High Gas Bills

geon106

geon106

geon106

Associate
Joined
23 Dec 2010
Posts
415
Location
Newcastle, Staffordshire
I've been living in my current home since September 2009 and our gas bills have always been extremely high.

Right now this year we're paying £790.

We rent a 2 bedroom mid-terrace house
We only use gas for heating/water(both we try and use very little of)
We are on their standard tariff

We've had our boiler inspected and the engineer person said there was no issues, although he did say it was an oldish boiler and wasn't efficient but shouldn't be causing the problem

He did say we could get the meter itself checked out by British Gas but they would charge for it unless its found to be faulty. I've contact British Gas who said it'll cost £75 to send someone to look at it but that it is highly unlikey to be the meter as they have a very low rate of issues. So i'm not sure i want to spend money on it in case its not.

We have been speaking to our letting agents about it but they seem to fob us off basically saying we are just a young couple who don't know how expensive gas is.

Well our friends in similar houses pay around £30 a month for gas so ours is more expensive, especially as we don't have heating on during the summer and as little as possible in the winter and try and use very little hot water to save money(1 bath each every 3 days(bad i know but its just too costly)

Our quarterly winter bill for last winter was £350,

Is it the right amount or does it sound like there is a problem?

Sorry about making you all read that information, just frustrated and don't know what to do
 
Last edited:
j_walsh said:
Depends how often your using it really. Does sound rather high, on average 2 bed flat we use £20 a month.
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As i say i don't think we use it much at all.

I put it on for 10 minutes to get enough hot water to do the washing up once every 2 days, put it on for a few hours every 3 days or so for enough water for us to have a bath

In the winter when its really cold we will have it on for 2 hours in the morning and thats about it really.

Hardly ever have it on otherwise. We even got an electric cooker to save on gas
 
Sounds a lot.
Could you manage to live without for a few days, ie turn off completely?

You could then check meter before and after

Its possible you have an immersion you could use to heat the water with elec and this time of year as you say you can do without heating. That way you can go a while with no gas usage, or at least you should have no gas usage...
 
Are you on the best tariff for your usage with your current supplier? The differences between the tarifs can be MASSIVE. Also how well insulated is your home, are you heating rooms that you don't need to? Draft exclusion is the quickest, cheapest and most effective way to reduce your fuel bills. Your boiler doesn't make anything like the difference the makers claim.
 
robskinner said:
Sounds a lot.
Could you manage to live without for a few days, ie turn off completely?

You could then check meter before and after
Click to expand...

Was going to suggest this. Watch the meter and see how much its moving when you're doing different things.
 
Are you getting estimated bills?? Previous tenants might have guzzled the stuff compared to you.
 
That bill is probably just above average for your house.

Change your supplier if you can!

Go to uSwitch, put in you info and the best supplier/tariff for you will come up.
If you're comfortable doing things online, go for an online tariff and it will be miles cheapers. All the supplier's standard tariffs suck.


A direct debit can save you up to 10% alone. Get your electric and gas from the same supplier as this will also save you something (usually around 2%).

Do your own meter readings as often as possible, usually you can do this online.

Also, avoid nPower if you can. When things work, they're cheap (very cheap for high gas users, and low electric users), but when they don't their customer service is appauling. Their sales agents are also proffesional con men who will say anything to make a sale.

E.on, EDF, Scottish power and Scottish and Southern are all pretty good on the whole.
Edf hven't announced their new price rises yet though...
 
Was put on a meter on 1st June and they broke our door and security gate. We rang and sent letters and they finally repaired our door early august.

Since 1st June we have used the emergency £10 credit and not topped it up. Our gas 'bill' are cheap but the showers are cold! (We get a shower at the gym and at work anyway)

Electric cooker and wash by boiling the kettle

**** British Gas!
 
Gas is disgustingly expensive.

I think I worked out to heat a normal sized tank of hot water is something nearing £0.50 now.

Sure that doesnt sound a lot, but add it all up, and it starts to get shocking.
 
How much would it cost to hook up a calor gas tank to our shower?

Someone must have been so discusted with gas prices that they run off their own cans
 
my last quarterly gas bill was £12 ,thats with central heating and a gas hob in a 3 bedroom semi ,we turn off the boiler untill we need it as the pre-heat thing wastes loads
 
geon106 said:
As i say i don't think we use it much at all.

I put it on for 10 minutes to get enough hot water to do the washing up once every 2 days, put it on for a few hours every 3 days or so for enough water for us to have a bath

In the winter when its really cold we will have it on for 2 hours in the morning and thats about it really.

Hardly ever have it on otherwise. We even got an electric cooker to save on gas
Click to expand...

That's an extremely frugal use of gas. There's no way you should be averaging £65 a month if you really do what you've described. Something's up here; whether it's your tariff or the meter I don't know, but I'd be looking into it.

We spend about as much on gas as you and we use loads of the stuff.
 
Think i spend around £60 a month on gas (we are on dual fuel which has just gone up to £100 a month....gutted) and its a 4 bed semi with 4 people in it, showers baths, hot water etc.

So that sounds high. However, we ditched a 20 year old boiler in 2009 and the gas use went down by a third. Something to consider perhaps.
 
The trouble is we rent, so its hard to change supplier and such. We pay by direct debit every month, did it each quarter but was hard to pay the large bills.

We do occasionally put estimates online and they read our meter every 3 months

Thanks for your feedback, i may keep on at the letting agents and british gas to investigate further
 
It's not hard to change supplier if you rent. However, you could approach your landlord to have an inspection on your boiler, how old approx is the boiler? We live in a 3 bed semi, are not frugal with gas at all, we both bath every night and our hob is gas too. heating has even been on a bit on the colder days of summer, and is constantly on over winter and our monthly cost for gas is about £55
 
You mention the £10 emergency credit. Is this for your gas? You are on DD post pay arent you and not a top up prepay meter? Pre-pay is massively more expensive than normal supply.
 
Eric7 said:
Go to uSwitch, put in you info and the best supplier/tariff for you will come up.
If you're comfortable doing things online, go for an online tariff and it will be miles cheapers. All the supplier's standard tariffs suck.
Click to expand...

+1 for Uswitch. I changed from British Gas to Scottish Power and cut my dual fuel bill by a quarter.
 
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