Energy Bills

moutuakilla

I know that the price cap is being removed and prices are expected to go up but ours is going up by around 60% (£600) a year and there aren't really any better deals out there (I don't think the price changes have even been factored into this - this seems like a ridiculously large rise. We do regular meter readings at the moment and are in credit by about £100 for this year so pretty miffed about this. Anyone else finding their bills are going up hugely?

Covered End

£600pa is the current price or the expected increase?
What sort of property is it?
Semi/beds etc? 

hoof_it_up_to_benty

I thought the expected rises would be about £200 max 

moutuakilla

Covered End said:

£600pa is the current price or the expected increase?
What sort of property is it?
Semi/beds etc? 

£600 is the increase pa.
3 bed detached

hoof_it_up_to_benty

moutuakilla said:

Covered End said:

£600pa is the current price or the expected increase?
What sort of property is it?
Semi/beds etc? 

£600 is the increase pa.
3 bed detached

Unless you're on an amazing deal at present that figure seems very high.

Elthamaddick

Our Gas and Electric bills are absolutely off the scale. Calmed down a bit throughout the summer months….winter is a nightmare 

anyone else got a smart meter??

Covered End

My fixed price contract for a 3/4 bed semi increased from £93 to £123 pm a few months ago.
I ended it a couple of months early as I knew bigger increases were due in September/October.
So that was a 30% increase before the most recent/coming October rise.
It could well be correct if you were on one of the cheapest deals.
All you can do is search on moneysavingsexpert or uswitch etc.

cafcfan1990

moutuakilla said:

Covered End said:

£600pa is the current price or the expected increase?
What sort of property is it?
Semi/beds etc? 

£600 is the increase pa.
3 bed detached

Find it very hard to believe it's going to increase by £50 a month. It's better to do a comparison search on usage rather than monthly amount but I'd definitely check a couple as I live in a 3 bed semi-detached and my bill is only going up around £12 a month. 

Charlton_Charlie

I've just had an electricity bill of nearly £3k for the year from EDF. There are 3 of us, in a terraced house...no hydroponics etc and heating, cooking hob is gas...  I have no idea where that has come from and am now trying to get to the bottom of it with them..  I'd been paying approx £50-£60 per month and then they came and took meter reading and then sent a letter for an additonal £2300... I really don't see how this can be....

guinnessaddick

Charlton_Charlie said:

I've just had an electricity bill of nearly £3k for the year from EDF. There are 3 of us, in a terraced house...no hydroponics etc and heating, cooking hob is gas...  I have no idea where that has come from and am now trying to get to the bottom of it with them..  I'd been paying approx £50-£60 per month and then they came and took meter reading and then sent a letter for an additonal £2300... I really don't see how this can be....

Have your neighbours been growing plants in their loft using your electricity?

Showmetheway2gohome

You do need to keep a check of your meter readings.they cocked ours up when they installed our smart meter. 

Messed up final reading and I argued with them and they reduced bill by £400. 

Also if your consumption is high check your appliances. Our hot tub was eating electric think heater was faulty and we got £800 behind in bills had to pay £300 a month to get back in credit. 

addix

Our energy supply was up for renewal at the end of last month.  I always compare prices and switch to the best deal at the time and we were with So Energy paying about £1400 a year for dual fuel.  Staying with them would've seen the bill jump to over £2k. 

All the comparison sites, and even going to suppliers direct, resulted in sizeable hikes and the best for us ended up being EDF for £1750 fixed until early 2024.  If prices drop significantly it's £30 to break the contract.

One thing I should do is, as suggested, check that we aren't supplying half of Beckenham for their energy because our usage for a mid terrace and just two of us appears to be very high.

Taxi_Lad

Just been looking on money saving expert as we are moving next week and I can get a 2yr fixed for £137 more for our 3bed detached bungalow 

Gribbo

Currently pay €235 pm. That's electricity only. Gas is bottled and costs around €100 pa.

Off_it

I was with SSE for years. They started sending me semi-threatening letters saying I hadnt given a meter reading and hadnt let them into my property - when I had, they had been round a couple of months before and took both gas and electric readings but only the gas had registered on their system. 

I told them I'd been in for months because of a thing called lockdown and they clearly hadnt tried taking a reading, but I gave them a reading and they then sent me a bill saying I owed them £1700 based on a reading they had taken, so they basically ignored my reading. 

I emailed them to ask when theyd taken this fictitious reading and whether this was before or after I'd supposedly denied them access, but they just didnt reply and kept trying to fob me off. My concern was that some people would no doubt have just paid the bill because of the threatening tone of their letters, but they just couldnt or wouldnt explain to me how this had happened.

So I told them to fuck off, switched suppliers and ended up with a £120 refund. Shocking customer service.

BR7_addick

Try Octopus for gas and electric people, since I moved last year they’ve been really cheap and are often top of price comparison sites.  They’re also easy to contact and actually speak to someone.

Dippenhall

I've changed my electricity supplier every year. Last year Ovo kept upping the monthly DD and we ended with a £700 credit.  Only by changing supplier could I get it back as a lump sum repayment.  My fault for not supplying readings.

Now SSE insisting we have a smart meter even though engineer already tried and said it was not possible with our poor wireless connection.

Covered End

One other thing to consider is the effectiveness of your boiler and whether your pipes are blocked with sludge.
My pipes were so blocked when flushed the plumber was surprised that the system was working at all.

I've just had a new boiler installed and previously had the water timed to come on twice a day for 90 mins a time.

I'm currently reducing the time as the water is too hot to wash your hands and have gone from 90 mins to 45 mins and it's still too hot.

So I've just reduced the time it's on to 30 mins to see what that does.
I'm also aware I can reduce the thermostat temperature on the cylinder, but it is set at the recommended 60C.

Addickted

Seriously guys, after the England Euros jibbing post, the internet is your best friend - RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH.

EDF are now paying me £18 a month for all my energy and I've just hired a small Kubota and 22mm pipework and bends for the drive - SE Water are in for a surprise, that's for sure!

Electric



Gas

Redhenry

no idea, what u just posted

Redhenry

what have u done?

seth plum

Funnily enough I had dealings this very morning.
My experience has been:
Two years ago come 4th October I had a fixed monthly deal with Green Energy at about £78 per month for Gas and Electricity.
Green Energy stopped for some reason, and my deal was taken over by EDF Energy in April of this year who honoured the Green Energy deal I had.
EDF have this weekend emailed me to remind me my deal soon comes to an end, and cautioning me they would then move me to their regular tariff.
I rooted around with them, and also phoned Octopus Energy, and both companies (based on my actual accurate usage in K watt stuff) quoted me from about £110 to as high as £130 (both per month) for two year fixes.
Hmmn.
Went to 'compare the market' their phone system didn't want to know me.
Then came the big break.
Went to uswitch, put some stuff in, and got a call immediately from a guy in Woking.
I told him my story, went through the details, told him my exact usage so on and so forth.
He then quoted me £84.50 for gas and leccy per month for 23 months.
I was so surprised I asked several times if it was true what he was saying, he said yes, I asked who it would be with and to my bigger surprise he said British Gas.
They, uswitch, get on to EDF and sort the switch.
Change over in how ever many (21?) days.
So instead of facing a near 50% increase in my energy bill, it is closer to 10%.
So from my experience this morning I am glad I got on to uswitch.

Off_it

Oh, and I forgot to add above, my new supplier - Igloo - actually pays interest if you are in credit. Something like 3% too - so better than most bank accounts.

Bedsaddick

Redhenry said:

no idea, what u just posted

Me neither. Might as well had been in Japanese !

AddicksAddict

Elthamaddick said:

Our Gas and Electric bills are absolutely off the scale. Calmed down a bit throughout the summer months….winter is a nightmare 

anyone else got a smart meter??

Hopefully very few have been conned into getting one. 

Gribbo

Reversed the meters at a guess

WSS

AddicksAddict said:

Elthamaddick said:

Our Gas and Electric bills are absolutely off the scale. Calmed down a bit throughout the summer months….winter is a nightmare 

anyone else got a smart meter??

Hopefully very few have been conned into getting one. 

Completely ignorant to this, why are they a con?

Showmetheway2gohome

I’m with igloo too you can also get £50 reward each for new customer.but they are increasing there price and last check I done British Gas were coming out £100 cheaper for year. 

Just a note to some people it doesn’t matter how much you pay a month. This is how they coned people when they used to knock on door asking how much you pay for your energy a month and then said they could do it cheaper by giving you a lower monthly price. Then at end of year they asked you to make up on the shortfall. 

You need to look at your daily standing charge 
and price in pence per unit to compare prices not how much they say you can pay a month. 

cafcfan

seth plum said:

Funnily enough I had dealings this very morning.
My experience has been:
Two years ago come 4th October I had a fixed monthly deal with Green Energy at about £78 per month for Gas and Electricity.
Green Energy stopped for some reason, and my deal was taken over by EDF Energy in April of this year who honoured the Green Energy deal I had.
EDF have this weekend emailed me to remind me my deal soon comes to an end, and cautioning me they would then move me to their regular tariff.
I rooted around with them, and also phoned Octopus Energy, and both companies (based on my actual accurate usage in K watt stuff) quoted me from about £110 to as high as £130 (both per month) for two year fixes.
Hmmn.
Went to 'compare the market' their phone system didn't want to know me.
Then came the big break.
Went to uswitch, put some stuff in, and got a call immediately from a guy in Woking.
I told him my story, went through the details, told him my exact usage so on and so forth.
He then quoted me £84.50 for gas and leccy per month for 23 months.
I was so surprised I asked several times if it was true what he was saying, he said yes, I asked who it would be with and to my bigger surprise he said British Gas.
They, uswitch, get on to EDF and sort the switch.
Change over in how ever many (21?) days.
So instead of facing a near 50% increase in my energy bill, it is closer to 10%.
So from my experience this morning I am glad I got on to uswitch.

Green Energy went bust.  (They are not the only one.)

golfaddick

Had a letter from my Gas & Electric supplier (BG) last week as my fixed rate deal ends next month. They gave me a couple of options & I noticed that although the new fixed rate figure was about £10 a year cheaper the reduction was simply down to a cheaper standing charge. The kw/h figures were the same for the fixed as they were for the variable. Decided to go on some comparison sites nearer the time or just leave it for now.

SantaClaus

seth plum said:

Funnily enough I had dealings this very morning.
My experience has been:
Two years ago come 4th October I had a fixed monthly deal with Green Energy at about £78 per month for Gas and Electricity.
Green Energy stopped for some reason, and my deal was taken over by EDF Energy in April of this year who honoured the Green Energy deal I had.
EDF have this weekend emailed me to remind me my deal soon comes to an end, and cautioning me they would then move me to their regular tariff.
I rooted around with them, and also phoned Octopus Energy, and both companies (based on my actual accurate usage in K watt stuff) quoted me from about £110 to as high as £130 (both per month) for two year fixes.
Hmmn.
Went to 'compare the market' their phone system didn't want to know me.
Then came the big break.
Went to uswitch, put some stuff in, and got a call immediately from a guy in Woking.
I told him my story, went through the details, told him my exact usage so on and so forth.
He then quoted me £84.50 for gas and leccy per month for 23 months.
I was so surprised I asked several times if it was true what he was saying, he said yes, I asked who it would be with and to my bigger surprise he said British Gas.
They, uswitch, get on to EDF and sort the switch.
Change over in how ever many (21?) days.
So instead of facing a near 50% increase in my energy bill, it is closer to 10%.
So from my experience this morning I am glad I got on to uswitch.

As a little extra you can visit uSwitch via the TopCashBack website or app and earn yourself £10 for a single fuel switch and £40 for a dual fuel switch.