Does anybody know of any good sites that would give a good estimate of annual electricity usage. My bills just seem way too high not helped hy haphazard billing periods by the supplier which makes direct comparisons difficult. My supllier is NPower.
Kevin
I think you can get a free electricity consumption meter from npower. The internet is full of electricity consumption estimators. They all do pretty much the same thing, so provided you pick one that uses british terminoogy and prices, you should be fine with any of them.
The fact that npower will give you a 'free' consumption meter should tell you something! ;-)
Can you not roughly work out your annual kwh for gas and electric? If so, then something like uswitch.com will be able to help. At the end of the day, unless you are a very low user, then an annual estimate is as good as a quarterly one in my opinion.
I've just switched to Ovo. Got fed up with Scottish Power and their 'wonderful' capped rates. Have now got a fixed rate for another year with Ovo, which should work out cheaper than I've paid for the last 12 months - well, once we're past the winter 'bolstering' direct debit payments.
JW
Every one ought to be able to. Either from old bills and the actual meter readings on them (not any estimates) or by reading the meter then again say a week later and multiplying by 52. The readings from old bills method going back a year or three if possible is probably the best. A week may not be long enough but will give a rough idea.
You are not making it particularly clear exactly what your problem is.
Do you know, from your actual meter readings what your usage is?
What have you been charged for this?
What is your supplier, and which tariff?
Have you looked on a comparison site to see which would be your best option? They will all tell you what you would pay when you input your usage.
Good advice here:
The x52 method is likely to be wildly inaccurate, as it will not take account of extra winter fuel costs (or lower summer fuel costs), whether that be gas heating or tumble dryer usage.
But yes, old bills is likely to be the best way.
JW
The week might work here for electric I think, which isn't used for heating /HW or cooking here. But gas would be way off the mark I imagine as we use it for heating a largish Victorian house.
But yes, even erratic bills should give you enough to work on.
To the OP, there have been a number of thread here before on this topic.
- One a few weeks ago. Advice is always the same really.
The former can be bought for £10 -15, the later can be bought, or got for free sometimes from electricity suppliers.
You might find it useful to post what consumption figures you do have to the group for comparison. And also remember that prices have gone up a fair bit over the years, consumption, rather than cost is a better measure.
The electricity used by a gas boiler is minimal in the overall scheme of things. Lighting is likely to be far more significant, particulary if you have kids who only know how to turn lights on. B-)
Having said that our winter/summer electricity consumption is only about 1, maybe 2, units/day different. We cook by electric but don't have a tumble dryer (horrible things) and don't space heat by electric. Consumption is around 20 units/day.
Yes - sorry - my bad - was thinking that OP was looking at both gas & electricity.
Well what I am looking for is how my consumption and bills compare with the average. My bills, electricity wise, appear to be extortionate and there is appears to be no excessive use of power so either the average is high, NPower are overcharging or there is a fault. Checking the average of my own bills is much help. For example between raising an estimated bill, me getting it, reading the meter myself a month may have gone by so a year on and I look at the bills again what period did the reading cover. I am not sure I could even find all the bills going back over the last year.
Kevin
If you tell us the size of your house (number of bedrooms, detached, semi- detached, terraced) etc., and also how many kWh you are using (per annum) for gas, and for electricity, we should be able to comment. The number of kWh is invariant of supplier or price.
If you have a bill for now, and one for say a year ago, you can subtract one reading from another, and just do the fairly simple calculation (which is on your bill) for the whole year. Remember, you only need the kWh so that's trivial for electricity and not hard for gas. If it's more than a year, scale it; it won't be perfect because it'll be biased for whichever season is covered twice, but better than nothing.
What sparked my concern was that being unemployed several months ago I got a bill of several hundred pounds that I simply couldn't pay. NPower agreed to spread the bill over monthly payments including an amount for current use, the figure was £186 per month. Now they want to up it to £389 per month to cover past and future use but the £186 per month was supposed to cover that so what the hell has gone wrong. The figure of £389 covers use for the future based on a current estimated bill and I think that their estimate is way off the mark unless their is a fault or I really am consuming vast amounts of power but on what I have no idea.
Kevin
Donno, ask them... They may well have cocked up it's not unknown.
Estimates are nearly always well above actual use... What is the meter reading used for the estimate? How does that tally with the actual reading on your meter?
In message , Zen83237 writes
Presumably their estimate of what you are likely to use has increased for some reason. You can ask them to justify the amount. You can suggest an amount you think is reasonable - it's not hard to work out .
Well if it's based on an estimated bill, it not's surprising that the figure may be daft. The estimated bill may well be highly inflated itself. How did the estimated consumption compare with the actual reading? If it was off did you supply them with a new reading and get a new accurate bill?
In message , Zen83237 writes
As has been suggested, if you post details here, we can comment, should be able to give an idea if your consumption is high or low etc.
Did you mean that sentence to include a 'not'? I don't see why not - it is the record of your consumption and how much you were charged.
The bill will include the dates of the reading(s) (assuming that you give a new reading in time to get a replaced bill for the estimated bill). so it;s not hard to work out the period the readings cover. not having a years worth of bills will make it harder to see if your consumption is high over the year - but if you don't use it for heating, or use a tumble drier lots in the winter, it won't vary to much over the summer/winter.
2 - ask them how much you still owe on previously unpaid, and over what period it is to be repaid (months).
3 - calculate based on your annual consumption what you should be paying each month, and add in the repayment of previous.4 - stick it in writing if necessary.
You should keep electricity & gas bills for at least the past 2 years when dealing with suppliers. If you can quote back the kWhr figures for the past year and that previous they generally cave-in when trying it on re ramping up D/D payments. It is a very lucrative practice for them and just another reason why the privatisation of the elec industry was a disaster; it drove a lot of heavy electrical usage companies first to their own gas-powered generating plant and then offshore.
If on PAYE you should be keeping records for 6 years if on Self Assement 7 years (IIRC). Just in case HMRC decide to have a detailed look at your finances...
e
Overcharging is common. Your last bill will tell you how much you used over what period, or their estimate thereof.
Regardless fo this problem I'd suggest a plugin meter, these help identify issue areas and help people cut down on waste, and normally pay for themselves a few times over.
NT
What have my energy costs got to do with my income tax?
JW
detailed
If HMRC really start digging into your finances you might have to account for every last penny for the last 6 or 7 years. If you only have bills going back a couple of years it makes life "difficult".
I would hope it's not very likely that HMRC are going to take that much interest and there will always be "cash, no receipt" transactions. But HMRC will also look at your life stye and make a guesstimate on the likely value of those.
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