One other thing that is worth checking is if you can get your local council trading standards office to check the meter for free. A few years ago we had an issue with a water meter that was suspected to be giving faulty readings and after searching on forums on Moneysaving Expert and the like I found out that you can in fact get trading standards to test the meter for free. So worth contacting your local office which will be part of your local council authority.

Apologies if this is not applicable to electricity meters but thought it was worth mentioning as I believe at the time we were presented with a similar ultimatum from United Utilities with the charge being £75 if they found no fault with the meter.

Shaun

Get you meter checked!!

£35 is a good price most people are charged around £90 ( our fees start at £25 but are probably not in your area)

if your meter is wrong they are not allowed to charge for the check and they will have to replace your meter as well as get the meter checked in a laboratory, you will then get sent a detailed accuracy report and so will your supplier.

if the lab finds it is more than -3.5% to +2.5% incorrect your supplier has to make changes to all billing since it went wrong (this can be a long while since meters are rarely checked once installed , try and let them prove it hasn't always been wrong!) you may well be in for a nice refund.

Ian

If you have the immersion heater on for most of the time, it is possible the bill could be £720, when you include the other electric usage.

The wall heater in the conservatory. Check to see the wattage of this. If you have it permanently on, with the thermostat turning on/off, it could be eating a lot of electricity.

Another issue may be the Gas warm air system. That is considered fairly old technology from what I have read and replacement is recommended by many. It may be worth looking into this.

I have seen an electricity meter being checked and it is a 20 minute job. They are not installing another meter to check the current one, but just checking that the meter does not appear to be faulty.

It is worth you regularly checking your own meter, when you have different electrical appliances switched on, just to see what appears to be using the most.

On the bills, it should show the meter number that they have checked and whether it is an actual reading or an estimated bill. It is estimated, then give EDF the correct current reading.

Just got our bill from EDF for the last quarter, £720! ( just electricity ) Now you'd think I had a seven bedroom mansion for that wouldnt you? Think on..

We have a two bedroom mid terrace house, 80's build, gas warm air heating, new double glazing. Two adults, one teenager and a seven year old! We have one electric wall heater in the conservatory thats left on tick over on the thermostat, an immersion water heater, economy seven tarif with EDF. Our cooker is also electric hob. We have an aqualiser power shower but its fed from the water tank so doesnt heat the water. We do occasionally run a tumble drier but not much.

Ive spoken to others in my area with larger homes and more excessive usage and they pay £60 a month and are in credit !

Now is it me or is something wrong here. Nice EDF want to charge me £35 to come and check meter but after listening to tales of others usage Im seriously thinking we have been paying wrong bills all along. Even in the summer we are getting £200 quarterly bills?