY small (the size of my old living room and hallway) one bedroom in the East end.
It's a ground floor single glazed but I've got that plastic stuff around the windows, aluminium behind the radiators, and the thermostat (which is ancient - don't even know if it works) is at the lowest - 10.
I have the boiler on so low that I'm freezing all the time, hardly have hot water.
The gas is a prepayment but still I can't imagine it's that much more expensive that it should be using so much gas.
My supplier has taken my metre readings and says there's nothing wrong and no debt on it.
Something has to be wrong.
From Saturday afternoon until Monday evening the metre readings went from:
Sat 13:22
£21.65
09725.847m3
Tues 20:22
£10.57
09750.604m3
That's £11 in 4 days and I was cold!
My rate per unit is 3.56p and standing charge at 35.6p per day.
So I used 25 units during that time which they say the cost reflects. So I can't figure out if it's the metre or the flat but something isn't right and I can't keep living like this.
Landlord - who has been useless - said boiler is only a year old though it's due for servicing he hasn't called in the engineer and says he'll do it when he's back in town but isn't sure when that is. Insists there can't be why problems with th boiler.
I'm also from Canada so I've never dealt with this stuff before and my old flat was so warm and cost very little and we huge, so never dealt with any issues.
I don't know what to do...or even what to get looked at.
SSE wants to charge £35 to have metre looked at and at this rate I can't afford that.
I moved into a tiny wee flat to save money and its been costing me way more since moving there. Been there only two weeks, already my gas alone has cost £60.
My life now revolves around my gas metre.
The flat is a VERY small (the size of my old living room and hallway) one bedroom in the East end.
It's a ground floor single glazed but I've got that plastic stuff around the windows, aluminium behind the radiators, and the thermostat (which is ancient - don't even know if it works) is at the lowest - 10.
I have the boiler on so low that I'm freezing all the time, hardly have hot water.
The gas is a prepayment but still I can't imagine it's that much more expensive that it should be using so much gas.
My supplier has taken my metre readings and says there's nothing wrong and no debt on it.
Something has to be wrong.
From Saturday afternoon until Monday evening the metre readings went from:
Sat 13:22
£21.65
09725.847m3
Tues 20:22
£10.57
09750.604m3
That's £11 in 4 days and I was cold!
My rate per unit is 3.56p and standing charge at 35.6p per day.
So I used 25 units during that time which they say the cost reflects. So I can't figure out if it's the metre or the flat but something isn't right and I can't keep living like this.
Landlord - who has been useless - said boiler is only a year old though it's due for servicing he hasn't called in the engineer and says he'll do it when he's back in town but isn't sure when that is. Insists there can't be why problems with th boiler.
I'm also from Canada so I've never dealt with this stuff before and my old flat was so warm and cost very little and we huge, so never dealt with any issues.
I don't know what to do...or even what to get looked at.
SSE wants to charge £35 to have metre looked at and at this rate I can't afford that.
0
Comments
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You could do with looking around for a cheaper tarriff. The standing charge is very high and the unit rate is a little on the high side as well.
Try turning the heating up for a few days. It could be that the flat is just stone cold because it has had no heating on and it is taking a lot of heating to heat it through again.0 -
Are these readings from the meter itself or the IHD.?
Your tariff is on the expensive side - you should be able to get closer to 3p and 20p.
When you moved in did you give meter readings to the existing supplier ? You will then be on their standard (expensive) tariff ? have you switched suppliers since. ?Never pay on an estimated bill0 -
There must be something wrong with the flat, your numbers or supplier.
From your number, you had 25m3 of usage during 4 days. That adds up to 89p (usage) + £1.42 (day rate)
That's nowhere near to £11.
Bear in mind, I am not familiar with prepaid metres but according to your numbers there is an issue there. Call or email them and ask for an explanation. (Are they taking credits from your account from actual or estimated consumption?)
Back to your flat. Thermal plastic on windows, aluminium foil behind windows help but they won't make miracles. Do the walls feel wet or damp?
Can you look up the EPC rating of the flat?
EPC Register (Use your address): Google it. Sorry, I can't post links as I am new here.
What boiler do you have? Let's see how efficient it is.
Have you got thermostatic radiator valve on radiators?
Let's see what can be done to make your flat a home.0 -
Thank you all. I can't even focus on work bc I'm so stressed about this.
Trying to answer the questions:
Yes I've switched to bulb but that takes three weeks and only then can they make a request to swap.me.to a credit metre. So all that will take about 1-2 months
-there are valves on the radiators
- I didn't know I had to take the metre index reading when I moved in but after spending £14 in the first three days I called sse who made me first register as a new user then said nothing wrong days later another £15 off they said oh yeah there was a debt reimbursed it but ever since the same amount is coming off daily. They insist there's no longer a debt
-From sat to Tues I calculated 25 units M3 used. I called bc my calculation was that would cost £2 or so and the see guy said he needed to use a calculation to then figure out the charge based on my 0.0356p charge to figure out the kWh or something and that it cost after calculation £10.11 and plus my standing charge it made sense £11.90
Which seems.mad
So I don't know0 -
Missed some questions!
Boiler is some.loud horrible boiler called Valkera 29c
EPC I'll have to get back to you as I dont know about that0 -
Bulb wont have been the cheapest......or were seduced by daft referral thing0
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There must be something wrong with the flat, your numbers or supplier.
From your number, you had 25m3 of usage during 4 days. That adds up to 89p (usage) + £1.42 (day rate)
That's nowhere near to £11.
Bear in mind, I am not familiar with prepaid metres but according to your numbers there is an issue there. Call or email them and ask for an explanation. (Are they taking credits from your account from actual or estimated consumption?)
Back to your flat. Thermal plastic on windows, aluminium foil behind windows help but they won't make miracles. Do the walls feel wet or damp?
Can you look up the EPC rating of the flat?
EPC Register (Use your address): Google it. Sorry, I can't post links as I am new here.
What boiler do you have? Let's see how efficient it is.
Have you got thermostatic radiator valve on radiators?
Let's see what can be done to make your flat a home.
This is 25 cubic meters and there are approximately 11kw/h is a cubic meter. 25 m3, on the OP tariff is around £9.79.0 -
The SSE guy is correct about the cost, as you need to convert the 25m3 gas measurement to kWh (which gives you around 278kWh) and at that 3.56p unit cost it comes to £9.90 approximately plus your 4 days of standing charge, comes to just over £11. Even changing to another supplier with better rates, that same usage could cost around £9.
Gas kWh conversion calculator0
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