£854 per month gas and electricity

[vinoandbrie]

My fixed rate comes to an end on 31 May.

Scottish Power emailed me this morning to say your tariff is ending, click here to view options.

I have two options, one for £853.99pcm, the other for £854pcm. I’m going to attach screen shots as this amount is so unbelievable otherwise. We currently pay £285pcm.

I should just go to a default tariff right and not a fixed rate?

Gas and electricity will now be costing us more than our mortgage.

My usage is 14608kwh gas and 5786kwh electricity for 4 bed detached in Scotland

I have gone onto the standard variable rate as the fixed rates were too expensive

If only 4 of you in a house, irrespective of how big your house is the usuage shouldn’t be that high- unless you heat every radiator constantly

There are so many ways to reduce your fuel consumption. Perhaps spend a day on researching all ways to conserve not spend, It sounds like you live in a really big house, giving potential for greater savings.

Is your house old and leaky OP?

285 is significantly higher than my friend's giant 6 bed room detached period house with minimal insulation.

Something sounds not right.

Tbh on the assumption you're not too short of money I'd be looking into renewable techs, also pushing to get a smart meter so you can understand where all that usage comes from.

Invest in some blankets for evenings in and start getting used to your thermostat being a degree cooler, then another, them another.

Do you keep the house at 26 with the windows open or something!

That is insane!!!
Go on pre payment..... you will without doubt, use wayyyy less than £10k a year!
Wow!!

It’s hardly surprising that the fix they’re offering is so expensive - it’s clearly not what you’ll pay if you go on to the standard tariff as it’s anticipating the next round of rises too. Your bill is going to be big though and if you only pay what you use through the summer you’ll have no buffer built up for next winter so worth at least finding out the direct debit amount they recommend without a fix (I’d guess £500-£600ish) or calculating the cost at todays rates of the units you used in the last 12 months and putting some money aside.

One message says cost estimated at £5k per year, but fixed rate is for £10k per year? Something not quite right unless first is for gas or electric only and the other for both?

Don’t go on pre-payment though, that’s invariably more expensive.

Thanks everyone for your help, I agree the way to go is to try to conserve energy. And from what I am hearing, to avoid fixing at this rate.

I’m sorry for not giving usage, the way they are presented on the website is in bleeping bar graphs that do not really help very much. I can see though that our usage is down a little on this time last year, for the period Dec 21 - March 22.

@MatildaJayne I believe the £5k figure is for the year gone, not the year upcoming.

Seriously though, a tripling in the monthly direct debit amount. It is crackers. How on earth are people going to manage?

Your estimated usage should be on a bill or on the calculation for the new fixed rate. What is the price per kwh?

And no, we don’t keep the house at 26 with the windows open I promise 🤣😂

But it is an old house. We have double glazing and central heating, but no modern renewable tech or anything.

They arent going to fix at that extortionate rate and will stay on the price capped rate per kwh

Mine has gone up from £90/month to £150/month so not even double. Tripling is crazy.

Ours was 177 and then the company went bust and British gas quoted 377. However I did then extract the previous years usage figures from provider that went bust and BG were massively over estimating. Our usage at the current variable rate is 250. However we are paying at 377 to make sure we are ahead by winter.

Since then we have had smart meters fitted.

£285 on a fixed tariff pre price cap rises is a lot to begin with, so I wouldn't be surprised if it more than doubled on a new fixed tariff. The variable will be less.

Your usage in KWH should be on your bills, so you can see if the quotes are accurate or not.

We have an old house too and ours was around same as yours as has just gone up around £100 a month so that seems very steep. Though we had a 30 year old boiler which I got changed in October which may have brought ours down.

Do you know how old your boiler is? It may be worth getting someone to look into these things at that scale of money. Our boiler was something like £5k installed with old house but should last at least 12 years (under guarantee) and if it brings £200 a month off bills would pay back in 2 years, if you have the cash to upgrade and an old boiler may be worth considering. Think there is also some kind of energy efficiency survey you can have, think ours was about £70 which suggests things, maybe EPC. Some where totally impractical but it gave estimated savings and suggestions.

Hope can find a way of getting it down.

I now have the usage figures:

Gas usage: 36,380 kWh
Gas estimated annual cost: £1,265
Electricity usage: 9,244 kWh
Electricity estimated annual cost: £1,732

The costs relate to the year just gone, and do not take account of the new higher costs.

Thanks @Silkierabbit I think I’ll get that looked into. The boiler has been here since 2006 I think.

So your costs are going from £3000 a year to over £10k? That’s a ridiculous fixed rate!

Wow your usage is huge!!!! We have our heating on all day, large house, and use a third of the amount of gas you use. Unless your house is 8,000 square feet I can't see how you can use that much?

But yes the fixed tariffs are assuming another price hike in the autumn so increasing their rates in anticipation of this, hence only look at standard variable as that is the one the cap applies to.

When you say it’s not small, what are you talking-4 bed or 8 bed/plus lots of reception rooms?

How big is your house. We have a four bed, not new build, not great window, I use the dishwasher twice a day, washing machine at least daily, tumble drier daily, heating set at 20 during the day and 18 over night and ours is going from £170 to £300.