Utilites - Atlantic Energy

[jmp1]

Hi,

Our last quarterly bill from Atlantic was over £450.

We have a 1 bedroom maisonette, there are only 2 of us. It's not double glazed (but there isn't anything we can do about that as we rent privately). It has night storage heaters, but 2 of them (1 upstairs and 1 downstairs) are 'convection' also, which means we can run them through the day as well.

The only appliances that we have on all the time are the Fridge Freezer, everything else is usually in standby or off.

We've been in contact with the electric company because we are worried that our annual bills are going to be extremely high and we won't be able to afford them.

Can anyone tell if there is a way to determine if the meter is set to run fast, meaning that we clock up units at an unacceptable rate?

Does anyone have any advice of how we can challenge the amount of money they are charging us - i know we can switch suppliers, but we would still owe this money to Atlantic.

Thanks

[wino]

Hi jmp1,
Was the bill issued on actual meter readings or was it estimated?

If it was actual then I would ask Atlantic to arrange for the meter to be tested.

Have you had previous bills from this company?

[jmp1]

It was actuall meter readings (although we were stupid enough not to check the initial readings provided to us by our landlord).

I've asked them to come and test the meter, but they appear to have completely ignored this request and instead sent us out a pack to try and log the consumption and find out what's costing us.

It's our first bill, so we don't know what the average was for the previous tenant. Can we ask the company to provide us with that info, or is it against the data protection act?

[MARTIN3030]

Welcome to the site.
Will move your thread to the appropriate forums where others will be able to give more specific help.Feel free to continue to ask and keep the thread updated.

[noggsy]

Hi jmp,
most companys will charge you £75 to check your meter. My advice would be to ask for their Fuel Effeciancy Section, and carry out a "7 day" read. It is, what it sounds, reading days 1 and 7 phoned through, together with details of what appliances you have to which they will estimate if the useage is correct. Only then should they be willing to send out an Engineer to inspect the meter FOC.