ESB Bill of €780 for adjustment of estimates

Scruff

As the title says. Going to check back over all our ESB bills we have but it appears that for the last 6, possibly as long as 16, months that the ESB have only being estimating our ESB bill. Last week a guy called round and read all the meters and yesterday we get a bill for over €780 cause. How can they get away with just doing estimates for so long and then fcuking us up the ass with 1 huge re-adjustment.
I know that some twat in the gaff set the emertion to be on for 18 hours a day and i only discovered it about 3 months ago when i got nearly scalded taking a shower at 4am. god knows how long that was going on for but if our bills were actually meters readings rather than estimates that would have been caught pretty quickly.
At least bord gas stick a card in the door or send a letter if they cant get a reading on the meter...
oh so angry and broke....

dmeehan

the same thing happened to a buddy of mine and he was landed with an esb bill of over a grand.

now, if i get an esb bill that was estimated, i always check the actual reading to see if tehre is any discrepancies

aphex™

In my area they do stick a note in the door when they've missed you, perhaps you threw them out, thinking they were rubbish flyers?

It also says on the bill if it's estimated or not. It also gives you a number to call so you can tell them if it's wrong.... kinda their fault..... kinda yours :rolleyes:

Sleipnir

submit your meter reading on line on the ESB website.

MagicBusDriver

Ring the ESB and explain the situation. Ask them if you can spread the amount over a few bills. The ESB are usually reasonable.

eth0_

How many people nowadays ARE at home when the meter man calls? You'd think in this day and age they could read your usage centrally.
Then again, you still have to pay the bill. Not your fault the immersion was on 18 hours a day, but still your responsibility

Hagar

I thought the purpose of the meter being outside on new houses was firstly to facilitate the meter reader when nobody was home and secondly to allow disconnection from outside the building in case of fire etc.? Surely there is no excuse for ESB not to read the meter in newer houses?
The reality is the meter reading is sub-contracted out and the ESB pays less if the meter is read less frequently. They know they will get their money in the end as they enjoy a virtual monopoly so they don't care if you get a number of smaller bills or a single adjusted bill.

dudara

I think I heard somewhere that the ESB actually only try to read your meter every second billing period these days in order to save on manhours.

However, before they would leave a card saying that they had called and for you to submit your meter reading. I haven't seen one of those cards in ages, so I can only presume that they don't hand them out any more.

You'll just have to keep an eye on your meter. I usually wait for the bill to come and then I check it against the meter. I then submit the true reading online and wait for a new bill

Scruff

you can submit it online? would have been doing that if i'd known about it. Must have a look at the past bills. I cant remember it stating in a clear manner that they were estimates. If they did and i noticed it i would have been ringing up with the actual meter readings cause we nearly got stung for the gas before when they actually overestimated by €500!!
Though i know you're right etho_ i still am pissed cause such a fook up with the emertion would have been caught earlier.

Also making sure EVERYTHING is being turned off when not in use. Before the t.v. used just go off. now its the t.v., decoder box, dvd, amp, surround sound system and the electric partridge in the plastic pear tree!!!

God i remeber growing up and thinking how anal my dad was about turning off anything electrical when not in use..mind you he did go overboard. if i was watching t.v. and looked out the window for a sec he'd nearly have it turned off by the time i'd turned back :eek:

0utshined

I feel for you buddy, same thing happened to me last year, although the bill wasn't quite as high.

slave1

some twat in the gaff set the emertion to be on for 18 hours a day

that's not as bad as it seems, the emertion will turn itself off - it has a thermostat else the clyinder would explode - when the water is hot enough so its not as if it was on all 18 hours, I'd say nowhere near the 18 hour mark.

Why not try the night rate system, check out the ESB website and give them a buzz, by the sounds of things you have a pretty good indication of your annual usage so you should be able to work out if it would be worth your while

Also making sure EVERYTHING is being turned off when not in use

I don't go this far and dont believe in it being honest, for a start a lot of my electrical appliances have got hard to reach - impossible in some cases without moving furniture etc - plug points, and the bits and bobs with standby modes are nowhere near those ads that say 20% electricity usage.
My TV for example uses 230W when in use and 0.27W in standby, that's just not worth the bother of turning off at the front of the TV, 3700 hours in standby for 1 unit saving!!!

Borzoi

Scruff wrote:

you can submit it online? would have been doing that if i'd known about it. Must have a look at the past bills. I cant remember it stating in a clear manner that they were estimates.

