Thank you both for your quick replies. I will gather the information you mention and post again when i have it. For information about the property and heating, we live in a 2 bedroomed flat on the ground floor, we have only four windows in the flat and 5 radiators. 3 large and 2 small. we have only one outside wall as the rest are inside the block of flats so insulation isnt a problem. The heating is gas central heating and is the ONLY form of heating in the property. Thanks again for advice.

Rawson:

I sympathise but I'm sorry I have to be harsh to be helpful. The only bill worth discussing is a bill in which the previous readings and the current readings are all actual readings. Is that the case for the £434.28 bill? Any time a bill is based on estimated readings you are entitled to provide actual customer readings and ask for the bill to be recalculated.

You don't say what form of heating you have. Is it gas central heating? Also how efficient is the heating system and how well insulated is the house? Without these answers the numbers are meaningless.

It may still be possible to save money. Make sure you are on the best EON tariff. If not it just takes a phone call to switch to a better EON tariff. And actually it needn't be a hassle to change suppliers. It's a customer right that's worthless if customers won't excercise their right to better value even if the customer service is indistinguishable.

As the previous poster suggested, work out your energy consumption and do comparisons. Once you have a handle on your consumption you are in a better position to challenge the EON "take it or leave it" monthly payment. Turn the tables, if you switch suppliers it costs EON money to replace you as a customer.

I've just read your post. It does seem high. Is it based on actual readings? Your previous worst bill was according to you 285. If prices have gone up 40% since that bill that would push the price to 399. This winter was worse than last winter. So the appliances might have used 10% more fuel, gets you to 440! Not impossible. Can I ask if your parents are getting the winter fuel payment? This should go a long way to cover the cost of this bill. Maybe that payment should be sent to the Power company as well as the current standing order / direct debit.

It would be worth getting all your consumptions worked out for the last year, then enter it on to this site to check prices and see what it comes up with and if it is chaper than you currently pay. I am using Ebico for gas and Scottish Power for Electricity. I think it is chaper to do it that way than a dual fuel tarriff. Whatever you do, and whatever the result, do not go to British Gas. There service is appalling, you never get a bill and it will become a new part of your life living with the telephone attached to your ear waiting to talk to someone who can't help.

Hi after reading your posts it seems im not on my own with high increases on E-on.

I live with my elderly parents who are house bound. They averaged quarterly bills from april 07 - jan 09 between £150 -£285, this is for duel fuel. Up until last year they paid £58 per month which agreed sometimes didnt cover the bills so when the annual increase came in at £89 per month i didnt challenge it. They have now increased the monthly payment to £100 per month even though they have been in credit EVERY bill since the increase to £89. I challenged this and like you was told "tuff". i agreed to pay the amount until the next bill and challenge it again if i wasnt happy. To my amazement the bill received today comes to £434.28!! This is crazy, we live in a two bedroom flat with only five rooms. The heating is on for most of the day as is the tv (both housebound) but it has been for all the other bills and we have NO extra gas or electric appliences. surely this is wrong?? reading your reviews your 5-6 bedroomed houses dont have bills much more than this..please advise as i dont want the hassle of changing suppliers if its going to be the same..Thanks

Thanks for that, can't do it this side of Christmas, but feel much happier. Have a lovely time in Spain, send some sunshine over. Best wishes

Actually we are on the Sussex / Surrey borders. We are off to Spain for 16days, going tomorrow morning. Try 01293490490 and ask for David. Good luck and let me know how you get on. I'll try and look in from Spain. Can't put the name of the firm on here. Its nothing to do with me either.

Hi Kevin Thank you for the reply, as you say the houses are probably similar in size and our heating is on 1.5hrs longer. We still have not recovered from the antics of Eon and probably never will, so will be making changes there. As you are very happy with the guys that sorted your boiler etc, would you mind passing on their details. You can't get any better than by someone else's experience. We live in Surrey so now my fingers are crossed that you don't live on the other side of the country and too far away for your guys. Thank you for your help and a happy weekend to you and your family. Best wishes.

