Ridiculous gas bill not sure what to do??

[Snowtimex7]

Hi,
I rent a 3 bed house. Admittedly it’s quite old with a low energy rating. I’m now on my second year and first year bill wasn’t great but through extra instalments we were able to cover it. But as we’ve always been behind we are unable to move supplier and obviously last year there was no way you could move anyway.

we are with British Gas as that was the property beforehand.

janauary I got a bill for £900 for two months. I was shocked. I tried to talk to them about it and they said nothing they can do.

so we turned of the heating. Turned off the electric heater we had. I got an electric blanket on timer. We use the gas fire 2 hours an evening. Only use the hob when we cook dinner and never do slow cooking. Since January we only use the front room with our three blankets. My 3 year old sleeps with us as the bedrooms are so cold. Bath is used every other day for my toddler. Shower is electric. Hot water takes ages to run before coming out. We don’t have a switch to turn it off on the wall

today I woke up a bill of £550 a month. We apparently have used £450 of gas a month. I don’t see how. We have a smart reader so apparently it’s accurate. I don’t know where to go from here. I’m pregnant and high risk so I’ve been signed off work. And I wasn’t with the company long enough to qualify for anything so we are down to one income. We don’t have £550 a month for gas And electric. We can’t move as everywhere is more expensive. We already moved 4 hours from home 2 years ago to try and have a cheaper lifestyle. I’m so exhausted by all of this.

what do we do? Is there a problem? How do we prove it?

can't switch off hot water? why? is this a tank or combi boiler with instant water? that sounds like the culprit here. that needs sorting. I would recommend move to Octopus get a smart meter and go on tracker tariff also.

I could be wrong but aren’t gas fires very expensive to run? An electric oil filled radiator would be much cheaper.

There’s no switch for the hot water. No panel anywhere for water. Even so, it’s never been £450 a month for the last 20 months we’ve lived here. And we don’t use it much so I don’t see how it would be the issue

Do you facebook??
I'd join this group, and post your bill (name, address, meter numbers, account numbers etc blacked out) and see if any one can spot anything.

First thing I'd check is are they converting your gas meter readings correctly, or have they managed to convert your metric smart meter as if it's reading imperial cubic feet.

We had a heater and it was costing a fortune on electric so we got rid of it. Got a reader for the gas and it was bearable cost compared to heat the whole house. So we put it on for about 2 hours and keep heating off

how are you heating hot water which has no switch?

It’s on. You have to run the water tap for ages. The only option on the boiler is to shut off completely

Are you sending manual readings. The companies can estimate at an average cost that are astronomical. OVO would provide you with a free smart meter. Or you can get a smart thermostat from OVO that reads your usage and charges exactly. You might be owed money back. I'd change suppliers to one with a simple bill set up and good app.

Shut it off completely then and see if you're still using gas. You may have a leak. If you do turn off the mains and call your landlord

I rent a 3 bed house and my gas and electric is only 124 a month! I don't see how on earth you could be using that much. The gas fire seems a red herring as when you were using the heating it was that much

I work in this field.

I wouldn't take the supplier's word for it that the bill is correct. Feel free to message me a copy of your bill and I can validate it.

Are you able to access usage data via your supplier's app? If you have a smart meter you should be able to access at least daily usage figures, if not even half hourly usage which may help to identify any patterns.

Are you paying off previous debt as well as your current usage?

Why don’t you post the readings and charges for the past 2 years so people can try to decipher what is going on.

Also, try taking hourly readings today and also take test readings using each gas appliance separately for 5 mins to see how much they use.

Maybe you can also show us your boiler/manual to see if it can be turned off or if it is a combi boiler etc.

We had to run gas central heating 24/7 in a similar house for several months after a major leak with daily baths and gas cooking and it only cost approximately £60 a week (in 2024).

is your gas boiler a combi boiler? have you got up to date safety certificate for it? do you have a smart meter? to have a bill that huge for gas fire and hot water is extoritonate

I’m with EDF and I have an old 3 bedroom house and my gas and electricity are £154 per month. I have the heating on a lot and we use a fair bit of hot water daily ( 2 showers, 2baths) as well! Hope you get it sorted.

Electric showers and gas fires are incredibly expensive to run (it seems that you have a combined gas and electric bill). Our bill is £800 a month for a larger house but similarly sparing use of heating - so I can see how your bill can be that high.

Hi @Snowtimex7 I’m not saying that the bill is right or wrong, but if you have a look on Twitter, you can see that people are having major issues with British Gas’s estimate of their gas bill. I woke up this morning to a massive increase in my gas usage on the app.

