I live in a 3 bedroom detached house with my partner and our 2 year old son...it is a new build, only 5 years old... we both work and are very rarely in at weekends... are gas usage is typically 7pm until 11pm max Monday to Sunday but some weekends are Gas is never on... we shower daily and we also use Gas to cook but other than that we don't use it... we have 7 heaters but only 5 on as we chose not to heat the spare room and hall.

from the 31st October 07 - 26th Feb 08 we used 736 units and although SE estimated we should pay £35 (total £140) they are now saying according to meter readings given we owe an additional £438 - SURELY £578 FOR 4 MONTHS GAS IS RIDICULOUS???

I would understand if we had the heating on constantly but we are never there... can anyone advise if this sounds correct or if there could be a problem with my meter and what else could be the problem...

From what I've read most people with a similar house and lifestyle pay around £400 per annum?

Please help???

Sounds like quite a lot - 578 is my year's worth of gas AND electricity!

You should have the meter checked out. Perhaps leave it for 12 hours during the day when gas is not used and see if it moves. Do the same in the evening and note the usage, so you have some idea of whether the meter is faulty or not,

what i do is i read the meters weekly,any stupid increase in usage i can then get in touch with them.

john.

The problem seems to me that you have not kept records of your monthly useage and so have not spotted any unusual trends until it it too late. 736 units in 4 months is a lorra lorra useage We only used 660 units in a whole year If you had accurate figures you could have gone to a comparison company They do work if given the right information. You dont use that much gas given the times you say unless your thermometer is on 30 degress. Have you got a proper programmer such as a honeywell to controll your heating times and temperatures well worth the cost Keep records the same goes for your electricity as well

Hi folks,

I too am in pickle. I've just moved out from a rental property - 1 bedroom apartment. I was there for 6mths. Since I was there for a short period I would not have noticed anything a miss. Most of the time I was over at my boyfriends place in the evenings or at work during the day.
The first bill for 29 sept to 10 Dec - was only 134.98 units. That was ok, being my first bill I was guess all was in order.

Final day was the 28 March.

Then on Friday got my final bill and jaw fell on the floor!

Total Bill Gas £427 !! That's for 1 person.

The bill states on the final bill that the total units used = 1723.14 Cu meters

Surely that can't be right for a 1 bedroom apartment and one person?

Fault Logged:
I did report a problems from about 3 of 4th week of arriving, with the hot water & the shower temp control, to the landlord..
The problem was the shower had NO temp control, it was briefly freezing cold water for 10sec then scolding/boiling hot water for 3 mins.
The landlord told me he repaired it while I was a work twice, but it never resovled it, instead the water got hotter. It was just dangerous to have a shower with the water that hot.
Needless to say I could never use the shower, so I'd stay at my boyfriends most evenings. Another reason why I moved out was the lack of repair.

Is it possible that the boiler is faulty causing an over use of gas????

No Controls:
oh and there was no thermostat controler anywhere, only the dials on the actual boiler that did both the water & heating. Though it was a really small apartment, so I used to turn off all the heaters except for the room I was in and shut the doors, so it took about 20 mins to heat up, then I turn it off when it was comfortable.

I've filed a complaint, but who knows what the outcome will be. I'll keep you posted if keen.

Thanks for reading. Dan