£419 per month gas&elec….. around about right?

[BlueBunny23]

So I have a 5bed detached house…… lived here 6 years, gas and electric was £120 a month, went up to £270, now they want £419 as that’s now my usage apparently. I must invest in a smart metre very fast as I don’t think I could be using this amount of gas or electricity!! Does this sound about right for the price increases or waaaaay off?

This worries me - just checking that you don’t think you can use as much as you want for £249? It’s your unit rate that’s fixed.
I really don’t like the way this was reported as “fixed rate “ and not properly reported as fixed unit rate

Doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I have a Georgian stone 6 bedroom house and our bills are somewhat higher than that but not much.

I've cut back sharply on our usage this autumn.

I am in a 4 bed detached in Scotland and currently pay around £220 per month. Last month my usage was £170 combined gas/electric. (£140 electric, £30 gas)

You need to look at your annual usage to work out whether the payment they are asking for is reasonable

That sounds expensive but depends how much energy you are actually using.

Ours is billed at £270 a month for a similar house but a recently fitted smart meter has made us much more conscious of usage.

We're in making changes like only heating the rooms we're using and putting appliances on economy settings and now reckon it'll average £225 a month instead.

Get a smart meter asap!

I assume this is obvious but going to say it anyway, your energy costs aren't based on how many bedrooms your house has or how much anyone else spends, these things are irrelevant

It's literally how many units you use x how much each one costs, is your tariff rate correct?? Are your bills based on accurate readings? If the answer to both those questions is yes then your £££ amount is right. Whether you can use less is then the only way to reduce the cost, thats' down to you, no one else knows

That’s quite an increase! Have you recently come off some sort of fixed rate tariff?

The first thing to do is to check whether your bill is based on accurate meter readings, or whether it’s based on an estimate.
Even if you don’t have a smart meter you should be able to check the meter readings yourself, the cupboards the meters are in open with a standard key that you can buy from somewhere like B&Q or Amazon.

Using about £7 a day on average (about £217 per month) 5 bed modern house, 2 adults working from home full time plus children.

I do think the energy companies seem to be setting the DD's high.

I used to pay £89 for gas and electric which was increased to £189 per month. I didn't question it, but now they have reduced it to £140 "based on your usage" but this includes the £66 so has actually gone up. My account is £600 in credit and although I'd expect to be going into winter with credit it does seem that my usage has declined rather than increased.

Going to let it play out over the winter as I wfh and will need the heating on and will reassess in spring.

There are 5 beds and 5 beds.

DSis has a five bed detached which is a fairly new three storey house, actually fairly small in terms of the ground space it takes up. Two if the bedrooms are pretty small. Other DSis has a four bed which is a sprawling old house and in terms of ground space it takes up over four times what the other house takes up. Its enormous and difficult to heat.

We are using about £180 a month in electricity and the house is heated by oil so we are getting through about 4000l in heating oil (heating and hot water). 1950s large detached rural and exposed 5 bed.

Ours is 4-5 bedrooms semi 3 of us and I now pay £250 a month. We have a wood burner though. Don't have baths but have showers. Don't have a tumble dryer. It depends on so many factors really it's difficult for others to say. We don't know if you have loft insulation for example.

We have never paid monthly. The bills come every quarter and dh checks them against the meter. DH has always been deeply opposed to any supplier having our money before it is due.

Having checked the heat saving tips we have always done them: heating rarely goes above 17/18, have controllable zones which are timed, open fires downstairs so bung a log on (we have lots of apple at present which is a bit spitty), we wear a jumper in cold weather, turn lights off, batch cook, use the eco settings on washing machine and dishwasher, but do use the tumble dryer for linens and towels, have dg and interlined curtains in many rooms. Solar panels help.

DH is not expecting the exponential leaps people are reporting but we have never been on a contract.

Regrettably people.lost sight of the fact that we had "cheap" energy for years due to the price cap and that it was always due to come off. Things have just returned, proportionately to the way they used to be.

We have solar panels (12 panels, not huge #)
My electric bill just came in ... we used £49 last month.
We're also on oil, that's like £60/month.
2-3 adult size people in a 5 bed house. Lots of devices, kettle, oven.

It wasn't the price cap that kept prices cheap. In the past the standard variable rate was the most expensive rate as there were cheap fixes rates.

We pay monthly as it smooths out the payments and means you don't get hit with a huge bill in the winter months while hardly paying anything in the summer

I give monthly readings and within a few minutes can see how much I've used that month and whether I need to change my direct debit up or down

Things are very far from how they were years ago as there are no cheap fixes offered anywhere and the SVR is now the cheap rate.

If you've never been on a contract you've probably paid more than you could have done for years, not a very savvy way to do it. You aren't expecting big increases bcasue of that not because a man was in charge

@TimeForMeToF1y I take your point and have had that discussion with him. His view was always that the admin involved in changing would cost more than any money saved. I think he had a point when some of the energy companies started going into administration.

I'm not quite sure of your point about a man being in charge. DH deals with the utilities and council tax. I deal with the food, phones, broadband and TV.

What admin was that? You went on the website chose the deal and away you go, bybusedbto take me 5 minutes Or do you have some kind of sepcial circumstances that meant you got charged for changing ?

Apologies, I misunderstood, I thought you were saying your dh had some kind of special insight that wasnt available to you

Seems a bit high. We have 4 bed with two teenagers and are paying £300 amonth.

@TimeForMeToF1y and looking for the deal, checking against the present one, changing payments. Probably more like 20 minutes to do it, 5/10 minutes to regularly check. Depends on your hourly pay rate I guess

I've attached a chart showing the average energy use according to Loop. They've sent it to anyone who uses their app.

2 adults in 3-bed terrace, both working from home. My October actual usage was £200 and that’s with no heating at all. Really well insulated house but we have a lot of devices so I figure that pushes the electric up. I imagine when we switch the heating on our actual usage will be over £400 a month (we only have it on max 4 hours a day).

Every penny below the cap rate saves the average user around £30 per year in electricity, my last fix was at around 13p lower than cap at that time so nearly £400 saving just on electricity

Even if it took me 30 minutes of admin you'll not be surprised to learn that I don't earn £800 per hour. Fixed energy rates were very good value.

Until they weren't

Exactly but the fact that most people have now moved to SVR capped rates doesn't somehow take away the money they saved during the years they were on cheaper fixes

As soon as they weren't better value people didn't take them out, I'm not sure what your point is, the present doesn't change the past

I’m in a 5 bed semi and last month we used around £125 gas and electric - no heating on at all at the moment though. I don’t use a tumble dryer and I put on a load of washing daily, sometimes 2, also run a dishwasher. We have 2 TVs that are regularly used.

2 adults, and 2 kids.

Yours does seem very expensive!