Claire,

Good luck!

---

Regards,

Scott Byrom
Utilities Manager
moneysupermarket.com

Hi Scott ! I need your advice. I let small 1 bed flat together with my girlfriend from 21th of january 2007 , we just use energy not gas , so all equipment at flat are electric. All lights i changed for energy savers. Fridge and deteskop pc are almost switched on at all time. Other things like heaters (2, one in kitchen ,1 in bedroom), electric shower , cocker or wasing mashine we are using most during eavnings , on day time we are at work. The previous occupier tell me that he paid around 30-35 pounds per month , his girlfriend stayed at home for all day, and he used same equipment which I use now. BG update my bill (i order balance checking online) and from 20 of January until 20 of April balance to pay is 334 pounds,so looks like 110pounds for a month , 3,5 times more than previous occupier paid!  I already tell that to my Landlord and he was absolutely suprise and said that is impossible. For me as well especcialy that I try to save as much as i can. I copy for you my bill details just have a look please , very strange for me its big jump on 18 april (nr 2966 !!)

reading date/raeding/reading type/total consumpt./no. days/av.daily cons.                   

24 Apr 2007    9452     Customer read         097.00               4         024.25

 20 Apr 2007    9355    Customer read         041.00                2          020.50

18 Apr 2007    9314      Other                   2966.00                89          033.33

03 Mar 2007    6928     Estimated             580.00                 43           013.49

20 Jan 2007    6348     Estimated                -                       -                  -       

 

    

Your Electricity details

 

 

 

20 Jan 2007 to 24 Apr 2007

 

 

 

Electricity Readings

 

 

 

Meter serial number JD04K18527

 

 

 

Reading date

Reading type

Reading

kWh

20 Jan 2007

New meter

6348

 

28 Feb 2007

Estimated

7734

1386.00

12 Mar 2007

Estimated

8135

401.00

24 Apr 2007

Customer read

9452

1317.00

Electricity used

 

 

3104.00

Electricity Charges

 

For 1317.00 kWh consumed used over 44 days

 

Base Rate 1 = 108.00 kWh at 16.699 pence per kWh

18.03

Base Rate 2 = 1209.00 kWh at 9.422 pence per kWh

113.91

For 401.00 kWh consumed used over 12 days

 

Base Rate 1 = 30.00 kWh at 17.575 pence per kWh

5.27

Base Rate 2 = 371.00 kWh at 9.916 pence per kWh

36.79

For 1386.00 kWh consumed used over 39 days

 

Base Rate 1 = 96.00 kWh at 17.575 pence per kWh

16.87

Base Rate 2 = 1290.00 kWh at 9.916 pence per kWh

127.92

Charge for Electricity used

£318.79

VAT

 

Cost of Electricity used excluding VAT

£318.79

VAT at 5.00 %

£15.93

Total cost of Electricity used

£334.72

 

  Please help me !  If you need more details just reply !!

ps.sorry about lenguage but Im not English

Thank YOU

Mario,

Firstly, you've got very good english so don't worry about that.

Looking at the figures you have shown the reason why you have seen the big jump on April 18th 2007 is because I assume this has been an actual meter reading and as you can see from the number of days (89) this reading is from January 20th 2007.

The main thing to look at is the average daily consumption which seems to have remained fairly consistent. Obviously during January and February you are going to have the heating on alot more and so this explains the 33kwh a day usage. As the warm weather has come in this has dropped to around 24kwh per/day.

Key Factors:
If your computer is on all the time then this will contribute to higher energy bills.
Using the washing machine/dish washer every evening is also going to have an impact.

Unfortunetly, electricity is alot more expensive than gas and therefore as your property has no gas supply your going to see higher energy bills.

Sorry I can't be of any real help but please come back to me if there is anything I've missed or that you want me to consider.

---

Regards,

Scott Byrom
Utilities Manager
moneysupermarket.com

That reading is cleary out by 10000 units and you should immediatly contact the company and asked for a written definitive reply rather than a bog standard reply.

Was the previous customer undercharged on their final bill by virtue of continually estimated readings. Ask them to check the previous meter out and the level of estimated readings etc.

Hope it helps 

 

Hi ! I rang to BG and I spoke with them. They gave me advice to watch my meter for one week and than update my reading. But still that bill for me its absolutely to high. I dont know whats is wrong but must be something. I found one more thing that my meter SN is JD04K18527 at BG but on my meter I see JD04K81527 so like you see numbers are diffrent. Very similar but diffrent. I contact also with one man who check my meter and he send me screenshot with results when he wrote my SN ...   http://img295.imageshack.us/my.php?image=schowek01re7.jpg   . He said that 3 different adresses with same SN and must be something wrong. I was check my meter for last couple of days and i use 75 units between 25th April to 05th May so is around 7 units daily. This looks ok now. I dont know how to even speak with BG . I think that I send message to Energywatch as well.