Hi Sioux, Overall our houses must be the same sort of size. We have14 radiators, all double,and some are the biggest ones I've ever seen. We put the heating on for 2 hours in the morning and 6 hours in the evening. We have double glazed everything and used pilkington K glass. Again our house has very large windows. We also cook on gas, both oven and hob. I have to say we never got warm with the old boiler, 23 years old when we changed two years ago. We now have no cold spots in the house. Infact, we used to turn a number of rads off otherwise it would take an age to warm up. We also changed the gas fire in the sitting room. It has its own thermostat and switches on and off by itself.

On the electricity side, we have an economy 7 meter and I've put timers on all major appliances so that they come on during the cheaper night time period. Have to be honest most things are on standby so I suspect we could save a bit more if we switched them off. I also find theboys are very wasteful with electricity and I constantly switch things off. They tend to leave their computers on all the time and I always turn them off. We have reduced our consumption by around 50% over the last 2 years. I can't say the bills have dropped because of the price increases. Its worth looking again at your supplier.You may find as we did that it is cheaper to get electricity from one supplier and gas from another despite all the discounts.

If you change the boiler, get loads of quotes! We had to relocate the boiler, moving it from downstairs into a cupboard upstairs. Prices varied from £9,500 down to £2,500. We paid £2,900 in the end as they seemed to know what they were doing and we are VERY happy with the result.

Hi Kevin thank you for your reply, we have a detached house with four bedrooms, two living rooms, two bathrooms, utility room and a converted garage that our son uses for a den. We have a total of 14 radiators (5 single and 9 doubles) some of which are quite big, the boiler is 16 years old and some of the rads have got thermostats. We have cavity wall insulation, double glazing and loft insulation. We only have gas for heating and water, everything else is electric. We do have a lot of electrical equipment, but don't use standby. Half the light bulbs so far are low energy and only one window is open. As the big appliances are having to be replaced we are making sure they are at the top of the A+ rated effeciency. We have the boiler serviced every year and the guy says it doesn't need changing as it's working fine which, may be the case but maybe it is not efficient anymore. We were really shocked to see your outlay as opposed to ours, maybe you would like to do a house swop, all joking aside thank you for your reply and we are going to give some thought to replacing the boiler and the supplier. Take care, best wishes

Thank you to everyone else for their replies, much appreciated.

EON did the same with me, but from £50.00 to £88.00 and I had a credit of £75.00. When I telephoned them they reduced it to £62.00. When I asked them to show me their calulations, they could not. So I provided them with my calculations and told them that if they did process their direct debit of £88.00/£62.00 I hold them responsible for all bank charges if I went overdrawn.

They phoned me very quickly and told me that they were going to keep my D.D. to £50.00 p.m. and I asked them to follow this by an e-mail which they did

Scot power check my meters every 3 months and then adjust my bill up or down depending on the usage. This means i dont get any big bills or a build up of credit.

Sioux, I was shocked to see how much you are paying per month. You must have a very large house or live with the windows open. I have a 5 bedroom 3 bathroom house and spend nothing like that! However, it is reasonably well insulated and we have recently upgraded (2 years ago) the gas boiler and gas fire and put thermostats on each radiator. We have also put in economy light bulbs and replaced most electrical items with grade A efficiency level items. We are paying, at the latest prices, £380 for electricity pa. Economy 7 from Scottish Power and £450 pa for gas from Ebico. Hope that helps.

We have had the dreaded letter also from Eon saying pricing has increased from 1 November and that our monthly direct debit is being increased £91 on top of the £120 we already pay - horrendous - and we do not live in a castle. My husband phoned and told them he didn't want it to be increased and he was told you have no choice even though were £112 in credit. He kept pushing and finally got them to agree to £180 per month although she insisted that we will still owe them money at the end of the year. We are on dual fuel tariff and economy 7 but I still feel that £180 per month is astronomical. The thermostat is never more than 20 so cannot even cut back there. I have lost count the number of times that the prices have increased this year. I regularly check to see if there is a more economical tariff. I would really like to tell Eon where to shove their fuel, but am scared that we might be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. Has anyone any suggestions.

well i am a single woman and I work full time. In January this year EON put my monthly direct debit up from £21 to £32 and they have just sent me another letter to say they are putting it up to £55 per month!!!!!! I'm out all day for god's sake so I would consider myself a low user too and I just cannot understand how I can be paying this much.

They did the same to me, increased my payments from £68 to £112 per month and I am £192 in credit. I rang them and after a little persuasion they agreed to leave my payments at £68. Get in touch and fight your corner they will back down.