Seems to be affecting a lot of people. We worked out our usage based on readings and it’s four times less than what they are saying. Previous months gas usage has also massively increased on the app, even though we have already had a bill for those!! I think it must be some kind of glitch. Worth checking out if this is affecting you too

You mean your direct debit is that amount, that may or may not be how much you use and isn't relevant to how much anyone else pays/uses

I think the app is faulty you know!! Mine is reported that I used £500 of gas in March alone!! If I look on my smart meter then it’s nowhere near that. There’s a fault I’m sure of it.

For context, I live in a 3 bed end terraced just me and my husband. We are out the house 5-6 days a week working. Doesn’t add up! I spoke to one of their agents through the app and they said I was £20 in debit so I’ve concluded that the app is a load of sh*t!! @Snowtimex7

Also in an old, low energy rating house, plus whenever suppliers/media talks about the average energy use - we use twice as much.

Having said that, my gas bills so far this year are £400 for Jan, £300 for Feb, £300 for March. Electricity averages £140/month.

You seem to be using about £100 electricity/month, so that looks OK-ish. But your gas is way higher than mine, and I am using my central heating, so that does not look right to me. You say you have a smart reader, do you use it to keep track? I write our usage in a diary I keep for just that purpose so I know the normal ebb and flow, IYSWIM.

You are with British Gas, their website can provide you with past information on your usage, pretty graphs too, so I'd sign into my account and start looking around. Your smartmeter should be feeding them daily readings for you to look at.

What did you mean by "But as we’ve always been behind we are unable to move supplier" - are you in arrears? Could they be charging you more to pay off the arrears? Again, the website will give you details about whether you're in credit or debit, and precisely how much. Which has just sparked the thought - when you say "I woke up a bill of £550 a month" is that £550 what you are actually using, or how much they have set your direct debit to?

Yes as others have said if you are in arrears your bill each month will be part usage and part, effectively, debt repayment. Can you give more details on the state of your account and also your monthly usage in eg kwh/m3?

We were with British Gas. They are expensive and useless but this is ridiculous. Can you do a manual reading.?

Or post your statements with no identitying details for any experts out there.

We are with octopus. Currently paying £200 pm for a four bed house with 5 people living in it. Have daily showers, heating on, use the slow cooker and the dryer

I'm with British Gas also and I'd suggest your first step should be to ask for them to come round to read your mgas and electric meters so there's an accurate record of your energy use - a more accurate bill can then be sent in the future.

Also, check your bills to find out what sort of energy tariff you are on as there may well be a more economical tafiff you could change over to. Do you have a smart meter, so you can see which appliances cost the most to run?

Maybe you are on some sort of tariff whereby you pay a set amount per month for your energy usage, no matter whether this accurately reflects what you do use. When I first moved into my flat ten years ago I decided to stay with Scottish Power because the previous occupants were with them and I thought it would be easier when it came to tthe billing - WRONG! I was being charged a set amount permonth which was appropriate for a toung couple with a small child but far too excessive for me as a single person. I therefore contacted Scottish Power to get my meters rread by them (so there could be no arguments about the accuracy of the readings) and my monthly payments adjusted to a more reasonable amount.

Once I was fully pauid up with Scottish Poweer and didn't owe them any more, I promptly changed over to British Gas for both my gas and energy supply; I was with thrm at my previous adfress with no problems and in the nine years since i've been back with British gas again I've not had any problems.

Thought I would post a quick update.
British Gas refused to come round unless we pay a charge. The energy rating was c which I think is a lie. We ended up moving house. To a slightly smaller house still three bed. This weirdly is rated d but so far the electric and the gas costs are like a third of the price. There must have been something with the boiler or the piping at the old house. Unfortunately we had to get some family help to help pay the final bill of £2200 which British Gas refused to listen to and sent debt collectors. We paid British Gas £250 a month for 2 years and still had a final bill of over £2k. Never will I use British Gas again. Refused to help or understand. And would only offer payment solutions if we take out a loan with them with payment terms which affects credit scores of all that lives there for 6 years. So yeah next time - move house guys
we now are paying £139 a month and heating is on and so far our account still has £200 extra so it must have been an issue with the house which the landlord refused to come and have a look

credit score belongs to a person and not an address. did you go to the ombudsman?

Yes they take the full names of those who live there before offering payment help.

no, we gave up. I couldn’t prove there was a fault. The landlord wasn’t interested. Saying we are using four times the amount but not knowing how does nothing. The house was so cold, it never warmed up and yet it cost us £400 to try