Edf bill has gone up ridiculous amount- for our 3 bed, 2 adults and a newborn

[TheCaretakerNadine]

We moved into this house 1yr ago.
Set up a dd with edf - fixed rate til march 2024. Smart meter. Dd set to £200/month for gas and electricity. But for September and October, they have charged a whopping £490!

There are 2 of us and a newborn- I'm on mat leave at the mo, hubby does not work from home but I do- i start back again in Jan and absolutely shuddering at what our electricity bill will be like with my laptop/internet/printer using electricity. We are super careful with electricity. We even turn our tv and internet router off at night.

When I phoned them to explain the bill increase, they mentioned how if i go onto quarterly payments, I have a chance of ending up in debt to them.

How on earth is one supposed to do their monthly household expenditure budgeting if these monthly figures keep changing?

Any advice?

Account balance: £1150 in credit

The 100 was carried over to the 2 payments of 450. Iv rounded my figures haha

Our gas bill (4 of us, but v frugal with heating) was about £500 for the same period, so £650 doesn’t sound out of the ordinary (our Feb bill was almost £200, and we hardly use the heating!).

Our DD is £400, before all this kicked off it was £130 - but unit prices have trebled, so it makes sense that our monthly DD would too 😩. We’re currently £1200 in credit, which I’m hoping will see us through winter.

You should have a contract in writing somewhere stating the rates and end date. Look in your emails as well as the app.

From those unit rates I'm guessing a 2 year fix from March this year, it's unlikely you will have agreed those prices at this time last year as they would have looked ludicrously high.

Yes I indeed have that in writing stating end dates and rates. But it seems theyv used a different rate. I understand usage is different and so you obviously dont pay the same amount every month

Check your energy usage over the last year. I'm with British Gas for both and I notice that even though my direct debits have gone up, my daily usage is below that figure. So currently they are taking about £180/month combined, but my usage so far this month has been about £40 (so actual usage around (£120/month). I haven't had the heating on yet (though have put on my gas fire a few times) so actual usage may increase by the end of the month if I do.
In one sense I don't mind overpaying now as I know it will eventually balance out, but if the difference was high or my budget tight I'd ask for the justification of the increased direct debit and get it reduced.

Can you can check your usage each month on the smart meter/app then calculate the cost of how much you actually use? I did this and it was around £110 a month for electric including the daily charge amounts, includes use of tumble dryer etc . They have kept trying to put my DD up but luckily I am able to put it back down. with a bill just being taken I am £500 in credit. So refuse to pay £300/400. I think you should ask to put your dd down. That credit is loads and I doubt you are actually using much if it's built up that high. They are taking the piss to be honest!

Don’t trust EDF
they fucked up my smart meter installation in sept and can’t change my rate from the expensive E7 to SVR I’ve put in a complaint and they are sorting it out
Check the actual meter you can check the amount you have use in kwh by pressing thr
blue button on my smart meter
or install the app loop or Hugo and it will give you fairly accurate daily / weekly usage

do you have an In house display they aren’t 100 percent accurate but give you a good idea of what you are using

But Your gas is crazy high
i used 7700 kwh last year my bill was £450 for the year
since Thurs I’ve used £7 of gas that’s with the heating on every night for 2hrs at 20 degrees plus 3-4 showers a day and the standing charge each day

I had this with EDF, massively in credit yet somehow they wanted to up my DD to a ludicrous £1000 per month. I switched to a payment plan where we pay monthly only for what we use so providing we submit monthly meter readings by the given date, we don’t fall foul of their crazy estimations. Granted the heating hasn’t really kicked in properly yet but we haven’t made any effort to reduce usage like we use the dryer daily, enjoy a bath etc. and still we’re only using about £250 per month, and are actually paying £0 for now whilst we work through all the credit!

I am massively for people going through everything with a fine tooth comb. I don't trust suppliers not to mess up. That said I feel like so many of these types of threads seem to exist in a bubble not recognising that the price cap - which is applies to the default tariff most people are on - went up 80% in October and was predicted to rise again in January. It's outrageous that we're in this position, but that's why everyone is getting their direct debits put up by insane amounts.

Even if you are in credit now, going into winter with those price rises - there's a very good chance you'd end up in serious debt come March.

Yes, I know, this is not the point of the thread but plenty of others already giving advice...
"We even turn our .... internet router off at night."

Depending on the type of broadband you have, this could be a really bad idea as the exchange will see this as a fault on the line and potentially slow down your broadband.
In any case, it will save maybe 5p a night, probably not even that much.

Coming back to the point, have you checked that EDF have got the correct serial numbers recorded for your meters i.e. you are not being charged for someone else's gas/elec? It will be in your account details and maybe on your statement.

Im edf. We are having our house renovated so gas turned off since April and barely using electricity and on an october 21-22 fix and they still doubled my dd payment to £450. Im over £1000 in credit and according to the energy hub gas is 27p a day standing charge and electricity somethjng similar including rhe little bit of energy the builders are using. As previous poster said i think that they are using us all for cashflow.

The fact you're £1150 in credit, means that you've overpaid nearly £100 a month until now, so previously your monthly amount was around £100-110. Our direct debit has gone up just under 3x since last year, so somewhere around £290 would seem right for you now.

We're a family of two, sometimes DD home from uni. Our electricity is now under yours as we're being very careful with usage, but was very similar to yours so that's about right. Unless you've got the heating on in winter for a lot of the day and it's set high (ours is only18-19c), that does sound like quite a lot for gas. Ours is under half of that (we're in a converted bungalow with extension and have four bedrooms). It won't do any harm to get boiler serviced and have someone check your system over.

@ihatesteve , im with edf and have the energy hub too, where did you see the 27p charge you are talking about?

Also @Yabado , how can i check im being charged for svr and not the expensive E7? Im a bit worried now as my bills seem too high..

Its because i know everything is switched off.

Its basically my standing charge.

So i am using zero kw but still have the £ charge.

With your gas that high over summer I'd definitely check for a leak. We had one just inside our chimney breast. The fire had been disconnected

Sorry, disconnected and capped it it was old piework and leaking from further back. Only very small, slow leak but as it was in the chimney breast we couldn't smell it.

Ah i get it now thanks @ihatesteve