Hi there, am in the middle of a constant wrangling with my electricity supplier. hope someone can offer some help or advice.

 the story goes like this...

i live in a large 2 floor apartment with a flat mate. we both work 9-5. property is heated through electric storage heaters; the only ones we use are in the 2 bedrooms and the front room. also an electric 'fire' in the front room which is used a couple of hours a night in the winter. electric cooker used for no more than an hour a day. washing machine used for 3 washes a week. tumble drier used maybe an hour a week. dishwasher, 3 times a week. iron, 1 hour a week. kettle - about once a week! frdige freezer 24/7 obviously. electric shower - 2 showers per day approx 15 mins each. 2 computers used maybe 4 hours a night. tv, dvd, cable, vcr, ps2 used no more than a few hours a night although left on standby 24/7 (i know, very naughty but have changed my ways recently!!)

used to have a tank for the hot water which has been replaced about 6 months ago with electric shower.

so, heres the problem. i had a debt on my account of a few hundred pounds so my payments have been whacked up to £162. i am now collectively £600 in credit and obviously want my payments reduced to something normal and the credit paid into my bank account (just in time for christmas :)

to do this they needed meter readings which i supplied. the guy on the phone said they are so far out that he wouldnt put them in as it appears that i have used about 3-4 years worth of electricity since the last readings. the last readings were either february 2006 when i changed suppliers, or january 07 when i specifically asked my supplier to send someone to read the meters - they have no recollection of this.

so, the guy says, there could be a meter problem or the previous readings could be incorrect. he advised me to take daily readings. which i did. (please see below)

i ring them back up today and give the whole story again, the guy this time says that with the readings there will be a massive bill generated to the tune of £1000 to cover the debt which will be applied!!!!! shocking!! i nearly passed out! i ranted at him and he is 'looking in to it' and phoning me back.

however, if you notice the readings below you will see they are quite high (going off what the 'average' is said to be), leaving appliences on standby surely doesnt use that much power?! and as i said, 2 lads who work full time, dont drink tea, rarely iron, spend a lot of time down the boozer and are no gordon ramsey dont use that much power!

 

any help or advice would be muchly appreciated. i am even considering requesting a pay as go meter to be installed by my landlord!!!!

 

heres my readings:

day                          day use                night use

monday                   88176                   43786

tuesday                   88231                   43819

wednesday              88286                   43853

thursday                 88346                    43885

friday                      88401                    43924

saturday                 88457                     43961

sunday                   88517                     43731

 

cheers, david

:: update ::

 so the guy rings me back yesterday and tells me that with the readings the new bill that would be generated would result in a debt of £2499 on the account!!! i was speachless. apparently £2360 on the day reading and £139 on the night.

i was also told that according to the calculations they have underestimated my monthly bill by £124 a month over the last 20 months i have been with the supplier.

i have just added up all my bills. since being with the supplier i have paid 1902 inc Vat since Feb 06. add on this 'debt' of £2499 means that i have used £4401 worth of electricity since February 06. That is impossible!!!!! unless the street lights are running from my front room?

got the energywatch people onto this as soon as i got off the phone, they are ringing me back by the end of the week to hopefully look into it.

heeeeeeeeelp!!!!!

 

cheers

david

Hi we have just had a token electric meter taken out and a quarterly billed 1 put in when it was fitted yesterday the meter read 0000 24 hrs on i have looked and its on 22 i don't know if its kWh or what, can anyone tell me what the average daily usage should be, on the token meter i think we were paying way to much our supplier has set a d/d of £45 per month thanks..

Hi, After checking our recent bill and meter readings something doesn't look right. we moved in last july and had a digital meter put in a few weeks later. we have just received a bill for oct to feb for £112 based on the readings of 741 and an estimated reading of 1840. I have just checked the meter and it is 7902! can this be right?? it a 3 bed mid terrace, but the cooker's gas and showers are taken using a mixer tap so no electric used there. the only things which use electric are a couple of computers and lights and the tv occasionally, and the dishwasher at night. is there a chance the meter could be wrong?

