Hi, I posted another thread earlir as I didnt see this one.

I put £10.00 in my electricity yesterday and although we didnt have the washing machine on, dryer etc I have used £4.00 in 24 hours, 8 of those we were all in bed asleep.

Now I am with British gas for both Gas and Electricity, both prepayment meters..

Seems I am on 13.68 standard rate per KWH

Now reading what an average household may use on a daily basis is about 9 kwh, I have to say I have used 3 of these in 4 hours and yet the only thing I have on constant at the moment is my tv and pc..Apart from the normal things that have to be on all the time, freezer, fridge etc..

I am dreading evening when my sons are home from work and their tv;s in their rooms will be on , plus a lamp or light..

I have my security light turned off, pond pump and anything else I can do without..

I have to say it is normal now for me to put at least £30.00 a week in my meter, when a few months ago I could get by with £15.00 and this was using my dryer nearly every day...

You are not always billed to an excact quarter the number fo days you are being billed over varies, this is usually decided upon when meter readings are being recieved by your supplier. There is usually a window around the date your bill is due to be released. If readings are received inside this window your quarterly bill is released based on them, if the window closes without receipt of these readings an estimated bill is sent.

To work out your primary unit allocation per bill, or billing segment. divide the total number of primary units per year by 365 and then multiply by the number of days being billed for : -

for example

(900/365)*91 = 225 (rounded)

In this example energy upto the 225th unit would be charged at one rate, everything else at the lower.

LooneyTooner is quite right in saing that the amounts you are paying, (and should be paying is quite low). From the infoamtion you have given, it seems that your actually using around £36.00 per month on your energy which would lead to an annual bill of around £432.00.

All that has happened over the year is that while you have been paying £30.00 per month your average monthly usage has actually equalled £36.00. During the summer you probably would not have noticed this as at this time your usage is generally quite low, however when you go through winter and your usage increases this shortfall becomes very apparent. If i were you and if it were possible, i'd clear the shortfall in a single payment and ask my supplier to review my MDD so that you are at a 0 balance this time next year, this will mean an increase in your MDD now, however it will save a lot of problems a year from now.

Oh and if you haven't got yourself a capped/fixed price tarriff - get one!

Energy supplier employee head on here! Hope I can put this in plain english for you Purkiest

The elec usage is about what one would expect for your property- in fact that's quite good so well done! The reason you have been charged more at the top rate on the second bill is simply that it is over a longer period than the first bill. All suppliers have a quarterly threshold of so many kilowatt hours to be charged at the higher rate (depends on the supplier on what the threshold is) and so they will be totalled up first and then whatever's left will be charged at the lower rate.

For example the company I work for will charge you 125kwh every 90 days at the higher rate and everything else on lower rates. On a shorter bill that's on a sort of pro rata basis if you see what I mean. Your breakdown above looks ok to me.

Feel free to e mail me if you need any advice

Hi there - a similar vein although a year on...... I pay a montly DD for elec and have just had my latest EDF bill in. It is showing that I appear to be using an average daily usage of 10.7 units for this quarter - last quarter being 12.02. Thats all great but what does it actually mean and is that a lot? I am generally at work all day Mon-Fri, the heating / water is on a timer - few hours in the morning, few hours in the evening.

I live in a new style 4 bed detached, but we dont have masses of items on standby, 2 sky boxes and 2 telly's plus all the other usual suspects. Washer goes on probably about 4 times a week and never use a tumble dryer unless there is a dire need, so can't figure out why after paying my monthly amounts (£30)I still end up with a bill for £65.00 for the quarter???

Also having looked at my bill, you might be able to explain the following:

21 Dec 07 - 18 Jan 08 - units 300 - first 69 units @ 15.240p next 231 @ 7.400p

18 Jan 08 - 18 Mar 08 - units 642 - first 148 @ £16.440p next 494 @ 7.980p

am assuming the unit price is due to recent increase but why do I get more units at one rate in one quarter than another?

In short - I am rather confused by it all and would lsimply like to know - do I have excessive consumption and if so what is the most effective way of tackling this - energy saving plugs?

Thanks !

Economy 7 is only really beneficial to customers who use about 20% of their energy consumption in the middle of the night i.e. if you're working shifts.

Have you looked at our comparison tool to see which is the best tariff available to you?

It's easy to use and could save you a bit of money.

Regards,

Scott Byrom
moneysupermarket.com

I'm not on a prepayment meter - i was paying £82 a month to British Gas, although that wasn't covering the bills
I have just recently changed to N-Power, but I am yet to have a bill.
And I honestly couldn't tell you which tariff, but I switched on line on the N-power website, so I think it is a standard duel-fuel tariff.

Would it be worth looking into Economy 7? and who do I need to see about that? Would it be N-Power?

Colette,

The UK averages for energy consumption are 20500kwh for Gas and 3300kwh for Electric. The Electric consumption works out at 9kwh a day but obviously you need to take in to account seasonal factors. With this in mind, i'd say that 20kwh p/day at this time of year sounds about right.

However, £150 for 37-days does seem high.

Are you on a prepayment meter?
Have you recently changed supplier?
Which tariff have you moved to?

Regards,

Scott Byrom
moneysupermarket.com

Hi
I just got my final bill from British Gas and was veru shocked as I had used £150 of electricity in 37 days - this was between August and September, so not exactly the middle of winter! This seemed very high to me! I live in a two bedroom semi with my two kids and partner. We are out of the house form 6 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon. We do not use electricity for heating nor cooking. We have a computer which is on for 2 - 3 hours a day, two tv's a fridge freezer and washing machine and tumble dryer - both do a load a day. I have now been checking the meter daily and it seems to go up by about 20Kwh a day - it is obviously a concern as i am obviously now using more than I would have been in August! My meter is also very old - about 10 years ago the main house fuse blew and an engineer had to come out and change it - he commented at the time that "you don't see these very often these days!" Is it worth having this checked or does this seen like normal consumption?
Thanks!

Excellent news njs22!!!

That should be about £800 then!?

You should speak to npower about your situation and if possible get npower and british gas to liaise with one another to help resolve this situation.

Let me know how it all fans out and if you need any more assistance just let me know.

Regards,

Scott Byrom
moneysupermarket.com

hi ther scott

got home last night and decided to call british gas and sort all of the problems out.
it turns out i should have paid £220 for electricity used but because the meter is on the blink
and from the look of things has been from the moment i moved in i have been paying to much.
so thankfully the good people at british gas are going to refund all that over spent money for the past year
june 05 to june 06. which is great, what is not great is i have been paying british gas for npower's electricity supply
and now have a battle on my hands to reclaim the overspent money between june 06 to present.
what a headache !!!!!!!!!

njs22,

Are you on a prepayment meter?

If you are then this may have something to do with the excessive energy bills.

Prepayment meters (where you pay for your energy by buying tokens or topping up a 'top-up card') are used to help customers budget their energy suppliers but also to help customers pay off energy debt. If this is the case then your energy bills can include a payment which goes towards this debt.

Let me know.

Scott Byrom
moneysupermarket.com

hi there scott im sorry i got the amount wrong the £1600 was wrong

from what i can make out from the completely confusing summary is that between june 05 to october 06 there spendage was £1000
the say the total consumption for that period was 1958units kwh.

im well confused with this electricity stuff

my postcode is BS34 7HU

also i have switched to npower two weeks ago and now even more electricity is getting used was it a bad move????

njs22,

That really does seem to be alot of electricity. My original concerns are from you saying you live in a flat and that possibly you're paying for more than just your own electricity. That is only a first thought though so lets not jump to conclusions.

As with the other customers on the forum, can you let me know your postcode and old tariff details. Energy prices differ between regions hence why your postcode is so important to our comparison tool to provide you with an accurate figure. Also, if you know your average consumption that would also be useful.

To give you an idea of the average energy consumption levels in the UK, they stand at 20500kwh for Gas and 3300kwh for Electric. Using these figures the "average" Electricity bill should be about £500 per year. To spend £1600 on electricity is therefore pretty extortionate.

Send me your details and i'll look into this for you.

Regards,

Scott Byrom
moneysupermarket.com

hi there i was just reading through these articles because i spend alot of money a week/month/year on electricity.

i was with british gas on pre pay and have just switched to npower
i recently recieved a end of service bill from british gas and i spent £1600 last year on electric.
the reason i find this rediculous is because i dont leave in a big house i leave in a small one bed falt with my girlfriend and our one year old son. i have put £90 on my elctric in a week and a half.
i also have storage heaters that if used seem to drink electricity like mad. this is the first time i have lived on my own so is this a normal average amount or is it high???

sukishere,

Can you please give me some more details with regards to your supplier, tariff and consumption for both gas and electric.

I really want to look into this for you as £45 p/week seems to be very expensive. That's over £2000 a year???

Please copy the list below into an email, enter your details and send it to scott.byrom AT moneysupermarket.com.

Postcode:
Gas Supplier:
Gas Tariff:
Annual spend/consumption(kwh):
Payment method:
Electric Supplier:
Electric Tariff:Annual spend/consumption(kwh):
Payment method:

Also, with your disability you may be entitled to an allowance. I'll look into this for you when i receive your details.

Regards,

Scott Byrom
moneysupermarket.com