£760 per month for energy!

[Veuvelily]

Dear God
It was £323.
There are 2 people living in this house

If there are only two of you, why are you doing a lot of washing?

Turn off the hot water! We have ours on 30mins twice a day. Pay someone to come and set the timer, will save money the first month!

This house is bigger, BUT, each of the 3 * floors has its own thermostat, so I am only ever using one floor.*

This is your issue. Keep all 3 a constant temperature. One thermostat is trying to heat all 3 floors.

That's very high! We are two and ours is fixed at £109 (above the April cap), was £62 on variable.

I'm in a new build four bed. It's gone up from £89 a month to £178 with an increase promised for October.

Stop doing so much washing.
Turn the hot water off

Whhhaaat?! We have 4 people in this house and I use the tumble dryer. My bill has just gone from £120 a month to £180 on the standard variable rate. Your bill is obscene!

@Watchkeys

Is it based on an estimate? I think they're trying to fill their coffers by over estimating. Lots of people will just suck it up and pay over the odds without realising its an estimate.

That’s what I’ve been thinking. I don’t really get it….it’s going up fifty percent in April….it’s an awful lot but that’s for example £150 instead of £100.

These are just estimated direct debits surely? You can still cut right back on your energy usage and pay the same unless you were really scrimping before. I was very careless with my energy use so I’m hoping to pay the same or less.

I'm one adult alone in a three bed terrace. A year ago I was paying £67pm for duel fuel. It went up to £104 last year which was fine. I got slightly in arrears so made a one off payment back in Dec to cover that, c£200.

They've now, out of the blue, put it up to £466pm and are saying I'm £350 in arrears.

I think their calculator is broken. Using actual readings fir Jan to Feb, the coldest darkest month, I work it out at £220pm, which I would obviously be fine with. But they won't chsjde it and are saying my calculations are wring and their are right.

So, if theirs are right, how was it £67pm a year ago? I know rates have gone up, but not 800%. And looking at previous unit rates and current, no, the difference is not that level at all.

They've somehow got my readings listed incorrectly. But they won't listen.

Ombudsman has just awarded me £100 from them for poor customer service, but this billing issue arose during that complaint. I really can't stomach going through that again.

I thought mine was bad, going up to £158/month. I work from home and have daily baths/showers. What the hell are you doing to make it that high?

@VanGoghsDog have you got quotes from anybody else?

Ok, check your actual usage and your unit rates.
What you are going to be charged in terms of usage vs what companies are currently asking for in terms of direct debits are 2 increasingly disconnected things.
The energy companies are trying to improve their cash flow by using customers credit in their accounts. See Martin Lewis for his explanation of this just this week.
About a month ago my company tried to double my direct debit. I am even on a fixed rate deal! I phon3d and said I wasn’t going to give approval for that and my DD was to stay the same unless they could show I was in debit.
My argument is that I had a large credit built up with a previous supplier who went bust. It took me over 4 months to get my money back from receiver company and a lot of chasing. It was a few hundred pounds so not inconsequential.

Do your calculation. Work out what your actual chargers are. Then go back and counter their demand with a sensible figure.

Ours is going up by £70 - there 5 of us in 4 bed house.

Our gas usage is really low but our electricity is really high for some reason - possibly based on last year when we were having to dry out an out building from water leak or because everyone was home working.

You need to work out you're actually using and were you can cut back - or change suppliers or both.

Do you have underfloor heating?

[quote girlmom21]@VanGoghsDog have you got quotes from anybody else? [/quote]
The unit prices and standing charge are in line with other providers.

I don't think anyone is taking switching customers right now anyway. But I couldn't really look while I had the ombudsman claim going on. That was linked to them not logging my readings, using estimates, and logging against an old meter that wasn't even here when they took on the supply. So, a different issue, now resolved, but it's taken six months to get sorted. (This is just the electric, the gas is recorded fine)

Are you a drug dealer growing your own crop!

Family of 5 here. Was £80 a month, gone up to £200.

Ours was £123 they told us direct debit was £396 !! (Posted on here) after multiple online chats we called and it's now at £260 no idea how it magically got reduced as both variable rates . Getting smart meters fitted anyhow and trying to cut down on usage!

Ours will go up from direct debit of £99 to £240 if I fix and I think £165 if I don’t. I don’t have a realistic choice at the moment. It won’t be that bad, because we were only using £80 a month (although they wouldn’t lower the DD and I was forever having to claw money back) but it’s bad enough. I’m crossing everything that it will settle by the winter, at least a bit. It’s already doubled (fifty percent my arse!)

By the way I didn't know you were supposed to turn your hot water off

My hot water is on a timer so it comes on a couple of times a day
Heating also on a timer and uses a thermostat

I don’t understand how you use soo much- 2 adults 2 young kids 3 bed terrace, home in the day going up to £200 a month

I tell a lie... our latest bill (4 weeks) was £43. So I guess we're using about £48/month. It was maybe £35 a year ago. We have solar panels, I suppose that must reduce the amount by 10-15%.

If OP does "lot of washing" -- how much? How does it get dry?

Hot water on 24/7 will add up hugely, too.

Nuts, I'm realising OP means gas + lekki.

Similarly ours has doubled from 224 to 447 on Octopus. No high usage pieces either (no tumble dryer, hot tub!, underfloor heating etc)
4 people in 5 bedroom place