gas bill!

[Bronte]

Have we got really inefficient heating or is this the norm? Live in typical semi detached house, built about 1930. boiler only a bit over 2 years old.
Currently paying £120 a month for gas. No other gas appliances apart from the radiators. gas provider is npower.
Any suggestions welcome. thanks.

It depends how long you run the heating for, how good your insulation is and how high you set the thermostat but that sounds like a helluva lot to me!!! I have 1930's semi, double-glazing, loft fluff, and we use gas for cooking as well as heating and hot water. We run the heating for a couple of hours in the morning and about five hours in the evening. Thermostat is at 18C. My monthly DD for gas is £55. Npower are the supplier.

Have you checked to see if you have overpaid? are you in credit? If so you can ask for your DD to be reduced and/or a refund. Utility companies are notorios for setting the DD too high. We live in a 4 bed 1910 town house and pay £75 pm but are a little bit behind

Accumalation of under payments is part of the hefty direct debit. Even so, still need to monitor gas consumption.

Check which units your meter is measuring in and if that corresponds to the bills. A friend had complained about her gas bill for months and was scared to use her heating. It turned out she was being charged per cubic meter but the meter was reading consumption per cubic foot. The supplier had the wrong information passed on by the previous supplier.

That sounds really high...I'm dreading my next gas bill however. Son & his partner & GS have moved back in with us. Heating is on from 10am til midnight or longer if they override the settings. Do you have electric aswell?

Once you have paid off the underpayment, check it on uswitch or somewhere to check you are with the best supplier. (don't forget to go through a cashback site)

N-power are crap! Get away from them as soon as you can. It took me almost a year to get them to bill me rather than my landlord..despite both of us calling them several times. The bill was much bigger than any I have had since and I'm with BG!!

I worked for a bit for a sales dept of a power company. Npower always seemed to be expensive when we did quotes, although the "sign online" rates can be good for higher users. the only way of checking is by doing a comparison. In fact, do one anyway, and see if you are on the best npower tariff (if you are not on an online one, probably not) as you won't be able to leave them, but you will be able to switch tarrif. Do find out how long till you are straight with them though, and check how long you would be tied into a new tariff and how much it would cost to get out to make sure you are saving overall.

That sounds like quite a lot tbh, we live in a similar 3 bed semi and our winter bill (december-march) was about £200, our dd for the gas is £47 per month, which is a little high as we too were paying off a previous bill in the first year. The past winter we had the heating on quite a lot with it being so cold, we don't leave it at a constant temperature though, we turn it on and off manually (thermostat is opposite front door, so always reads low).

Our gas bills for the autumn period are generally about £100-£150 per quarter, winter £200-£250 and the 2 spring/summer ones are generally about £40 per quarter.

Our hot water is provided by the gas immersion heater too, is your hot water included or electric?

We are generally in credit with both the gas and electric within the last year, prefer to leave it like that though, saves anxiety about switching the heating on.

£360 a quarter is a large amount just for gas, are you giving in readings? We are with edf who have just raised prices and introduced a standing charge, a bloke in M&S collared me in the winter looking to change suppliers and said that edf was good value but look at M&S when they raised prices, just about to do that.

If you can afford it, fixed tarrifs are good - you pay more to start with, but by the end you will be saving, and it's easier to plan. We're not on one, as we are so utterly skint we can't afford to think about the future :( but as soon as we can, I'll switch us over. It's not a huge amount more, but can be a huge amount less by the end.

What are fixed tariffs butterpie? I don't even know what tariff we are on.

If you don't know, i bet you are on the wrong one. Go on the Uswitch website and put your details in, and see what it says. Don't include the money you are paying off, just the money you are paying for what you are using now, then look at what it says is the best npower one for you. I'm guessing signonline...I think they are on signonline 19 or 20 now...or you could go for a fixed one.

Fixed tarrifs are the ones where it is fixed for a few years - the price you pay per unit will not rise even if the company puts it's prices up. Some are a "cap" where it can go down but not up. Of course, you will get a rise at the end of the term, but you know it is coming so can plan more easily.

also, if you are on any benefits at all (including tax credits on a low income) it would be well worth looking into if you can get your house insulated for free. We rent, and have always left houses better insulated than we got them :)

It says British Gas are the cheapest provider but tbh I am wary of them, we had them in our last flat and they were shite. I do think it's all a bit swings and roundabouts tbh with the price increases, they all rip us off equally.

I'm also wary of Final bills and new direct debits, also new readings ect, it all has the potential to leave me skint in any one month, I'm on an even keel with the energy bills atm, even in credit, but I worry about misreadings and so on.

Have you got enough cash to pay the arrears and swtich to a cheaper supplier (if there is such a thing)

It is time the Govt intervened to ensure fairer prices in the gas / elec market. The wholesale price is down but this is not refelected in the prices we pay.

I agree with cat64.... separate out the arrears and do a comparison based on your kWh usage instead. If you check out the table on this site their benchmark kWh usage for a home with three bedrooms is 25000. That should help you decide if you're a heavy user or if you're being overcharged.