airtricity bill trebled

superbluedub

hi my daughters electricity bill was 600euro for 2 months,her previous bills averaged around 180euro,only 2 people living in a 2bed terrace house,she hasn't increased her consumption in any way,can anyone on here recommend a good electrician to check out whats the problem,she is living in east wall d3.

meercat

superbluedub wrote: »

hi my daughters electricity bill was 600euro for 2 months,her previous bills averaged around 180euro,only 2 people living in a 2bed terrace house,she hasn't increased her consumption in any way,can anyone on here recommend a good electrician to check out whats the problem,she is living in east wall d3.

Have her previous bills been estimated
If they have read her meter recently then her readings may be higher, thus the increased charge.

superbluedub

no estimated bills,she always phonecalls in her readings.really need a recommendation for an electrician asap,can anyone help?

Kettleson

Can you go on line into the account and look at the electricity consumption?

Call their customer services and ask them to go through the recent use in the last few months and to confirm the meter readings were not estimated.

It seems a serious jump and way too much for the type of domestic set up you have described. Was an appliance left on?

Worth checking as well with customer services the tariff your daughter is on. Ask them for their very best deal as you are considering moving to another provider.

I'm presuming that €180 is for two months? If it's one month it's quite high for the use you have described, not unless they use electric heating?

Seems the spring summer months would be using less electricity. Hope you get things sorted.

2011

Most likely the increase in your daughters bills is due to an increase in use of one or more of the following:
● Immersion
● Tumble dryer
● Electric oven or hob
● Washing machine
● Dish washer
● Instantaneous shower (such as a Triton T90)

Install an Owl energy meter. These units can display the cost of the electricity being consumed in euros & cent in realtime.
I bought mine in Argos for about €50.
I know that the "base load" of my home is about €0.03 per hour when everything that should be off is off.
This is the cost of running devices that are always powered up such as my wifi router, intruder alarm, smoke detectors boiler time clock etc.
I would expect that you will find that the capital cost of this unit will be recovered very quickly.
If I leave the house and the Owl is reading above this I know that I have mistakingly left something on.
It makes people conscious of their electricity consumption and generally results in far lower bills.

3rdDegree

Great advise 2011. Are those things hard to install?

Cerco

superbluedub wrote: »

no estimated bills,she always phonecalls in her readings.really need a recommendation for an electrician asap,can anyone help?

If she always calls in the readings, did she notice a big jump for the last reading.?
Perhaps she gave an incorrect reading last time or ESB recorded a wrong reading. I would start by calling ESB and going over the usage figures. Have a record of the current reading to hand.
Only after that would I consider calling out an electrician to identify the cause.
Sorry should have said Airtricity not ESB.

2011

3rdDegree wrote: »

Great advise 2011. Are those things hard to install?

No, very simple.

superbluedub

airtricity has confirmed usage figures are correct,she doesn't use immersion and insists nothing is left on,hasnt needed to use her dryer,and everything else she uses is as per normal use,cooking washing machine, tv phone chargers fridge etc,nothing has changed in her usage habits.

2011

superbluedub wrote: »

airtricity has confirmed usage figures are correct,she doesn't use immersion and insists nothing is left on,hasnt needed to use her dryer,and everything else she uses is as per normal use,cooking washing machine, tv phone chargers fridge etc,nothing has changed in her usage habits.

Buy the Owl and it will point out the culprit(s) quite rapidly.

Kettleson

superbluedub wrote: »

airtricity has confirmed usage figures are correct,she doesn't use immersion and insists nothing is left on,hasnt needed to use her dryer,and everything else she uses is as per normal use,cooking washing machine, tv phone chargers fridge etc,nothing has changed in her usage habits.

And they weren't estimated readings? And you haven't mentioned heating, so I'm presuming she doesn't use only electric heaters to heat house?

If so, that's a very high bill.

ted1

Your dealing with Aritricity here. Before you do anything. move away from them.

check the start and end kWh of each bill, the end should be the start of the next bill. ensure that she is only being billed for here actual usage. then match the last reading of the meter, it should be to far away from the last bill.

Irish Steve

What is it with some people and Airtricity? We've been with them for a number of years, and they are no worse than any other supplier to deal with, and if you work within their systems, there are no issues, they send a text a few days before bill day to remind about submitting a reading, so estimated bills are down to the user, if they don't submit a reading, then they will be estimated, it's not rocket science.

Yes, you need to make sure that you're on the best pricing, if you don't, then you will be paying more than you need to, but that's also down to the user to be aware.

That may also be a factor, if they OP was on a discounted price, and the discount period ended, they may well have seen a 15% price increase as a result, but that's not going to explain the sort of jump that's been reported.

Without some accurate meter readings, and checking the unit rates, any comments here will be speculation, rather than accurate information.

.G.

I was with Airtricity for a year and they never got a bill right. I submitted readings every week so they had an accurate idea of my usage but I was always over charged. They always refunded though. I got to the point where I didn't even ring to complain because I was routinely over charged and then refunded within a couple of weeks.

ted1

Irish Steve wrote: »

What is it with some people and Airtricity? We've been with them for a number of years, and they are no worse than any other supplier to deal with, and if you work within their systems, there are no issues, they send a text a few days before bill day to remind about submitting a reading, so estimated bills are down to the user, if they don't submit a reading, then they will be estimated, it's not rocket science.

Yes, you need to make sure that you're on the best pricing, if you don't, then you will be paying more than you need to, but that's also down to the user to be aware.

That may also be a factor, if they OP was on a discounted price, and the discount period ended, they may well have seen a 15% price increase as a result, but that's not going to explain the sort of jump that's been reported.

Without some accurate meter readings, and checking the unit rates, any comments here will be speculation, rather than accurate information.

Steve,

I do bill verification for over 200 large energy users. Airtricity are regular offenders for misbilling. there customer service sucks, and they are a pain in the arse to deal with.

in any thread here or in consumer issues its mainly Airtricity that people have an issue with. SSE have similar issues over in the UK.

akaMrSmith

The same thing happened to me with the ESB! I did exactly what 2011 suggested and found a fault with me tumble dryer. Cant blame the ESB for that one