Can anyone help with this (bear with me, I'm at work and all the paperwork is at home!). Just received my latest electricty bill from Npower - 14 Dec to 12 March shows a consumption of over 2500 units, at a cost of £338.32. I'm certain something is wrong with meter and has been for years. I live with my teenage daughter in a two bedroomed end terrace. We're not in from 8am until around 5pm. We have two tvs, but rarely are they used together. We only have one pc. I don't use my dryer. I have the normal appliances running - microwave, two small upright freezers, fridge, sky box etc. My heating and my hob are gas - only wash, on average, twice a week (like to save it up!). Does this seem right? I seem to be using twice the national average per year. I'm going to ring Npower tonight and refuse to pay my bill until my meter is changed. Can I do this? Will this get my anywhere. Please help!

Over the past months I've been changing all my incandescent lightbulbs for the low-energy kind. Some of them take an age to 'warm up', but I'm getting used to it. The astounding thing is that my electricity usage has dropped so much following this that my supplier (npower) contacted me to tell me that they were cutting my monthly payment as I was getting too far ahead of the game.

I'd never imagined that the humble lightbulb would be such an important factor in the cost of electricity.

Hi I notice it was quite a while since you e mailed but I just wanted to know if the problem had been rectified and if so how did you go about this.I am with npower dual fuel 117 pounds per month they have now sent me a bill for £655 and they want my electricity to be paid at £135 per month gas £52 per month and arrears because of this bill at £45 per month so all in all they want £232 a month.Npower are telling me that my electricity has went from sept07 usage 0.98kw per day to 35.55kw per day.I live in a small flat 2 bedrooms gas central heating 2 adult 2 kids. elec oven gas hob no dishwasher but Npower are insisting that this is normal and after a lot of research I know that it cant possibly be . Help.

I don't know why things improved so markedly, because the only thing I did was to change most of the bulbs for low-energy ones. When you think about it, though, leaving 10 100W standard bulbs on is like leaving an electric fire burning, so maybe people use more electricity in their lighting than they realise.

I'd also bought an Electrisave too - that tells you at all times how much electricity you're using, and that can be quite an eye-opener sometimes, especially when you've got things like tumble-dryers on the go.

Hi,

I have just received my bill for the past 3 months and apparently I have used 5164 Kw - cost £477!

I only have electric in my one bedroom flat and am probably the most careful person you could meet about electricity usage (every switch has to be off etc, nothing on standby). I have lived in the flat for 4 years, the 1st year i lived there my annual bill was £300! i stupidly switched to british gas as they came up as cheaper on a comparison website.

Do you think this usage is possible? I dont know what to do, British Gas are absolutely no help at all

Hi

I think looking at the other posts I can top it with how ridiculous our usage has got. We seem to be supplying Wembley stadium.

So we are with Southern Electric and in October I contacted them about increasing my payment from £73 per month for electric to cover money owed and also increases etc. The made an error on basing usage on 9 months and the increase to £87 per month only scratches the surface. We are now around £570 in arrears.

I had an email yesterday saying that 3200 kwh was the annual per UK household. We have used 11450 kwh in the past year, meaning that we are well over 3 times the national average. So I looked at bills from the past year and find that period 1/11/2007 to 04/02.2008 we averaged 20.9 units a day - 2.5 times the national average. From 5/2/2008 - 2/5/2008 we averaged 27.2 per day - over 3 times the national average. Then from 03/05 to 31/07 we averaged 29.9. Then from 01/08 to 05/02/09 we averaged 34.1 units per day.

Over the last 11 days (given it was a serious cold snap) we averaged, yes, 40 units a day 5 TIMES the national average.

I had a very long talk with them last night and we have to monitor for a week. But let me put into perspective. We are in a 3 bedroom semi with 3 adults. We use the dishwasher once or twice a day, washing machine 5 times a week, tumble dryer 3 hours a week.

Electric has gone up, but this is not my concern as such as comparing usage against our own previous bills shows that living in the same house, using pretty much the same as always we have increased from 20 units a day to 34 (and 40 in the cold snap).

Our DD is going up to £177 per month for electric and yes they underestimated gas so its going up to £60 a month. SO next month we are now having to find an extra £110 a month.

I have to monitor it every night for the next 7 days to start with. Even last night to tonight we have gone through 26 units and the heating isn't anywhere near as high as it was last week.

So Kenny, I feel your pain!

Please can I have some advice on what to do next? I have been told it is £35 to have the meter checked. Surely we cannot possibly be using continually 3 x PLUS the national average? Are we THAT economically unfriendly.

Oh, as a PS we also forked out £3500 on a brand new Combi boiler hoping to bring costs down...mmm thats worked.

Alan