You'll find it does beside the units used and in a few lines of text below the final total.

I've submitted mine online and the ESB have issued a new bill within a matter of days

shoegirl

I got stung years ago on over-estimated bills, but you can now submit meter redaings online.

As for power usage, an immersion heater is fairly expensive. There is a school of thought that believes that leaving it switched on is cheaper than switching on only when required, but I tried both and found that turning on only when required saved about 50% of the total electricity bill over a month. Some of them also have thermostats that you can turn down so the water only heats to a certain level instead of scalding.

At least you have control, in the last flat I lived in, the landlord took it on himself to install a meter and charged me 25c for every unit that he paid ESB 12c cent for. I had to go into the switch everything off mode in order to manage the bills at all. Make sure you've got lagging jackets on your hot water tank and close windows when the heat is on - turning it down is a lot cheaper than opening windows to control heat.

parsi

eth0_ wrote:

How many people nowadays ARE at home when the meter man calls? You'd think in this day and age they could read your usage centrally.

How ? An intelligent meter that reports back would be expensive especially in terms of retrofitting every meter point in the country.

jesus_thats_gre

parsi wrote:

How ? An intelligent meter that reports back would be expensive especially in terms of retrofitting every meter point in the country.

You could use the "interweb" to send the "email" over the "broadband"

parsi

jesus_thats_gre wrote:

You could use the "interweb" to send the "email" over the "broadband"

Ah... but that would require user intervention and broadband (or even dialup" or... or... and wouldn't really be central...

Scruff

right. i've investigated it further and it was the emertion tank. but its not as simple as that!! it looks like a dodgy wiring job!! i've posted the results of my investigation in another thread http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=180135 looking for a qualified opinion. if i'm right there's no way we're paying it and a confrontation with the landlord is looming....

gogo

Oh i feel for you, this happened to me last month and i'm still paying it off, but I rang and she really was quite nice, it was her that suggested that we pay it off.
According to her we have never had an estimate in the year that we have been living here, that's absolutey ridiculous, theyre is nearly always someone here.
As regarding the emersion, it is actually cheaper to leave an emersion on than switching it on and off all the time, it does actually turn it self off once it gets hot enough.

Victor

It's "immersion" by the way.

gogo wrote:

According to her we have never had an estimate in the year that we have been living here, that's absolutey ridiculous, theyre is nearly always someone here.

Is there a letter "E" after any of the meter readings on your bills? If there is ths means it was estimated. Other readings would have been actual readings. Your sentence doesn't make particular sence.

gogo wrote:

As regarding the emersion, it is actually cheaper to leave an emersion on than switching it on and off all the time, it does actually turn it self off once it gets hot enough.

Not so. If I use the immersion once a month, then it does not make sense to leave it on all month, does it?

Also heat loss it proportionate to temperature, so the longer the immersion has been on and the hotter it is, the more heat loss per time.

FranknFurter

I know this is a somwhat old thread, but same thing just happened to me, *except* I went from having estimated bills of 70-90 euros to getting one single bill for over 500 euros!

Never knew you could submit readings online, soon as I get a key for that plastic box (which btw, is outside my house (no access needed), and she tells me "oh our meter reader in your area was sick for 3 or 4 months and then claimed he couldnt gain entry!" (not once did i get a "Couldnt gain entry notice")..............

Makes me so damned angry that they can do this, one or two estimated I can deal with, but nearly a year? c'mon, 500 euros, there christmas down the effing drain, grrrrrrrrrr

Hagar

FranknFurter as you are not entirely at fault here the ESB would have to compromise on payments. They cannot cut you off unless you actually refuse to pay. Offer to make payments within your means over a period say 6 months and they must accept.

Scruff

had forgotten about this thread.
Well it turned out that i was right and the timer on the imersion (have i spelt that right this time? ) was indeed bolloxed\wired wrong. So the land lord agreed to pay €400 fixed the timer and we paid the rest. would have preferred if he paid it all but as all our bills were estimates he wasnt going to pay the lot of it.
all in all it was a damn sight better than having to pay the whole thing ourselves!!

narommy

FranknFurter, I think you should contact the www.mabs.ie having read some of your posts.

Victor

FranknFurter wrote:

which btw, is outside my house (no access needed)

.... she tells me "oh our meter reader in your area was sick for 3 or 4 months and then claimed he couldnt gain entry!"

I wonder how this two bits of information reconcile???? :eek: