I just got a £900 gas and electric bill!

Unless you live in a mansion, or you heat a swimming pool or hot tub 24/7 it sounds to me like you've got a leak somewhere. Wasn't another Hitcher in the same situation recently? With water I think (it may have been Welsh Totty, but I am not at all sure)

IIRC they did a 24 hour test period thing.

Wow that's astronomical..

Not sure if this applies to you, but previously for about a year out of our 2 year contract we were on estimated readings.. £37/month for gas and electric, starting off at £60 but then lowered..

NOW we're on £100/month, and not even paying off the charges ? which is for a 2-bed terrace.. Very strange! But then, the energy rating thingy for the property is a D/F ?

xxx

Have you got a bill you can compare for last year? My gas bill for the last quarter was £470 and I nearly dropped dead. On checking, we had used the same amount of gas but the price per unit had increased by 50%.

Wowsers. That is huge.

What someone else said re having your usage tested. i'm kind of in disupte with mine at the moment as I live by myself, 2 bed house, not in during the day etc and my DD went from £37 to £102 per month! I've gone around in circles with them over the DD charge as it appears there has been some kind of mix up from when I moved in and the old tenant moved out and until that is rectified the DD is not going to change.

Hope you get it sorted.

I had a shock when I got our gas bill and the monthly payment went from £40 to £75. I called Atlantic who supply our energy and said that whilst I understood we owed them could we meet in the middle and we agreed £60 a month. She said that at the end of March the electric/gas prices were coming down.

At first glance it seems really steep but speak to them and see what they can do. We're coming into the warmer/lighter part of the season, you won't be using half as much gas. MrSun went a bit OTT and turned the heating off but I had to get him to turn it back on, I was cold

I only moved in in September, I moved out and I had the place rented out for a year, I thought thye based my DD on the tenants usage,and they had three kids! It's only a 3bed ex-council house, all insulated, recently rewired boiler about 3yo. I just can't understand it.

Bloomin eck, thats steep! over 6 months in a 4 bed semi (just the two of us living there) we use about £500 of gas and leccie. Might be worth getting transco out to see if there is a leak.

It was me Clairy, who had the water leak (now fixed thank goodness) the final bill for 7 months was a tad over £2800! Theyve sorted out the bill and we are back to paying our usual £15 a month.

It may be that your previous bills have been under estimated and, now that you've had actual readings applied to your account, its been brought up to date. Check when your last actual reading was used. Energy suppliers have an obligation to obtain an actual reading at least once every 15 months for the purposes of billing and, if they fail, may only be entitled to claim a certain period of correct charges back from you.

It may appear that your bill is only for 6 months if that was when the last bill was issued but, if the company has been under estimating your consumption, they'll, in effect, be correctly billing you from the date of the last actual reading, IYSWIM.

This is my first bill as we only moved in in September, so I just can't understand it, they were never this high when I used to live here, I'm sure of it. They've probably charged me some of the tenants bill or something and 'disguised' it, they tried to do that to me when the tenants moved in they were charging them for the gas and me for the leccy! Oh god, I'll just yell at them and try and get it sorted, between that and court fees I've got no idea how I'm going to eat!

sounds about right to me. I think ours was about £900 for the last 6 months and we are just a couple in a 3 bed house. Although h does work from home, we have the heating on all day every day over winter and we have at least 3 computers on all of the time (and numerous other gadgets).

Definitely speak to them. I had a final bill for over £1000 from Powergen when I moved out of a property. It was also a two bed cottage and there were only two of us there. I had also been paying £75 a month direct debit. They were awful to deal with, kept sending me letters saying things like 'Thanks for agreeing to pay £200 a month to clear the bill' when I'd done no such thing.

After three months, and a lot of stress, it finally transpired that they hadn't deducted the £75 that I'd been paying monthly and the final bill was actually £95 ! I eventually got them to half that as compensation.

If that had been someone more vulnerable they would have eventually just paid up rather than arguing it. Shocking.

Wow I just can't believe it's so high! I just realised that they read the meter in December too, so surely they should have let me know ASAP that I wasn't paying enough? It's just not adding up in my head!

Our last 3 quarterly bills have been around £100 for gas and electric combined, we currently pay £40 a month and are about £200 in credit at the moment

Then again H is stingy and doesnt have the heating on much during the week when Im not there and we have it on quite a bit at weekends

There was a thing on watchdog about people being charged in metric measurements when the metre's imperial -(or other way around) Might be worth checking that out......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mg74/features/consumer-advice-reading-meters

I asked them for advice and that is what they said to pay. I have to admit to being quite naive about the whole thing, but now I have to shell out and extra £140 a month! I need a second job, there's just no two ways about it. They read the meter in December, surely if they knew I was underpaying so dramatically they could have contacted me then?

That is mega cheap. I have a small two bed flat and pay £80 a month for gas/electric. I've just changed tarriff and as the prices have started to come down, I'll be paying £65 a month. I can't remember a time I was ever paying so little as £40 a month.

I will check that DDiva thanks! They changed our meter over a few years ago and I had loads of bother getting them to understand that they had changed the meter over, they wanted to only ever give me estimated reading in future because they couldn't understand the readings (I'm not joking - I wish I was!)

It really does my nut in, were in a rented house and we keep getting mould round the windows etc and I keep telling him its beacuse the house is so cold but he gets warm really easily so just turns it off, Im normally there friday night to either sunday night or monday morning and I hate being cold, and when Im not there he goes to the gym after work so doesnt get home till gone 8..

He really is stingy (or economical he would say) as he has even bought a meter that tells you how much electric every thing uses, he plugged it into the fridge (landlords) and was complaining about how much it uses...

Were moving back in together soon and he will get a shock when i am there all the time and use more electric... Lol

I cant beleive your bills are so high though W, Id definitely check it out, can you take a meter reading every month and give them that, that way they can track your usage easier, we do this and its quite good to monitor it...

That sounds sensible ILS, I mean we're both out all day, all our bulbs are energy saving, we only really use the computer and telly (obv fridge and freezer). It just seems phenomenal! Might get one of those meters actually and see how much we are using!

It is cheap but as said he doesnt 'do' heating, Taken from our last bill

Electricity 16 plan Total £

Readings

Previous 4317 read by you on 1 October 2008

Current 4792 read by you on 1 January 2009

475 Normal kWh (kilowatt-hours) used

Charges

Normal primary units used 227 kWh at 18.11p each 41.11

Normal secondary units used 248 kWh at 9.42p each 23.36

Total electricity charges excluding vat and discounts = 64.47

Gas plan Total £

Readings

Previous 6298 read by you on 1 October 2008

Current 6322 read by you on 1 January 2009

Difference 24 units

Converted into 756 kWh (kilowatt-hours) used

Charges

Gas primary units used 676 kWh at 4.839p each 32.71

Gas secondary units used 80 kWh at 3.085p each 2.47

Total gas charges excluding vat and discounts = 35.18

Boy, some days last month were chilly, I got back one friday when he was out and the heating hadnt been on and our living room was 11°C, I cried!! and then put as many layers on as I could. We are on a price protection plan (fixed just before the prices went up last year) and get a discount for both fuels..

Who are you with W??

11 degrees? WTF? ?

I'd be sat with my thermals on and ear muffs

?

Our heating is set at around 18 during the day and 21 in the evening. I think your OH would think he was in a sauna.

They're obliged to reassess your DD payment once every 15 months only.

If you're on twice yearly billing as opposed to quarterly, when they obtained the reading in December they wouldn't have issued anything-the reading would just have been held on file as with all other readings that fall outside of its billing window.

Ours was £874 for six months. Three people, three bed house, single glazing (Victorian). Out four days of seven. DD rised from £72 to £124 in Sept last year and it is correct, the prices have gone up that much.

Ours was £857 for 3 months,

the massivly under estimated the bill before so now we have to pay £200 a month gas and electric, we are in a 3 bed house 2 adults and 3 kids,

it is madness

I didn't even know I was on six-monthly billing! I'm with Npower, they are pretty hopeless, but so is everyone else, I've done everything I can to the house, cavity walls, loft, light bulbs, dunno how I can get them down to a managable state, I'm going to call them tonight and try to negociate a lower amount as I simply can't afford it. I was thinking about getting a second job, to help reduce my debts, I feel like I have no choice now.

You know this time last week I felt like I was just getting to a point where we were even a little flush, then the shed roof fell in! I just can't believe the bill is THAT high!

Same here £1k for 6 months gas and electric from Atlantic. Payments gone up from £70n to £200 per month. OH was redundant from October til this week, so TV/Heating etc on all day over the winter.

And we've got our wedding in June, so not greatest timing.

Check out this forum https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/energy

take a meter reading on the first every month

get one of those gadgets (am just asking H where he got his from)

see about switching (and try and get cashback from somewhere like quidco if you do)

see if you can get a discount for getting dual fuels

we are with Eon and we get tesco points with ours as well which helps with the food shop

Are you on econ 7? see if it would be worth swapping if not (or even if you see if its worth swapping off it)

Wow, I'm amazed at how much some of you pay - no wonder we've got global warming ?

We live in a large 6 bed drafty house and pay £42.78 per month for both gas and electric (£128.34 per quarter)

We're never cold, but we will put on an extra jumper rather than the heater, make sure we switch lights off when we leave a room, bulk cook so we don't have the cooker on more than necessary etc. I thought we were quite typical.

Https://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=223573

This is the one we have

But how?

My house isn't hot. The heating is never on very long before being up to temp and we often will snuggle under a blanket rather than put the heating up. The windows are double glazed, cavity walls insulated, energy saving bulbs everywhere and not one item left on standby. We don't bulk cook but I don't believe the meals we produce each evening use that much energy (lunch is usually a sarnie or similar) and we always switch lights off. We're in a tiny 2 bed flat although we are in and out the house throughout the day and leave the radio on for the dog ? but I don't think we use more than the average couple.

We pay £60 per month for G & E combined - it went up from £45 in all the price hikes.

Decent sized 3-bed semi built in the 70's. Two of us living here, out during the day but in every evening, living room usually at 19 degrees while we're in, 2 showers per day (1 each!), oven used most days etc.

And ours is defintiely right as we read our meter every 90 days and put the readings in, guy checks every now and again. I think we're even in credit at the mo!

I don't know, I've never thought about it before. They are actual readings too, not estimated.

We have a condenser boiler, double glazing, lots of insulation and are just really careful.