Just read my meters & I'm crying in the bathroom

[medianewbie]

In Nov, my combi boiler broke (& I had no heat or hot water for a week). Local plumber eventually fixed but must have left it turned up higher (test?) settings than usual settings (kicking myself I didn't check after). I just inputted my monthly meter readings. I'm with Scottish Gas & they are awful for comms but this is all the info I can get from my account. My house is F rated for energy efficiency but not Chatsworth. We hardly have the heating on, only shower twice a week, no tumbledryer etc but my combined bill this month was £598.36 !!! I can't pay it. I'm disabled so they can't cut me off but they can install a prepay meter. I don't know what to do. This isn't a begging thread, or even a sympathy thread really but I have 2 asd teenagers & I don't want to worry in front of them so I needed to 'say' it somewhere.

For electric that's 754 kwh - about £250 - in 28 days.. that seems really high.

OP, as I said I am also with Scottish Power and submitted my readings today. Looking at your graph and comparing it to mine you have used a lot more gas than us, and we have had our heating on for 4-5 hours a day. We live in a 3 bed house and our house isn't cold. So if you're only having your heating on for 2 hours a day something isn't right. How big is your house, how many radiators do you have?

This was not your fault and I am totally sympathetic, however I suggest you contact citizens advice bureau asap, as this incident was due to no fault of your own and CAB will direct you to the organisation(s) who may may be able to help.

I hope this helps

If you have your radiator on setting 2, it won't get your room any warmer than 15° btw, no matter what your boiler is set at.

If you set it at 3, you should be able to get up to 20°, 4 will get you to up to 25°.
Two hours of heating a house from cold is unlikely to raise the temperature more than a couple of degrees regardless.

I posted my annual usage above I think?

760kw is a lot of electricity. I use this much but have an electric car.

Not only is it really high but it's not much lower in the other months. I'd be more worried about that than about heavy gas use for two or three months of the year.

I mean I'm a low user and live on my own, but my annual electric usage is about 800kwh.

I appreciate that's a graph but it says annual useage of: 19129.46 kWh ??
There's no further breakdown I can access via the App. Online account 'doesn't recognise my postcode'. They don't answer the phone. SG are really poor for customer service. I'm going to keep rhe lights on the tree till 6th. I've opened up a fireplace & bought coal. Kids go back on 9th so will be warmer (except Dd on study leave & ds college strike days). We're due a cold snap in Jan which is scary frankly.

Maybe ask the fitter if he changed anything on the boiler? Turned the water temp up or anything, I dunno? We did have that very cold snap too.. :-(

1905.4 kWh is my usage for electric annually, which is just shy of 3 x your monthly amount

I have electric oven, 2 fridges, tumble drier I hardly use, dishwasher, washing machine.

how are you using this amount of electric?

is there any way you can upgrade the insulation?

Your electricity usage does seem very high. Ours is around 350kwh a month and we have a lot of electronic devices like monitors and computers etc as wfh. Do you use your oven a lot, charge a car? You mentioned a disability so is there a lot of electricity usage associated with that?
we used a similar amount of gas to you last month but had the heating at 18.5 from 7am to ten pm for a five bed house. It was £240 for our gas so I think it must be your electricity usage which is costing you so much more than average.

@medianewbie if you look at your graph and consider that in December your gas was around £290 and your electricity around £275… then look at your electricity for every other month and it's nearly as high in £ terms as your highest gas usage.

I would ask on the Facebook group energy support and advice uk. They are a community interest company and also have a webpage. They should be able to point you in the right direction for any additional grants
is your meter in cubic feet or cubic meters for gas because sometimes the power companies do the wrong conversion and is your electricity meter accurate are questions worth asking.

OP, you don't want a smart meter, as they can more easily switch that to prepayment than installing a prepay meter.

I would hope they would agree a payment plan with you, before switching you over to prepay. In some cases, if you are disabled, they can't put a prepayment meter in anyway, so I would explore this.

The gas for December is only a bit higher than January last year, and last winter was pretty mild- if the house is very cold, your heating will have to work harder initially to warm it up, plus the potential issue with the boiler.

I'd try to call again on Tuesday, after new years, and hopefully you will get through to someone eventually and be able to agree something.

But it is shit, I'm sorry.

I don't have a timer. I have controls on each radiator set to number 2.

why don't you have a timer? do you have a thermostat? and if so where is it located

Ok.. if we assume that your regular electric use is 750kwh a month, thats 9000kwh a year of electric, about £3286 at 36.512p/kwh

That leaves 10,129kwh a year of energy that is used on gas.
At 11.03p/kwh thats £1109.

£330 standing charge
That's £4725 a year/£394 a month.

Does that sound about right?

I’d be wondering if you’re paying for you and a neighbour at that sort of usage.

I have similar annual consumption figures to those that NewBootsandRanty just posted. But I am in a huge 6 bed detached house, with ridiculously expensive electric underfloor heating, and while it hasn’t been as warm as it was in previous years, due to me strictly regulating the usage because of spiralling costs, we certainly haven’t frozen either.

it does sound as though your usage figures are very high.

Have you switched on the emersion heater for hot water by any chance and forgotten to turn it off?

Turn the dials up on the radiators in the rooms you are using as none of your rooms will heat up when they're set at 2

What's your high electricity users? I'm assuming no immersion heater if you have a combi boiler?

Jut read your meter and already have a bill that you can't pay?
No time for crying, but to do something, tbh. If you can't pay you can't pay. Contact them. Figure out the solution.

There's not much OP can do on NYE, she won't be able to contact her energy supplier. She's just looking for a bit of support at an upsetting time. A bit of sympathy wouldn't go amiss.

I have a combi boiler which runs the radiators. 4 beds, 2 in the arctic space. Only 1 rad in each room & 1 room not used so rads off. An upstairs sitting room I don't use, rads off. A lounge (15x15ft high ceiling). Kit diner sim size. 1 rad in each room. 1 bathroom. 1 sep loo. Large basement (no rads). Fridge freezer, spare chest freezer (rural). Dishwasher (3x wk). Washing machine (3x wk). I did have a small fish tank but I got rid of it & electrics consumption seems unchanged.
No electric car.
The electrics are on 2 separate circuits.
I wondered if we were paying 'twice'?
SG won't come out - not interested.

I don't understand, did she receive the bill today and panicking? She says she can't pay the bill for this month already, so no point in panicking now?