My n-power electric bill is far too high , please help !!!

[tury]

hello me and my husband live in a small 4 bedroom semi detached house with our 4 children, 2 years ago we moved out of our house for 6 months while it was refurbished and rewired since we have moved back in our electric bills are ridiculously high according to n-power our monthly , yes monthly usage is around £190 which i didn't think was possible and nobody is willing to explain to me why this is .

my current electric bill stands at £4450. 00 this is for the last 2 years included in this was £555 which was used by the builders so is not my bill but the housing association's but they refused to remove this even though they received proof that i was not living at that address so i refused to pay until this was removed and have been appealing against the amount ever since . i do not have that many electrical good and i am not even in during the day and my children are all at school . last week the company went to court to get a warrant and the day after came to my house and put a meter in . and in the last 6 days i have used £22.50 already and really dont know how this is possible .

 

can anybody please help me as i just do not know what to do . it will be greatly appreciated . thankyou

[rebel11]

Hi tury

 

Welcome to the CAG

 

I think you need to track down the historic charges for the meters. Also there could be quite a few things causing the usage to show high, e.g. faulty boiler etc.

If you want historic information approach N-Power and see what they say. Also what Tariff are you on. Don't expect the energy companies to put you on the best

Tariff. Print off a calender for October, write down the readings for each day. Work out the usage for each day.

[2Grumpy]

You say that you have used £22.50 in 6 days -That will include some repayments for the outstanding debt - that will be set on the meter and the daily standing charge

 

To find out how much electricity you are using, take the actual KWh reading(s)

 

You should have instructions left with the meter to be able to do that

 

I would be taking spot-checks every hour including when nothing was plugged in, especially if the neighbours were at home - just in case wires were crossed - and might resort to switching off individual circuit-breakers to isolate any problem - and look to see if next-doors lights went out (or their heating off) - well you were re-wired!

 

Do you use electricity for heating?

What type of meter did you have & was it been changed or adjusted during the refurbishment?

Unfortunately it's too late to be able to check the accuracy of the meter that was removed. You might be able to say that they should have retained the meter as you were disputing its accuracy. Were the bills based on actual readings or estimates? Presumably they (and you) took final readings. You should be receiving a final bill from them with a statement about how this would be recovered using your pre-pay meter

 

You will now be repaying your debt, the £555 that you were saying that the housing association used, probably court costs, possible overcharging.

 

Do you have your old bills (from before the refurb) for comparison? (using KWh, not money)

 

If you continue with the same usage of electricity, you will be able to see what you use over the year and together with bills from before the refurbishment, might be ale to cast some doubt on the accuracy of the intervening period

 

You could try contacting the energy ombudsman or whatever it is called these days, especially as you were disputing the amount.

Edited October 14, 2010 by 2Grumpy
misread the original post!