[Howie]

I live in a regular terraced 4 bed house. 2 adults and 1 teenager here much of the time. Before the price increase, I was paying just under £4000 a year.. combined. It has now gone up to around £5160 per annum (£430 per month).
I have checked that the number of units of gas and electric used (according to my bill) match up with what I am being charged.
It could be that my meters are not working as they should…
After speaking with someone at e.on I decided to test both meters whilst away for the weekend, by switching all gas and electric off and reading meters before and after. There was no change in the meter readings.
We couldn’t be using this much energy.
Help!!

[meldrewreborn]

@Howie

Historically have you been using similar amounts of energy? While meters can go faulty, @theunknowntech will advise when they're around, its very unlikely that both are faulty at the same time.
I've known that people from different backgrounds and cultures have settings on their heating that make my eyes roll, and i think my bills are bad enough. The higher the thermostat the higher your bills, and if your home is poorly insulated you could be heating the street!

Use the summer months to look at your consumption before the peak heating season is upon us, and the prices are likely to go up again in October adding to the pressure to do something.

use the advice available at this link to check everything out. Energy advice for your home - Energy Saving Trust

[meldrewreborn]

You need to use data rather than feelings. Take daily readings from your meters and use a spreadsheet to calculate value of energy used. I don’t cave a smart meter and can control my consumption by being aware of what the guzzlers are. Kids use a lot of power with their gadgets and electricity is 4 times price of gas. A full audit will pay dividends!

[Han_EONNext]

Good evening @Howie 😊 how are you doing?

There has been some good points raised by @Andy65 and @meldrewreborn here to help explain things; but I do just want to remind members of our community values and ensure everybody here in our lovely community is happy.

As pointed out by our lovely members, you usage can change depending on your living situation etc. For example, the classic storage heaters tend to use more energy, the building may be less insulated (so although it may be smaller, it in fact could cost more to heat) and perhaps you simply have a dodgy appliance which is skyrocketing your usage everytime you use it! You are doing the correct thing, and testing what is happening and when and making sure to eliminate another reason before assuming the meters are faulty 😊.

Here at E.ON Next we do have tests that an engineer can do to detirmine if the meter is indeed faulty. This will carry a price of £100.93 and you will pay this upfront, however if we do find a fault in the meter we will get this refunded to you! But this is of course a last resort and you need to make sure all the tests are conducted first.

If you need more help with testing the meter or want to discuss us testing the meter then please use the contact us page to speak with an Energy Specialist in more detail 😊.

Let us know how you get on!
Hannah 💚

[Howie]

@meldrewreborn.. yes, the amount of energy usage hasn’t changed. However, I moved from a much larger house where clearly more energy was being used due to more people living there. My bills there were half what they are here… and I do mean before the increased prices too.
Have recently been using bare minimum of all energy…E.g. not using dishwasher, hardly turning electric oven on and heating is off. Yet over the month of May my bill seems to be about £200… how is that possible when we are hardly using anything burning energy?

[Howie]

@meldrewreborn.. thanks for trying to help, but some of your response sounds a little patronising… don’t know if it was meant to.
I have spent a long time crunching hard data.. but not found an answer yet… cheers

[Andy65]

Hi @Howie

£4000 seems like an awful lot of power to me but I'm at the stingy end of the usage scale. You say that you've crunched the numbers, what's your split between gas and electric?
The best way to analyse this is by month in kWhs if you've got your monthly bills handy. Then look at what appliances you've got, their consumption, use, age etc.

I live alone in a 3 bed semi and the most I've ever paid per month for both gas and electric was £80 back in 2014. I currently pay less than £50 per month although my fixed tariff comes to an end soon.

[meldrewreborn]

@Howie
i know precious little about you, your family, home, working practices , so when you ask for advice what are we supposed to say? We can point you in the right direction, then it’s up to you.

cutting usage through the on/off switch or thermostat and maximum insulation are the principle steps to take.

[meldrewreborn]

I use 3000 kWh of electricity and 15000-18000 kWh of gas per annum (gas varies according to severity of the winter!). My home is well insulated, full led lighting and we try to economise but never to the extent of being cold in my home. My costs at current variable prices are circa £2,200.

victorian houses are not regarded as being energy efficient, my 1930's extended semi has insulated cavity walls and we're here during the day.