I nearly fell over yesterday when I opened up my combined gas/electricty bill and found I owe £580 and my monthly payments are increasing to £180 per month from £105. I only live in a 3 bed semi!

Anyone else had a similar bill recently?

Our bill is £65pm for electricity only, and we work from home with computers running all day long. DO they give you a split to see which is the expensive bit, elec or gas?

Is it based on an estimated reading or have your previous bills been based on an estimated reading for a while and now they have an actually reading which has caught things up a bit?

Cheers

Danny B

I feel your pain. We are with Npower and they seem to raise their prices every few months. They put their prices up in November then another increase in February. We were paying £65 a month and were in credit – now they want 105.. (3 bed semi). Go onto uswitch and do some comparisons, it is really easy to switch. The only problem is if you owe them money you have to pay it before you move.

Our annual Gas/Electric bill is about £1800. Thirties semi with a loft conversion, working at home.

I’ve stopped worrying, tbh.

The increase to £180 will be up until your next bill review date (ask them when that is) to make up the shortfall that you owe plus the expected extra annual usage. I had the same thing nad it has annoyed me. My bills up up around 30% more, but this falls in line with the general increase and also having the missus at home with the kids. The £180 will come down once the shortfall has been paid off (assuming costs don;t go up again).

HOWEVER and you’ll get this from everyone on here – check on your draft excluding, insulation – my house is effing terrible for it – a new £900 fornt door is being put in a couple o weeks as the current one might as well no t be there – and oh my the loft draft……

With Npower here, and until 18 months ago, we got annually adjusted bills. Now they are 6 monthly adjusted, my last 3 six month bills have been #90, #28,(when I was #400 in credit) and now #85 respectively. they seem to dislike arrears and adjust the payments to clear them quickly.
I preferred when it was annually and not seasonally adjusted.

Our bill is £65pm for electricity only, and we work from home with computers running all day long.

That’s pretty impressive. Last time I worked out how much it cost to run a computer it was something like £120/year (for 24/7), so £10/month each. I had a couple from work logging data on test radio links between our office and the house.

Whats temperature is your thermostat on?

footflaps – that sounds about right.
My main PC has a 1kw PSU 😳 but assuming that it’s only running on average at 200w, then for 18hrs a day, 365 days a year, thats 1,300kWh a year, or £160 @ 12p/kWh

Fortunately it’s a tax deductible expense.

Our “other electrical” costs are relatively modest thanks to all appliances being A or A+ and every single light in the house bing low wattage LED or CFL. In fact I think I worked out if you turned every light on in the house it would only come to about 600 Watts!

We are with Npower and it is the second time it has jumped. The previous meter reading was an estimate.

I will check on Uswitch and if NPower seem dear then I will try to pay it off and switch.

“Whats temperature is your thermostat on?” – About 18-19°C.

the loft draft ?

I changed over a few weeks ago after seeing my bill go up from 143pm to 162. (3 bed semi, lots of loft insulation and had that stuff in the walls) got a letter this morning from EDF telling me that I was 266 in credit and thats after the winter and after them wanting to put in up by 19pm.

Robbing barstewards all of them. check MSE for cheap energy club they have clear advice on whos charging what, I’d look at these deals that are fixed for about 18 months to help budget with things.

when i say loft draft, i mean the immense cold air that comes down fromthe loft – there is no felt on our roof, though it is boarded upto the first set of joists, but does mean that the eves are in effect compeltely open……brrrrr.. chilly in winter..

when i say loft draft draught, i mean the immense cold air that comes down fromthe from the loft – there is no felt on our roof, though it is boarded upto up to the first set of joists, but does mean that the eves eaves are in effect compeltely completely open……brrrrr.. chilly in winter.

Do your best to cut back usage, then take regular meter readings & submit them online. If you can show reduction in usage, the fact that each meter read generates a bill means that they automatically re-calculate. Did this when my bill was meant to go up massively. Paying a bit more than I was, but not a £70p/m jump

Just for comparison, here in New Mexico, USA, my gas and electric bill is $US 218 /month, so not a lot of difference. It is on a 3 BR house and the bill is averaged over the year so the payments stay the same.
Interestingly, the price of natural gas has been low, but my gas bill went up a bit the past year (which you would think wouldn’t be the case considering the amount of natural gas produced in New Mexico).

Our gas bill was £340 and leccy £180, landed on the mat a couple of weeks ago. We’re in a modernish 3 bed end of terrace, well insulated etc and despite having young kids at home we don’t go crazy with the heating (16 – 18 on the thermostat, it gets turned right down when we’re out and is on a timer so not permanently on). Very painful.

Our “other electrical” costs are relatively modest thanks to all appliances being A or A+ and every single light in the house bing low wattage LED or CFL. In fact I think I worked out if you turned every light on in the house it would only come to about 600 Watts!

I’ve not found any really decent spot lights that aren’t incandescent things, so my kitchen alone is 900W (15 spots) plus a 500W Halogen outside for the patio!

footflaps … i got some modern 240v LEDS of 3 watt variety.

im impressed….

