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Original poster

Help - £10k electricity bill?

26 replies

Thefailinghousewife · 06/01/2023 07:21

We are moving house next week and so I went to get the electricity reading to get a final bill. Turns out no one will take it till the day you move, so it was pointless, but I worked it out myself and am now absolutely terrified we owe £10k. Can some one help me make sense of this?!

We are in a 3 / 4 bed barn conversion with 3 of us living here, with just electricity and no gas. We have night storage heaters, and have them on from October, but also have a log burner we use most days if we need a heat boost.

we moved in September 2021 and the reading was 31570, and yesterday was 58081. We have fixed with EDF at 33p per day.

I can’t see on our account if we have ever had a bill, but are currently £2500 in credit, and our direct debit is £250pm so that suggests we have 10 months saved up?

They won’t let us call as we have an online only tarrif, they won’t force a final bill till next week, they will text me but are useless and I’m going round in circles.

can anyone reassure me or give me an insight into how I can fix this? I’m so confused which isn’t helping!

OP posts:
byvirtue · 06/01/2023 07:34

Is it 33p per day or 33p per kWh? I would expect the latter

according to your readings you’ve used c. 26500 units

therefore 26500 x 33p = £8745 (add standing charge per day)

Have you been paying £250pm since you moved in?

16 months x £250 is £4000 paid? Not sure how you are in credit (they owe you) as there is likely to be £5k owed once you factor in VAT and the standing charge.

MrsDoyle351 · 06/01/2023 07:36

We're with Octopus on a flexible tariff. In June it was 26.68 pence per Kwh

In December it is now 48.88 pence per Kwh.

You have used 26,511 Kwh over the year...

With a standing charge and VAT it is possible for it to be that much - not 100% sure though.....

You say you're fixed at 33p a day - so what does that mean?? As not nearly enough to pay for anything.

SarahMused · 06/01/2023 07:41

Don’t forget the cost of electricity would have been much less per kWh when you moved in so your £250 a month would have probably covered it for most of that time. When you log in to your account there should be an option to view your bills so you should be able to see what you have already covered. I presume you have a smart meter or have been doing meter readings and these bills aren’t estimated.

Original poster
Thefailinghousewife · 06/01/2023 07:50

Sorry, just to answer - we have fixed from when we moved in at 33p per kWh with 44p (I think) standing charge per day.

i can’t see any bills on the account when I look, but it says we have 6 monthly billing, so I assumed a mysterious bill had gone out therefore leaving us with the £2500 credit after charges were applied.

FUCK. I was so hoping this was wrong, there’s only 3 of us living here!

They actually have a meter reading on file from October (smart meter) but it was 22500 so lower than when we moved in.

Becsuse we have an online tarrif no one will talk to me on the phone, is there any way to bypass this with EDF?

thank you all so much for replying!

OP posts:
Dougieowner · 06/01/2023 08:03

If you have NSH then surely you are on E7 or E10 meaning you have two different rates? If so I would expect the off-peak rate to be under 10p.

If you don't have an off-peak rate and are charging your NSH at the normal rate then yes, you can expect a high bill.
In this (hopefully unlikely scenario) whoever set it up had no understanding of how it was going to work.

Eastereggsboxedupready · 06/01/2023 08:07

You can set up a repayment plan.. Due to knobs at a certain supplier we ended up with a 2k bill. Paying back over 5 years!

Intrepidescape · 06/01/2023 08:09

I find the way the UK bills electricity so strange. Here, you get a bill and you pay it. It’s weird they haven’t billed you for 10 months but it’s weirder you can’t do basic math and someone had to explain it to you.

dementedpixie · 06/01/2023 08:12

Should you not be on an economy 7 tariff with storage heaters as that would give cheaper electricity overnight when the heaters are charging

AccidentallyRunToWindsor · 06/01/2023 08:16

Can you share a pic of the reading? If it's a dial meter you may have read it wrong

hedgehoglurker · 06/01/2023 08:17

Is the 22500 meter reading from October, actually a total of 22500kwh used from Sep 21 to Oct 22? Maybe this was a bill that was raised in October and has been deducted from your balance already?

GolfEchoRomeoTangoIndia · 06/01/2023 08:37

Surely 33p per KWH would have been a very high rate in September 2021? Why would you have fixed at that? I strongly recommend you double check that with your emails from when you moved in.

If you have indeed been on 33p per kWh since then then your 250 quid direct debit has been paying for 750 units a month, or c. 12,000 units over the 16 month period: call it 11,500 after taking off the daily standing charge. But you've actually used 26,500 units, more than double that.

bigbluebus · 06/01/2023 08:37

How do you heat your hot water? Have you had an immersion heater switched on for all of this time? Can't imagine how you've used that much electricity otherwise.

