ok heres the scenario...small cottage heated only by wood burners. green eco light bulbs trhroughout. during day sometimes 1 heat lamp on, sometimes 1 computer on.  a small heated bulb on 24 hours a day for chameleon. no stereo, no tv, no games etc etc on. 1 person home everyday. electric cooker used once a day.one washing machine load per day. no tumble drier. no electric gadgets. so how does that land up as a £500 a quarter elec bill????? anyone any suggestions?

was the bill based on a meter reading or an estimated reading??? that may make a difference, but I would still be on the phone if I were you!!!

If it was a meter read bill, read it your self as they are renouned for getting it wrong and phone the correct reading through !

Oooh I'd be getting your meter checked if I were you Sam!

Just one thought - you haven't changed suppliers lately have you?  I had an awful problem when I switched companies and it took them over a year to refund money taken out by variable DD because they said the previous suppliers last meter reading must have been wrong - even though it was the current company that read the meter when we switched!

Debs

Sam we had something similar in the old house and we insisted they came out to check the meter. They said we'd have to pay for the visit if it turned out the meter was working fine, but as it happened it was found to be faulty and had clocked up much more electricity than we really used.

We had this with BG they wanted to charge us over £1000 and we had been paying a monthly direct debit, this went on for 18 months and many, many phone calls.  In the end we stopped the direct debit and put complaint after complaint on.  Eventually got it sorted then moved away from them, no problem since our new supplier.  Yours does seem rather high!

well ironically we had an estimate which was £300 and I thought it was too high, so rang them with a reading and now its £500!

Unfortunately we are in a similar position and it all stems from when we moved in October.  Kept to same supplier but as they werent supplying the new address, I had to wait for 6 weeks for them to change over the supply.  This has lead to all sorts of problems and we have now have been landed quite a hefty bill (for us). 

Must admit that £500 does seem a little high compared to mine which is for a 4 bed semi, heating on twice a day for a total of 3 hours and water about the same amount of time.  At least one washing load a day (usually 2) and tumble drier on for each load.  Electric cooker used at least once a day.  However we are a family of 6 and so yes we do have quite a few gadgets :-D and our quarterly bill was £270 which is high for us (used to pay £60 per month for combined gas/elec bill).

Sounds like rather a large bill to me. As well as the normal household appliances we have a fairly large additional useage in that we have an electrically operated hospital bed that is switched on constantly, an electrically operated wheelchair that is recharged each and every night, electrically operated chair and various other medical items that all use a lot of electricity.

Firstly I would check the period of time that your bill covers - they are sometimes for more than 3 months. Secondly I would check and see if your last bills have been estimates rather than actual readings because it is very easy for any underestimations in the past to have a hefty impact on a bill where an actual reading is used. Our current bill came in at £125 which is about usual for a winter quarter but I knew it would be far more than that due to our abnormal current comsumption so supplied them with a proper reading as I didn't want an accumulation of underestimations to reach a level that we just couldn't afford to pay. The new bill for an accurate reading is just over £300 for 3 months and 10 days supply.

That doesn't sound right to me at all, I would definitely complain.  I pay £75 a month direct debit but we are quite heavy on electric with 3 desk top computers, washer doing about 3 loads a day, dryer, tv on most of the night.  My teenage son and daughter also have their tv's on most of the time when they are in as well as their computers (despite me telling them to turn them off when on the computer)  We also have the fridge on all the time and sometimes the dehumidifier.

i work for an electricity company and deal with these queries every day! if this bill isnt a catch-up of a few estimated quarters then i would take meter readings evry day at the same time of day for about a week to see how many units you are using per day. from what your saying, it odes sound high, but its really difficult to explain with out having more info in front of you. what people dont seem to realise when comparing two different households, is that evryones appliances work differently, and the insulation in the property makes a difference. i would say that ur reptile tank will use more than you think but not enough to come to that amount. do you have any electric heating at all? there could be a number of reasons for this, including a faulty meter, however if you want it tested then all companies will charge if it proves there is nothing wrong with the meter.

becky x

ja.moss, I went through something similiar with BG, hope you don't get a bad credit rating from them due to this like they've done to me!! 

That can't be right surely!  I'm all electric with storage heaters and an electric fire which I've had on constantly since last October.  My bill from last August until now (Feb) was £354 and I'm over £50 in credit as well.  I'm in a small Barratt terraced house, two up two down but I thought that was reasonable.  I moved from NPower to Atlantic and they've been great.  You must check your bill.

CG

When was the last time you had a meter read bill ?

Do you know what your usual consumption is and the last time you had a real reading. If you can get the date of the last reading and the work out between that and now how much you have used you will be able to work out your usage.

I had a quick look at my bank account and notice I pay myself £160 a month for gas and electric combined.  so that is £480 per quarter but that is for everything in a 4 bed detached bungalow.

Sam, you are very similar to myself... only one person living in home..cottage, coal heating.... although 2 washloads per day at moment... I struggled to find out why I was paying nearly £500 quartely for electric bill... I found the answer... I ran 2 heatlamps... with a power reader attatched to them.. I discovered they were costing over £2 per day to run... these two little lamps alone were running up a bill of £60 per month = £180 per quarter.. I unplugged them.. and my quarterly bill is now around £350.. although during the winter months my bill does go up drastically as I use 2 x 500watt halogen bulbs to light and give a little heat to the patio/dog run.. but these only cost me around 80p per day...

check you heat lamps ;-)

perrodeagua, I hope not, although we stopped the payments, they were then very quick to sort out the problem and we paid what we owed straight away.  Luckily we only have the mortgage left and that's nearly finished now.