Smart meter reading shock

[Parkingt111]

We have moved to a new house two months ago and until now we're on a Direct debit with British gas of around a £100 a month. Finally switched on the smart meter and this is what it shows. Is this normal?? It seems incredibly high. We live on a 4 bed semi detached and have the thermostat set to 18 degrees. Today's daily usage is showing £12.50 for gas and electric which means on average the monthly bill will be £375? Is this how much most people are paying?

Yes mine is that similar property can manage £8 to £10 most day but when really freezing it's been up to £12.

Thank you so much to everyone who has replied. It has been really helpful. We are going to speak to British gas about raising our monthly direct debit so it's not a shocking bill In 6 months and then sit down with a plan on how we can try and reduce the usage

If you know what plan you are on with BG, you can look on the website. I'm on the OVO standard variable tariff and the daily standing charges are 50.13p per day (electric) and 27.12p per day (gas).

4 bed detached house, two of us home all day, heating on from 6.30am to 10pm - total today for gas and electric including standing charge was £18 - thermostat set at 20.

we doubled our monthly payment back in April, in credit of £700+ getting back the £66 per month from government.

it’s a shocker for sure !

Assuming OP has been living under a rock these past several months

If you can have night tariff for electricity, I’d recommend to take it. It’s specially handful for using appliances overnight. This has highly decreased our bills! Or, don’t take showers for days 😂

I thought that only worker out cheaper if you've got stuff like storage heaters and electric vehicles @WorkinMumsince4ever ?
Your night rate is lower but aren't the day rates sky high?

That’s what I thought as well. Then my husband calculated the usage for the washing machine, dishwasher and drier. All together made sense. We have it since last year.

We both work from home and use electricity only in the places only where it’s need it.

We have “Tado” in the house to help us program the heating in every room.

My advice, is try to measure how much you use per appliance. You can Google it to have a reference, assess your usage and do the maths. I hope this helps.

Don't assume running an electric heater will be cheaper. The unit price for gas is still cheaper than electric and gas will heat the whole house.
Does the app with your smart meter show your useage throughout the day? Several people have reported the frost setting on the boiler upping useage over night during this really cold spell.
Next week is forecast to be much warmer so hopefully that high figure won't apply for the whole month.

Sounds pretty reasonable for a 4-bed house heated all day.

How much are you both saving by working from home rather than commuting? Probably a lot more than the electricity bill.

Can I ask how old your house is? We're spending around 16/17 a day using the heating slightly less and we're in a two bed semi detached Edwardian house!

Ours was £700 this month. Around 28 a day in gas and we're freezing. The house is impossible to heat.

@NewBootsAndRanty you are right. I'm on economy 10 rather than 7.
Currently it's 12.5p for off peak and 42p for peak.
In January the peak goes up to a rather scary 53p but the cheap rate is down to 5.5p.
Ours at least applies at three points through the day and we are all electric heating (not sure they are available otherwise).
We try to do as much as possible off peak but you can't really cook your tea in the middle of the night so can't see it being worth it to many people with a gas supply.

Mine hit £6 the other afternoon (I'm warming to 15 Deg in a three bed terrace) and I yelled "fuck you" at my smart monitor and switched the boiler off (well, to frost). It's bloody cold in the house but I'm not having it. Had to put my electric throw under my duvets so I could sleep before my shift earlier. It's really not a sensible option but I'm stubborn.

Oh, there's rads on in two rooms only with all other doors shut.

We try to do as much as possible off peak but you can't really cook your tea in the middle of the night

slow cooker over night then reheat in microwave?

For everyone saying summer will be so much cheaper we will still have the ridiculous standing charges , that won't change

Hi, yes it is a 1987 build.

You can change the DD yourself on the app or online.

We are in a B rated three bed new build semi and we just use less heating. Myself and a teen. Averaging about £4 a day for both gas and electric so far this month. I don't wfh, no young children or elderly or health conditions, so thermostat is at 13 a couple of hours a day, longer at weekends.

This is why I was always suspicious of smart meters. Unplug it and throw it away! I felt a bit tin-hatty being worried about them, but it turns out I was right.

We recently moved from a small 3 bed new build paying £100 DD on the old variable tariff

we'ren ow in a large 20 year old 4 bed semi and hitting £15 a day combined for gad and electric and that's trying to be somewhat frugal - thermostat set to 13 overnight and when out, 16 for morning routine and 17 in the evening. If we're in all day it goes back up to 16 which isn't too much more overall. our last house would site at 17/18 with only needing heating for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening, so it's a shock having to use the heating so much here.

we also now have a conservatory off the living room which the last owners didn't put doors on between the living room and the conservatory so even with thermal curtains it's a massive heat sink - getting the roof replaced with a warm roof soon so the house shouldn't cool down so quickly

We also got a hive fitted which is great being able to easily control the thermostat and turn down if I'm not actually cold or if we're out later than planned, so less heat wasted

Our DD is now set to £250 a month - but we only started the DD in November so I'm worried British Gas will try and increase this next year as we will have no summer credit (our summer heating use is £170 a month on current tariff)

The 'ridiculous standing charges' are about 10% of the annual bill for the average user. They're higher than they were, but a drop in the ocean compared with the cost of heating in winter.

I'm astonished that there are still people who are apparently unaware how much gas has gone up, that a £100 pm direct debit could be sufficient for a 4 bed semi, or that a large part of the bill is the cost of heating in winter. But we'll probably still be seeing people expressing surprise at this when they get a quarterly bill well into four figures in February/March time.

Do you understand that the Smart meter is the actual meter that measures the gas or the electricity -not the display unit?

Unplugging the display will not change the amount of energy used.

What are you right about?

What is your rate per KWH and how many KWHs are you using? So many posts like this but we all pay a different rate! I'm in a 4 bed detached house with thermostat set to 19 and fairly high usage but I don't pay that. I'm closer to £250 for both at the moment. I pay 26p KWh for elec and 5p KWh for gas.