“when i say loft draft, i mean the immense cold air that comes down fromthe loft – there is no felt on our roof, though it is boarded upto the first set of joists, but does mean that the eves are in effect compeltely open……brrrrr.. chilly in winter.. “

you need breathing in the roof space. But you should be insulated from it by the insulation on the floor of your attic.

I spent over a hundred quid on buying loads of different GU10 LED spots to test them all – since I was going to be buying over 100 of them for the barn it made sense to “invest” as they range in price from £4 to £22.

Im happy with the ones I have – a range from 1.5W to 7W LED GU10s and 9W CFLs in wall shades. Looks fine to me.

EDIT: Oh and just remembered that last month I connected our dishwasher to the hot water supply (biomass heated) which will save about 5p-10p a day in electricity 😀

My 1930’s semi with solid walls costs £165 per month in gas+electric with npower. I know this is bang on for our use as I’ve been taking readings once a month since we bought the place a year ago. Done a price check using uSwitch with accurate numbers and npower still coming out cheapest as well.

Gas is the culprit in our case, costing £120 per month, boiler is 25 years old and it’d be more efficient to burn £50 notes in it. Thankfully, it’s being replaced at the end of the month.

Not a lot more we can do about it. Loft and floors insulated as best can be, double glazed, efficient bulbs all round, heating used as sensibly as you can with two very young children in the house, wife in all day, and me working at home a lot.

Will be interested to see what the bills are like once the new boiler and fancy heating controls are in, along with a few new rads.

£145 pm combined gas and elec here with Britsh Gas. 4 bed house.
We are heat monkeys though.

footflaps … i got some modern 240v LEDS of 3 watt variety.

and

m happy with the ones I have – a range from 1.5W to 7W LED GU10s and 9W CFLs in wall shades. Looks fine to me.

I’d be up to try anything you can recommend…

One of the biggest eaters of leccy is the pelmet lights in the kitchen, as they’re often on for hours each day. I have something like 260W worth of fluorescent tubes which I’d love to swap out for LEDs or something and get down to a few 10s of Watts.

Thatcher’s legacy?

They are just about to **** up the water industry too

I ended up paying off £300 of the £580 owed and that has brought the monthly payments to £116.

Just got to train the bloody kids to switch off the lights!!

£50 a month for gas and electric.

Heating hardly ever on. If its cold then it’s duvet on the sofa time.
No dryer.
No dish washer.
Everything turned off when I am out.

My leccy bill is £100 per month – 4 of us with dishwasher, tumble dryer and 2 electric showers. Oil bills are on top – no idea how much but loads.

£100 pm seems awfully high to me. I wonder would gas be cheaper (no need for electric showers). Not everyone in Northern Ireland has access to mains gas though.

Two bed flat (upper floor of a terrace), single glazing, little/no loft insulation and my combined gad and electric bill is £62 a month. It helps the neighbours downstairs provide underfloor heating.

3 bed terrace – 1st month of ownership and the bill came in yesterday

Combined £221 (£166 Gas, £55 Elec)

I think I need to look at our usage.

3 bed terrace – 1st month of ownership and the bill came in yesterday

Combined £221 (£166 Gas, £55 Elec)

I think I need to look at our usage.
Check if anybody bothered to do the meter readings first, also make sure your not paying for previous owners usage.

We are on edf blue which is fixed at £60 a month for our gas and electric. Sounds like we have a good deal.
Typical 30s semi. As for the draught from the loft we put an old duvet over the hatch before closing it.

bloomin pedants – draft ,,draught – i get it ok! Anyway, i understand about roofs /actics/lofts needing to breath, but how are they supposed to do this if it’s converted? Mine, whilst not converted has been fully boarded with i hope some insulation inbetween the rafters (i can’t lift the bloody boards up!), and a skylight. the loft hatch is most to blame for it’s poor draught exclusion, but also through some holes in the old boiler cupboard (now and “airing cupboard)). Also i had to take the spot lights out of the kitchen the other day due to a slight flood issue (tap left on) and could not believe the draught coming through holes (false ceiling)..

We pay about £60 / month gas and £40 / month leccy for 3 bed Victorian terrace. Solid walls, and massive void under the wooden floors so far from well insulated.

Heating hardly ever on. If its cold then it’s duvet on the sofa time.
No dryer.
No dish washer.
Everything turned off when I am out.

Sounds like a right laugh….

DrP 😉

footflaps – I like these
http://www.energybulbs.co.uk/deltech+single+high+power+led+3w+gu10+-+warm+white/3735374658

3W, £16.50, but you should be able to do a deal, there’s also an eBay seller for £6.75 each

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400350586091

and these:

http://www.energybulbs.co.uk/deltech+triple+high+power+led+5w+gu10+-+warm+white/1489275929

5W, £23

These deltech 1.5W are good filler light, but not spot.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/251192125085

Check if anybody bothered to do the meter readings first, also make sure your not paying for previous owners usage.

I took the readings both times, so all our usage unfortunately.

Heating was on 3hrs in a morning and 4 hours in an evening due to mine and the mrs work patterns. I’ll be getting up in the cold from now on though!

We’re all electric 2 bedroom and pay £52 a month and have just this morning being informed we are getting £275 back after getting a faulty meter changed! Whoop whoop. I can’t believe how much some of you are paying, genuinely surprised.