to think £356 for a quarterly gas bill has to be a mistake??

[vampirebankholidayweekend]

I have just opened it this morning...felt quite sick!
We live in a 3 bed semi, we don't have the heating on all day/ night, we have a gas oven & hob and a fire in the living room.
Our last quarterly bill was £99, i thought that was quite steep, but with prices rising, i accepted it as reasonable, then got this!
I have rung them (EDF energy) they have asked me to give them another meter reading, as the last one was estimated.
Surely anyone can see that this amount of money is outrageous for a 3 bed house!!!
Can I be nosey and ask what other's bills are like compared to this?

Daisy, this site suggests that oil has risen from 33p to 55p per litre in the last 12 months and that the average tank cost £1000 to fill. How are you managing to only pay £300 a year? Will seriously consider going back to oil if your payments are correct!

Ours was £519, and i have felt sick ever since opening it!
usually its our elecric thats huge, that was £259 this time.
We live in a 3 bed end terrace, but my dd has just been diagnosed with Ulcerative colitis, and has been ill over winter so had heating ona bit more than usual, but still, £500 quid

Well that site's data are from last April when oil prices were really high and they've now come right down again. Fortunately we didn't need to fill up during the time that oil was very expensive, so that helped. Even taking that into account prices have more or less doubled since we first moved here, but we don't seem to spend any more on oil, which I think is because we had our insultation re-done a couple of years ago.

Don't know how we do it really. The house is quite well insulated now, I have the radiators upstairs turned down very low because we're downstairs for the most of the day and I can't bear being hot in bed when it comes on in the morning. The thermostat downstairs is set to 18C. It comes on for about 2 1/2 hours in the morning and the same in the evening plus I sometimes have it on for the odd hour in the day if I'm at home and it's really cold. We tend to wear an extra jumper if we're cold and try not to get into the habit of just turning the heating up.

In the summer once the heating has gone off we use the immersion heater to heat the water on Economy 7 (electricity bill was about £50 a month on average, although that will go up now as we were on a very cheap price-fix plan which has now ended)

I wouldn't say our house was particularly cold, but I am always amazed at how much some of my friends have their heating on (and then complain that their bills are high!) Maybe we're just well 'ard?!

daisy our £99 bill was atually an increase as I had given them a meter reading and it turned out we werent paying enough so they increased our DD to £75 a month. It's the £75 DD that's bought this one down from over £400 t0 356.

I have just changed over to Npower after getting fed up with the constant increases (although it prob makes no difference and based on the information I gave them , they have set our DD up at £36 a month for gas and electric!

just opened ours £849 and we cut back - don't know what to do and how we're going to pay it! Wanted to save up for a log burner - but how can I when we've got to pay this!

If previous bill of £99 was estimated then this one could be making up for a short fall then between estimated and actual readings . Sorry , think it is probably correct. Over winter I reckon we've used about £90 per month

Sounds like they were undercharging before and now are charging what it should have been. We use gas cylinders for our central heating and this winter has been cold so for a few weeks had the heating on from 6am until 11pm and we've already had 4 changes of the 6 cylinder banks and that has cost us almost £600! Just for the heating.
But we don't have the central heating on AT ALL from May until late October, so our last fill up should last us for the first part of autumn.
If its very cold we just burn lots of wood in our dual fuel stove and we get that wood free .
But then i suppose as our house is 4 bedroomed and in the middle of fields then we do lose a lot of heat.
I would like to have some rockwool wall insulation or something similar.

bloody hell....i need a lie down and large glass of wine....

we have just booked our holiday as well goodness knows how we are going to pay for that and this as well.

Strangely enough our electric bill came from them as well and we are £40 in credit....
every cloud has a silver lining...

£240 for gas and £215 electric for a 4 bed detached. I am on the Essentials tarrif this year which is supposed to be the cheapest and the bill is the same as last year so we obviously used more

We are in a modern house - but some of the insulation leaves alot to be desired. This year I have read my own meter each month and it is an eye opener. I would urge you all to do this!(I also now do elect and water!)

The heaviest month was December (Xmas lights) and this was £100. I have central heating on for a couple of hours in morning and again at night. It was on more at Christmas and sometimes for an hour in the day if I am really cold. Switch it off at 8pm (DH is a hothouse - t-shirts outside in December)but if it is freezing letting it go back on for an hour.....

last month we were back to September figures of approx £60. When we switched the CH back on.

In August we used £15 a month.

So it evens out - but only if you can pay by DD!

So pay a DD of £50 pm, and 'cos I monitor the bill the bastards can't justify making it a higher amount to swell their coffers!

Unfortunately none of this helps those with rip-off bills this quarter

dh looked at it. thinks it's right! blimey.....

I am with edf and my winter bill came in at £100 per month. I have the central heating on for 3 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the evening and sometimes at the weekends overide for more heat. It is a combi boiler and 4 years old. I also have a gas hob and oven and a shower. I dont have the heating up high either - as it makes me feel sick if it is too hot, we cuddle up on the sofa under a duvet in the winter.

my winter bill was almost £600 for a 3 bed semi

I would willingly swap

Nope sounds about right I fear (sad). We have a similar house to yours and similar usage. Fuel is very expensive and this past quarter is the worst (remember that really cold weather?). We switched to direct debit which is a pain as the energy company holds on to your money to cover large bills (but with current interest rates not so good for them anymore) but it avoids nasty surprises. I am also scrupulous about doing meter readings every month. We have an online deal where you put the readings in - dual fuel. Can you check out whether you could get a better deal on www.uswitch.com (smile)

We're with Scottish Hydro and I got a bill based on a reading I gave them over the phone yesterday - from Early Nov to yesterday it's about £480 (this includes the payments we've made by DD). I was actually pleasantly surprised, as we've had the heating on 24/7 since about Oct, but have had thermostats fitted, so they get turned right down to the frost setting at night except in the LOs' rooms (it's a basement flat so gets pretty cold). The lady I spoke to told me that is about what they'd expect it to be, ie even though we still owe them about £260 once the DD payments we've made are taken into account, they'd expect us to more or less make that up with the lighter usage in the summer, iyswim. Also, utility prices should start going down in the next quarter or so, apparently (won't hold my breath).

I wish. last edf gas bill was £440. Have moved to Eon as uswitch said it would save me 500 a year...here's hoping.