Is £2,000 a reasonable amount to pay for annual gas/electricity?

[Fiona2011231]

For some months I have had a dispute with npower regarding our gas/electricity bills, since they had a computer glitch.

Most recently, they said they had gone thourgh our record and gave us a 'final bill': we are supposed to owe them £2,000 for one year of gas and electricity.

Is this a reasonable, believable amount for a family with two children, living in a 3-bedroom house?

My sincere thanks,

I pay about 1500 over the year. One child though can't see that would make a huge difference. Heating is on about 7 hours a day if that helps you gauge with A rated energy boiler.

I'd say it is high but not out of wild realms unless.you are a lot more frugal with heat/power than me.

We pay £170/month for gas elec.
2 adults, 2 kids
4 bed 1930's well insulated, new windows etc... semi.
so yes £2k doesn't seem extreme.

Ours is about 750 a year for both. 3 bed house, but only one child.

Yes sounds normal

it's not impossible - bit high but not unbelievably so.

but there should be no need for doubt, especially if you know the units you normally use. If they give you the units and the rate you can check to see if it is feasible.

To find out, you have to know your actual (not estimated) meter readings for the start and finish dates of the period.

There might or might not have been a balance owing from the previous period.

Your post reads as if you have paid nothing for a year, surely that's not right?

I was paying £117 a month for a 4 bed, plus open draughty loft space with uninsulated roof, 2 adults & 2 kids. However I recently got a letter from them saying we were £500 in credit & putting our payments down to £60

So I dunno. £2k seems a lot more but I am suspicious about ours being too low!

I would have said that was on the high side but not astronomically so.

We spend approx £1600/year on oil and electricity for 2 adults, 2 children in a 3-bed semi. We try not to use the oil for heating very much as we have a woodburner and free wood. I imagine if we did use it more it would use about another 5-600l which would be about anohter £300-£350 roughly.

I can see £2000 being feasible.

JanePurdy be careful, they put our payments down significantly one year then two years later massively jacked them up because they had underestimated the usage. Keep an eye on your meter!

ours is 700 pound for the year - 3 bed - 2 adults one baby. but we really don't use very much

We live in a 2 bed, 2 adults, 2 dc and pay £700 a year. We are careful though.

Unfortunately with nPower it is entirely possible, PigletJohn. A change they made last year to their computer systems seems to have completely wrecked them and they seem utterly incompetent at getting it fixed. I've spent over a year unsuccessfully trying to get them to bill me correctly so far!

£2000 it seems feasible but on the high side, Fiona, but that does depend on how well your house is insulated and your usage. Is anyone at home all day most days, or are you all out of the house at work/school/nursery for a chunk of time?

Energy saving bulbs? Double glazed windows? Hot water tank or hot water on demand? Gas or electric for heating? Modern boiler or archaic? Are baths run every day? Do you do lots of tumble drying?

However, given that nPower have presumably screwed up billing you for so long and the trouble they're having with their systems, I'd get them to double check the calculations. Can you log onto your account online? That should give you some details of what they've done. Look out for things like charges for breach of contract, late payment fees or bills for incorrect periods.

Be careful with NPower - we had them in our last property and paid £177 a month, when we left after 19 months (including 2 winters) they were due us nearly £600 which has taken the best part of 4 months to get back.

We now have Co-op (who knew!) who started us on £117 a month back in December but have just written to say we didn't use as much as expected over winter so they have reduced our DD to £100.

Two adults, two dc in an uninsulated bungalow.

Have you got the meter readings? Otherwise we are just guessing.

I agree being cautious with npower. In my experience they have 'technical problems' frequently leading to them racking up big credits they take forever to return.

My combined power bill is

We pay 95 a month for a family of 2 adults and 3dds in a 3 bedroom house - it was 75 but jumped up to 95 last month so that sounds high to me.

Thank you so much for your kind replies. I will check my bills online for one year, to see if there is any discrepancies.

Heard the national average now is £1300+ sounds feasible esp if house isn't a new build with latest insulation etc

I had a big problem with npower, they kept trying to take me to court over non payment of bills even though they were aware I have a prepayment meter which I always paid before using.

After weeks hassle they sorted the problem in less an hour after I would them I would ofgem if they did not get it sorted within 24 hours.

I used to work for an electricity company, and an amount in £ is hard to compare because it does depend what tariff you were on. We pay £160pm for both gas and electric on a fixed, dual fuel, online only account.

The problem with saying I live in a 2 bed or 4 bed is it doesn't really address the appliances responsible.

We are anal organised, we we take a meter reading every month, put it into a spreadsheet that also graphs it for us so we can compare consumption on the previous year.

We went from a 3 bed house, to a 4 bed house and our gas consumption stayed the same, this house is more energy efficient despite having 3 more rooms! But our electric increased, because we have more gadgets/appliances.

We have LED bulbs in some of the rooms and are slowly changing them over. I have 2 sons, who both have e-readers that they charge, plus DSs, plus laptops, a wii, the tv that goes with the wii and a husband in IT so we have several computers.

If you have the meter readings from your bills it would help, our gas obviously goes up in winter and down in summer but the electricity consumption stays pretty much the same. A few lights doesn't make a huge difference.

I pay £130 a month for G&E - so £1560 a year

3 bed semi, heating on whenever im cold

dishwasher goes on every day, washing machine maybe 3 times a week and use tumble dryer as and when

i pay the same all year round so that if a very cold winter i dont worry about heating the house as havnt heated may/june/july/aug

where as a friend pays each 1/4 so summer is maybe £200 so £70ish a month yet winter bill came in £700 - £233ish a month and she had to find the money within 30days