Need a bit of help please regarding bills in a house

[Caite]

Oh my goodness, every seems to pay loads! My water bill (on a meter, just me here) works out to less than £10/month and I use the washing machine most days for my work uniform.

Electricity is cheap, too, at about £30-50 (at the very most) per quarter. I tumble dry everything. My first bill was an estimate and it was huge. I read the meter myself, worked out how much it was going to be, and phoned them and gave them the reading. I suppose, other than the washing machine and the tumble drier, I don't use electricity for a lot.

My gas is the most expensive. I have LPG but it comes from a communal source so don't have to order bottles. In the summer, it is often quite cheap (about £30/quarter) but in the winter it can be in excess of £300 per quarter depending on how much I switch the heating on. The first winter I moved in, it cost a fortune. I'd never paid bills before, and it was absolutely freezing when I moved (the heavy snow we had at Christmas in 2010), so I just used to put the heating on a lot, not thinking of the cost. Then I got the bill and was horrified.

I don't pay council tax at the moment as I'm a student. But, when I did, I was paying about £100 per month with the single occupier discount.

My house is a 4 bed townhouse (though 2 of the bedrooms are absolutely tiny and measure about 6x8ft). Its a new build, mid terrace.

 

[supertabby]

A good starting point is to get quotes on U Switch website. You fill out a few details (number of bedrooms, type of heating, type of cooker, if you're home all day or just evenings etc) and it will give you some estimates.

 

[Emma&Freya]

I dont understand uswitch atall

 

[R_x]

Just thought I'd warn you with British Gas they have just royally screwed us over. Their original quote wasn't covering what we were using which is fair enough but they put our bills up twice and neither to the actual price that we were[U/] using and not telling us that is was less than what we were using and now we're £1000 in debt with them!!! Also we're using £89 a month (according to them) for just the boiler as our oven is electric. Me and OH shower (the shower is electric) and so it's only the kids baths, the washing up, and the heating (which we don't use that much and at all between about March and October). Which I think is a total rip off. And because of this debt we're not allowed to change until it's paid off. Whereas EDF (who we are with for our electric) are fab x

British gas did this to is too!!! Apart from they lowered our DD when we were in and out of debit which made us go more and more in debit.
Then they never reviewed our account (we thought our dd would go up if needed so didn't become aware until we were moving) they then took the full amount from our bank account without warning when we were told it was fine to pay it back monthly! So bye british gas and hello eon.
Oh and the short time we were with them in our new property we ended up in debit again even though we made sure the dd were high, yet we are in credit now with eon.

Eta british gas customer service is terrible too. They laughed down the phone about the fact they had taken the full money out of our bank account

 

[mummylove]

I would never go to British gas again as we got screwed over to

 

[MrsMandy]

we're with edf on their blue price promise - we pay £78 per month for gas and electric (haven't yet had our review though so this may get adjusted) and they've been fab. Great customer service if I've ever needed to call and they email me every time theres a company that have a plan that's at least £1 a week cheaper! We are in a price promise till spring 2015 that was 2 winters when we took it out but were not locked in so can move without fees if we want too. I also like that a percentage of our fuel comes from renewable resources and a part of our payment goes towards research for more renewable energy! (Plus it is nice to have Zingy come through the door with any letters!!! &#128541

Oh also dont forget with water that you will have two bills - 1 for the water coming to your taps and 1 for sewage. Ours for both total approx £40 (£25ish and £15ish)

 

[Emma&Freya]

ive had trouble with edf energy, can never get hold of them

 

[Mummy May]

We owe British Gas money too!! Xx

 

[mammy2oaklen]

2adults and 2children I'm a sahm so in a lot we pay

£50 electric a month
£40 gas (only £20 in summer)
£89 council tax
£43 water

We r on a meter for gas and electric we r with eon

 

[MrsMandy]

ive had trouble with edf energy, can never get hold of them

Oh that's such a shame as I've so far found them to be brill.

 

[going_crazy]

2 bed victorian maisonette
2 adults
4 children (1 with health issues that requires warmth)

£20 per week electric (key meter)
£70 per month gas (direct debit) - this is the same all year round
£25 per month water (not on a meter - if we were on a meter we'd pay loads)

We're with EDF and I've not had any problems with them at all. They even put us on their vulnerability list so if we have a gas/electric outage then we're dealt with as a priority

 

[vaniilla]

£60 a month for water, £120 a month for gas & electric on a green tariff (100% renewable electricity)

3 bed large victorian terrace with poor insulation and very high ceilings. There are 2 adults & 1 child.