I have just had a final bill from Powergen for my gas.  It relates to the period 22Sep 06 to 1 Feb 07 (ie just over 4 months).

It says I have used 1,560 units of gas (17,457 Kwh) and yet there is only me and my fiance living in the house and we are at work all day during the week.  We have gas central heating and a gas hob, everything else is electric.  My colleague is in a similar situation and she only used 600 units for the same period.

The house is a 5 bed house but it is brand new and is supposed to have a super efficient heating system and we only had the heating on for a few hours in the morning and evening with the exception of weekends.

The meter readings are actual but I just can't believe that we have used that much gas.  Should I get the meter checked?  I have been told if they find nothing wrong with it that it will cost me £80.

I had this as well a number of years ago with my electric. Like you both of us were out the house all day and were receiving huge bills. We had the meter checked (they installed a piggy back meter) and they said we were using the electricity as the additional meter confirmed it and washed their hands of it and wouldnt wear any complaint.

The only way to fight it was we had to take constant readings. getting up in the morning, take reading, leave for work in the morning take a reading and note the time, come home from work, note time and take a reading, we also took readings during the evenings and noted what appliances were on, and again took readings at night before we went to bed.

We did this for a period of weeks, we even took readings if we were away for the weekend as we would take a reading before we left and when we returned. It is a pain at first but you eventually get into the swing of things.

It was only when we presented this information that they eventually conceeded that an empty house couldnt possibly use the amount of energy when the only thing plugged in was a fridge freezer. After discussions which lasted some months and due to the growing evidence that something was afoot (as we were still collating info) that they did investigate the situation thoroughly and found that we were actually paying for the electricity for a neighbouring property which was being used as a hairdressers. It turned out at one time all the property had been owned by the same person.

As it is a new build is there a problem with how the property is wired? is your house the only one connected to your meter. The other thing to check is the actual meter number with the supplier as the houses in the estate were probably all registered at the same time, found out about this when I tried to change supplier for my electricity last year and found out that the supplier put in the wrong meter ref number and I ended up paying for my neighbours electricity for 6 months .

All worth a try... dont give up as the utility companies never admit to making a mistake until you have enough evidence to prove otherwise.

Good Luck

 

 

 

 

Thanks. I guess i'll have to start keeping a diary!

Hi  I moved my gas from british gas to atlantic in march 2006 i had to pay about £80 to pay off b/g. I have now received my gas bill for the year and it is £1155 and ive been paying £17 a month d/d . I have worked it out and weve used 54002kwh in 12 months!!  now my argument is that the bill wasnt that high last year so how can it be that high this year, atlantic say average usage is 8 to 10 units a day and were using 3 units a day but my mum uses 1 unit a day on a similar property, so atlantic say there is no problem but there has to be our only gas we use is a hob and combi boiler ,heating is on for 2 hours a day at the minute , i noticed that the average gas usage for a 3 bed house is 2500kwh i dont know where to go to sort this out 

I think helper has given the most fantastic advice. You should both follow that and keep a regular log of readings/appliances being used.

could it be the imperial to metric conversion factor???  my meter is 2 ish years old and says it is measuring m3 so it shouldnt need converting ,,,should it??? this would then make the kwh figure a lot less

Just a thought do you have bills going back a few years for your old place? If so and adjusting if you lived in a different size place will  they help to back up your readings?

I was right, i rang atlantic today and yes they thing my meter was imperial when in fact it is metric hence i have used more kwh than i should of, my concern is that they assured me everything was right and that i had used that much and my meter wasnt faulty dispite my concerns. So it was up to me to point out their mistake!!! i think ill be claiming back my phone bill now aswell i must have spent about 2 hours on the phone to them.

Hi, it's very interesting that you mention moving to Atlantic and getting a ridiculously high bill!  I moved to Atlantic from Scottish Power in March 2006 and had been paying £40 a month for gas and £37 for electricity.  On moving to Atlantic, I have been playing £39 a month for electric (can someone explain to me again why I moved in the first place?!) and £37 a month for gas. In November, my gas payment increased to £85 a month and then I received a bill in February which informed me that I now had an outstanding balance of £356.07. I was told that my monthly payments would increase to £155.  So, I've paid that for the last 3 months.  Apparently I've used 4572kWh of standard energy and 45494.68kWh of discounted energy  (total metric units used 538.29 cu.mtrs) from 23/11/2006 to 22/2/2007. 

I live in a 3 bed semi with my 2 daughters aged 11 and 12.  We have gas central heating (7 radiators) and a gas cooker/hob.  I only had my heating on for a couple of hours in the morning and around 6 hours at night in the winter months, and never above 20 on the thermostat.

 Does this sound right?

i would check your meter if i were you, see if it is in feet or meters and then see how theve worked it out, if you have 5 digits its metric, i was using about 3 units a day , the average kwh usage is only 25000kwh a year so it does sound a bit dodgy.

Thanks to everyone who has taken up this thread.

I am the person who originally put the point up - and in a way I am glad to see other people feel they are in the same position as we are ---- HOW EXPENSIVE is it getting to live in this country in general... I am sure that someone some where knows when I have an extra tener in my pocket and divises a plan to get it off me !!

What is the best £ per unit at the moment?

I did call to requestion and all they wanted to do was upt up my DD to 135.00 per month for gas and elec to cover my comsumption and how was I going to pay the outstanding balance - another example of policing those who try to make the effort to get things sorted out.

Cheers all - I will keep fighting them

 

hi everyone with high bills

 

check that your bills are not estimated as i have just moved from powergen to atlantic and recieved a final gas bill of £1000 because they have estimated my gas bill for 3 years . even though i have phoned them every month to inform them of my meter readings and they have also sent a guy out to read the meter 4 times and paid £45 for gas by direct debit every month they still estimated my bill did not recieve any explanation and was told they where taking the lot from my direct debit and gave me a date . i phoned them to tell them i  could not afford this and i had canceled the direct debit i was then told i had 3 months to pay it i said i could not afford that either finally i got through to a supervisor which told me i could pay it over 12 months still i said no i could not afford this in the end i was given powergens bank account details and told to pay whatever i could afford as it was not my fault i am paying them £10 a month stuff them should have done there job right and sorted my meter readings out

 

 

take me about 10 years to pay it off oh well

 

 

Hi.

I was with Powergen in a previous house and lived there for a quite a few years. I was paying gas and electric but for some reason (only Powergen and God knows!) I stopped receiving bills. I had rang them so many times telling them I had not received a bill and they said they would send me one. More time passed and I still hadn't received a bill so I would ring again and so on. Eventually I received a bill from a debt collecting company amounting to over £1300.00. The bill I received was aparently for 14 months. After two years of fighting it I am stumped. They say the bill is actually for 3 years but as I have no record of what I have paid and what my readings are I have to accept estimates.

Anyway, I have this bill to pay because Powergen are completely useless and I just wanted to say thank you for mentioning how you made payments to them. No way do I have that kind of money just lying around and if I did I wouldn't blow at all on a gas bill that should have been sent to me quarterly as I had asked many, many times before. I assume they don't charged interest to pay this off?

Thanks again.

Hi all,

There are a few issues here so I'll put up some info on each and if I miss one, let me know.

Basics about your gas meter and types, large bills..

Here is an extract from another of my posts on a similar subject which might be useful

"In reference to the bill you have, I would suggest a few simple checks that you can perform yourself.

Firstly.. Check the meter serial number on your bill is the same as that on your actual meter. Also look on the meter for a sticker or label indicating the meter has at some point been changed.

The reasons for this are mainly down to 2 things...

1 there are 2 main types of gas meter. a "4 dial" and "5 dial". As the name suggest a 4 dial meter will have four numbers in white which are your reading (also 2 in red but these are not relevant). This meter measures gas per hundred cubic feet. A 5 dial meter has 5 numbers in white (and 3 in red, again not important) and measures in cubic meters. Therefore, each unit recorded on your meter will be worth a different amount dependent on the type you have (or the type they think you have) 1 unit recorded on a 4 dial meter will cost you much more as that represents 100 cubic feet of gas, rather than the 1 cubic meter a 5 dial would record. If you have a 5 dial meter and the company takes these readings and calculates your bills based on a 4 dial calculation, your bill will be huge.

2 Meters, like all things need replaced from time to time and have a lifespan before they need to be replaced or "re certified". This is not a task carried out by your supplier but rather the shipper of gas to your property. (95% of the time this will be transco) They carry out the change and inform the supplier after it has been carried out, but occasionally these details do not get thru and the suppliers records are not updated. (this is more common than you might think) going back to my first point, 4 dials are older meters (identified with a 6 number serial number) and are most often replaced with a newer 5 dial meter (these have a longer serial no of about 13 numbers, usually starting G4....) If these details are not picked up, you get the above scenario.

Secondly,

How much have your payments been and have they sent a bill in that time? have they read the meter themselves? I ask these as for such a large amount, your meter may have "over-cycled"

This means... when your meter records usage (starting at zero for easy counting, and using a 4 dial) it goes

0001, 0002, 0003 and so on till it gets to 9999.. at this point it goes back around to 0000 and keeps counting. Depending on your readings, they may think, or their records might indicate, you meter has over-cycled. (for info once round a 4 dial dial meter is easily 8k and over on new prices) If they have overestimated your bills previously, their system may be so far ahead it thinks you have gone past the 0000 point, when in reality, you haven't."

hope that helps a bit

If you have received a large "catch up" bill

If you have received a large catch up bill due to faults on behalf of your supplier in either not billing you or using very low estimates, under Ofgem regulations, they are only allowed to bill you back for 12 months of the shortfall of payments v usage. An extract from one of their reports reads...

"Suppliers have commercial incentives to provide their customers with accurate bills as part of providing good customer service. To reinforce these incentives, we have worked with suppliers over the last 18 months to establish an independent Ombudsman to deal with billing disputes and end back-billing beyond a year from July 2007."

And the full report this is from can be found at the link below, the extract is from page 10.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/RetMkts/Metrng/Metering/Documents1/16915-2207.pdf

If you are not having any success, you may wish to contact the new consumer group "consumer direct" who have replaced the watchdog energywatch as of 1 October

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

See if this helps any of you.

And the full report this is from can be found at the link below, the extract is from page 10.

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Markets/RetMkts/Metrng/Metering/Documents1/16915-2207.pdf

If you are not having any success, you may wish to contact the new consumer group "consumer direct" who have replaced the watchdog energywatch as of 1 October

http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/

See if this helps any of you.

This is all great information.

Thanks!!!!