Heating bills

[creaturcomforts]

Me and my daughter rent a Victorian house, it's always cold in the winter as we have single glazed windows! You can feel the wind through all of them even with curtains closed and since we've been here two years now I'm getting used to it.

We had little choice about living here as our last landlord wanted to sell up so I had to find something quickly but I hate it!! It's storage heaters and an economy 7 boiler so is so so expensive.

When we first moved in Eon put us on too low a direct debit and we accrued a large amount which I had been paying for a year at £250 a month!

I could cope with this as I was working full time but we seperated a year ago and am now in massive debt to Eon!! It causes me so much worry as when my husband decided to leave I owed around £800 which built up as I had to leave a night job for childcare reasons became unemployed and it built up until I could find work in the day.

Calling them each month and paying what I could afford as I was in severe financial difficulty at this time and feeling pressured by them to pay more and asking why I could not work more hours and going through my situation over again made me feel really stressed, I know it's their job and I was doing my best.

I've now got a monthly payment set up of £190 and although it's a struggle as I work part time as I have a 12 yr old daughter and claim universal credits. I would love to work more hours but finding it hard with my daughter finding childcare there is nothing where we live! I start early as well at 7am.

I owe £1100 pounds and I feel sick every time I look at the bill, does anyone have any energy saving tips or advice on how they have saved energy?

Even in the summer months they have set my usage without arrears at £150 a month, this just seems so high to me! I use a tumble dryer as I have no garden and the house is too cold to dry clothes quickly for school and work and we only have one tv, nothing else that uses a lot in my mind.

In the previous house which was bigger with 3 of us it only can to £80 a month and someone mentioned maybe someone is tapping into my heating ? I've tried to not put heating on at all during winter but during really cold periods have had to for daughter's sake.

I've been searching the internet and trying to find a way of lowering my bills. Another problem is that I'm a zero hours worker so some months I have to try and find extra money and have sold quite a lot of my belonging just to cover the payments.

Any advice or ideas would be appreciated, and thanks to anyone who had managed to read this long post.

I wonder as well if I should have kept my ex husband on the utilities bills as a lot of the debt was built up while we were together but he told me he would not pay any child maintenance unless I took him off all the bills which I stupidly did as he was pressuring me all the time. I don't know if he would have had to pay towards any of the bills that we had at the time if he was no longer living there?

I recognise your situation. Our last house was a large Victorian house with storage heaters and an immersion heater. We managed for one winter before putting in central heating, and it was horrendously expensive. These things may help, and if they don't, they'll bump your thread up:

• Beg or borrow airers and set them up in rooms with heaters. Dry washing overnight. If possible, run a demumidifer, or at least open the windows in the morning.
• Line the curtains - you can do this with old curtains from jumble sales - of all windows to keep in heat.
• check that your immersion heater is not heating up water that you don't use.

I found the Gas and Elec board of Money Saving Expert to be full of helpful people and good advice. not sure if that's still true but worth a look.

Eon may have an energy efficiency team who can give helpful advice. Give them a call & ask.

They wouldn't have known how much you were going to use when you first moved in, so not really their fault that the DD was too low initially. Usually it's reviewed after 6 months or so & adjusted accordingly but I do know you can submit readings via their app to check your up to date balance there & then (i'm with them) & they have the option of changing your DD yourself via the app too.

Are you definitely on a 2-rate tariff so you're charged less on the night rate when your storage heaters kick in? Check your bills to make sure there are 2 unit prices.

Also, have you actually compared with other tariffs they have to make sure you're on the best one? You should be able to check this on their website.