AIBU to phone and scream at the gas company for this huge bill?

[BritTex]

sorry, kind of new at this - utility bills here in the UK. I just opened my gas bill and it is 173 quid !!!! for a family of 3 in a 2 bed flat. Is that reasonable? The last 2 bills we got were for 40 pounds and we were away at Christmas for a week .

[Iklboo]

They may have grossly undercharged you for first two bills - to be honest, £40 a quarter is rather low. They may have done estimated readings before, or an estimeated one now.
Check the readings on your bill with the one on your meter

[Tortington]

i pay £50 pm - so if that is for per quarter - i think its fine

[duchesse]

That leap doesn't sound quite right... There might be a leak- can you smell anything? Also, have they read the meter recently where they might not have done before? They might have produced previous bills based on estimates for the previous occupant, and be catching up now.

[alibubbles]

Mine is £75 a month, so if that is for a quarter, that sounds about right. My electricity is £100 a month, there is just DD and me Mon - Fri and DH sat the weekends, we use economy 7 for the d/w w/m and drier.

I think all bills have gone up a lot this last 12 months, including food!

[BritTex]

Yes it is for the quarter. I am just so shocked! in Texas I pay $40 per month (20gbp) for gas and $80 (40 gbp) for electric and that's for a 4 bedroom house! owch ! gosh why is everything sooooo expensive in this country?

[BritTex]

Yes it is for the quarter. I am just so shocked! in Texas I pay $40 per month (20gbp) for gas and $80 (40 gbp) for electric and that's for a 4 bedroom house! owch ! gosh why is everything sooooo expensive in this country?

[VictorianSqualor]

Can't help as we have calor, but that doesnt sound too high from previous bills we had.

[BritTex]

ok, so shocked it just had to post it twice .

[scorpio1]

we pay just over £50 a month too for gas and £23 for electric.

[chipkid]

If the earlier bills were based on actual readings-tell them that you are concerned that your meter is faulty-they can put a checking meter into the property and check over a week that your meter is clocking the same amount of gas.

I think it sounds like a reasonable bill though

[sb6699]

I got one last year for £500 per quarter after paying £250 per quarter with meter readings.

Now they're around £180 per quarter with readings and still we can't get British Gas to explain why we had that astromical one.

[charliecat]

If you have the heating on a lot then id say that was quite reasonable really.

[DaddyJ]

Wait till you see the petrol prices round here!

Your bill sounds about right, I am afraid.
Bracing myself for a similar one next month.

[BritTex]

thank you for all your responses - I will call the gas company and make sure that the meter readings are acurate. You have all prevented me from going ballistic on them thanks.

[VanillaPumpkin]

Monthly we pay £52 for electricity and £20 for gas but I think we should be paying £30 for the gas. We have gas central heating and hot water but electric oven and electric shower.
It is a pain isn't it? The UK is expensive apart from for clothes it seems........

[BritTex]

oh, and dh will be getting a stern talking too about standing in the shower for 10 minutes trying to wake up !!

[duchesse]

We are not on mains gas, and have an LPG boiler. When we moved in 3 yrs ago, it used to cost £590 to fill it up. Now costs us £700. We have to have this done twice a year, and this is achieved by limited use of the CH, sharing bath water (well, the children do) and keeping the house subtly above fridge temperature. Also we have solar tubes- without them we would probably have to have one more tank a year.

Shudder

[serenity]

Ok, we got our gas/electric statement today too. We've also got a 2 bedroom flat (5 of us though) and our gas came to £108.12 this quarter - we do have the heating on a lot as I'm at home during the day and I hate being cold If your previous bills were estimated, that would explain why this one is big. If I were you I'd switch to DD, it's far easier to budget and if you get the levels right, you build up credit during the summer which absorbs the extra costs during the winter.

[gr1973]

I'd agree with senerity, britTex - setting up a direct debit for your gas/elec bills help spreads the cost throughout the year.

Its pretty standard for the utility companies to base your bills on estimated usage if they haven't gained entry to do a meter reading. If it was an estimated reading you can check the reading on your bill to see how much more/less it is compared to your meter to see if you have over/underpaid.

Even if you go down the direct debit route make sure that you get an actual meter reading every few months to make sure you're not paying too much/too little. We've only recently claimed back about £100 as our account was so much in credit.

[BeMyLilBaby]

I would check it wasnt an estimated bill,EDF nearly conned me out of over £100 in bills because they'd estimated the bill

[amidaiwish]

shortly after moving into our house i got a bill from british gas for £1100!

imagine the freak out i had

then it transpired it was a "made up" bill, one to get me to phone them up with all my details and the exact meter reading/reference etc. The guy on the phone was laughing, saying it was the best way to get people to contact them, and fast!