I'm with EDF on line. They bill every 6 months. I used to get an email asking me to read the meter in January and July. The bill then shows a day or so later on the online account. I've recently switched to a Smart meter though. I've spoken to them on the phone twice in the last 2 months (about issues with the new Smart meter) and apart from the monumental wait to get through on the phone, they've not had any issues around speaking to me - so not sure why they won't speak to you.

ditalini · 06/01/2023 08:39

Yes you should have 2 rates if you're using storage heaters or it will be extra expensive.

We only have 2 storage heaters but our use doubles for the months they're switched on so this bill will be for your most expensive usage period.

For comparison we were about 8700KwH for 2022 with heaters on Jan-April and Nov/Dec but smaller and probably better insulated property as a flat.

ditalini · 06/01/2023 08:41

33p is high, but if she has a cheaper night rate it may well balance out, and the bulk of that usage will be night from the heaters.

GolfEchoRomeoTangoIndia · 06/01/2023 08:43

ditalini · 06/01/2023 08:41

33p is high, but if she has a cheaper night rate it may well balance out, and the bulk of that usage will be night from the heaters.

Yes that would make sense.

Oddbutnotodd · 06/01/2023 08:59

I think it’s quite feasible that you have a bill for 26000kwh for over a year. What’s unclear is why you have been paying 33p per kWh unless you have had a dual tariff as Pp have suggested.
Off the subject slightly but why are so many people totally unaware of how heating bills work? The energy crisis has been in the news for nearly a year now.
For comparison my bills have gone from £160 to £360 a month for maybe 30% lower usage compared to 2021. I live alone. Gas usage 22000kwh and electricity 3000kwh.

BarbaraofSeville · 06/01/2023 09:00

£10k for 16 months for a large property with electric heating could be correct unfortunately.

How come you've not been billed for your usage since you moved in?

Double check the rate you are paying, you should have a much lower rate for the night time rate. 33 per unit would have been ludicrously high in September 2021, I don't think suppliers were even offering such a rate and even if they were, no-one would have taken it up.

But do you only have one meter? If you have night storage heaters you should have 2 meters, or one with two lines of numbers on it.

HundredMilesAnHour · 06/01/2023 09:02

Intrepidescape · 06/01/2023 08:09

I find the way the UK bills electricity so strange. Here, you get a bill and you pay it. It’s weird they haven’t billed you for 10 months but it’s weirder you can’t do basic math and someone had to explain it to you.

You can choose. I get a monthly bill and they debit the full amount from my account each month.

buttermut · 06/01/2023 09:05

Call EDF, there will be an automatic message saying that you're on an online tariff only but to hold if you've been asked to call in - just hold and you'll get to select more options to speak to someone.

TheTeenageYears · 06/01/2023 09:42

An all electric house is very expensive to run, we are on Economy 10 but a more standard wet system rather than storage heaters. You should have 2 meter readings if you are on an Economy 7 tariff and I'm 99% sure EDF have never offered fixed prices on Economy 7/10. Our kwh prices are 3 x what they were less than 18 months ago. How is your water heated? Was there a smart meter installed when you moved in or has the meter been changed? If you can upload a photo of your meter and any bills we might be able to help more.

TheMatriarchy · 06/01/2023 18:12

You cant be billed for use that is over a year ago, look up the back billing rules. Its legislation to prevent energy suppliers behaving like this and sending out insanely high bills covering years of use when they should be keeping customers up to date.

JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon · 06/01/2023 19:33

If you are running storage heaters on a single rate tariff no wonder your bill is high! They are designed to use with a specialist time of use tariff.

Do you have a two rate meter? If not your heaters could have been live 24hrs rather than just charging during off peak hours which would be even more expensive!

It all sounds a bit of a mess, this is why people should give regular meter readings so issues become apparent more quickly than waiting for problems.

JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon · 06/01/2023 19:34

Has your immersion been on 24/7 the whole time too?

Anna8089 · 30/10/2023 12:24

Its not possible to be on 24/7 as it will cut itself out when gets to hot. Also not been allowed them since before 2010. Lots of strangeness there.

Original poster
Thefailinghousewife · 31/10/2023 15:26

I’m just popping that as I can see this has been bumped from an old post. It turned into a bit of a saga - we live in a rural village where all properties are rented and managed by an agent on behalf of the land owner. It turned out that when they renovated our set of barns the main meter for that set of 4 properties Was ran off our meter as the central point before they were split.

i referred it back to the agents in the end as I was getting no where, and they sent out 2 men from the electricity board to do a full investigation. Not only was that set of barns
set up in wrong, but another 2 properties were set up off one meter too.

so, whilst it was an usual situation, it has been semi resolved. I knew I was hung ho about our bills, but could never have predicted we were paying 4 houses worth!

OP posts: