I find utility bill charges are similar across the Board but the best companies are Southern Electric and EDf. However you MUST NEVER use a company called Utility warehouse - I lost a week of my life in phone calls and was illegally hounded by their debt collectors based on fictitious estimated readings.

If you rented through an agency they should have read the meters on day 1 of your tenancy and made sure the previous tenants were up to date with bills so ypu could take it up with them.

On the day u move into a new property (rented or bought) you should always take a note of the meter readings for gas & electricity and provide these to the company supplying the property for final billing to the previous occupier & to make sure that going forward you only pay for what you use. If it's a rental was a professional inventory done?..if it was a really thorough company they may have taken a note & you'll be able to work it out from there.....

Hi Tigger - you asked for more detail on getting discount off energy bills (and land line, broadband & mobile if you like). It's a very clever card, a pre-paid Mastercard that when used in loads of high street stores and also an on-line portal gives you discount off your bills (it can even wipe them out) on the amount you have spent via the card. It's a very clever thing and if you want more detail I could show you in about 10 mins to see if it would be of use to you. I live on Sudbrooke Road, so don't know if we're nearly neighbours? There is a web site, but it's much easier to have someone show you. Let me know if you're interested. Clare

just ring the provider in the morning and ask them to explain their charges. It is quite likely you are paying catch up, and if you are then ask you landlord to contribute as it's not fair. It's a tough lesson but always wise to send in accurate readings every quarter so you don''t get this problem (although I appreciate you kind of inherited the problem!)

I think we must be paying catch up. This was the first time that the bill was actually metered I think. We moved in in August. I wonder if some of that was actually the landlords and they were estimating too low? How would we tell?

Clare - that sounds intriguing, please tell us more...?!!!!?

I get about 25% discount off my bills every month, clever payment card makes it easy & seamless. Better saving than any tariff from uswitch! Clare.

We used to have HUGE bills which turned out to be because we had switched the emergen heating button on by accident...

Could one of your bills have been estimated?

What sometimes happens is you get bills with an E stamped on (or near) the meter reading and it means its an estimate as they haven't sent someone around (or you were out) etc.

Then when they do send someone around you get your "real" bill and that can mean a big "catch-up" if they were estimating too little.

That has happened to me before

Thank's for the uswitch recommendation - that's helpful.

The British Gas website isn't working well this morning, but I'm thinking they must have made an error with our meter readings. It's just not possible that we're using twice as much as most of our neighbors or than we have in the past. I don't know that it could be a leak, as both the electricity and gas are high. We just don't use that much more than our neighbors...

there could be a gas leak somewhere - this is definitely not normal

I would suggest you go into uswitch.com and then change utility provider and/or tariff. Most providers default you to their standard tariff which is always expensive. In this area, I have found the EDF Price Promise tariff to be one of the cheapest. (it actually varies from region to region). YOu also get discounts for paying via direct debit and also having dual fuel with one provider.
But you're right, bills are soaring. I am on the cheapest tariff according to uswitch for the amount of energy I use (and I check at least once every couple of months as I categorically hate paying over the odds for something offered cheaper elsewhere) and I used to pay £100 a month for gas and electricity but in the last 3 months they have soared to £250.

I presume you don't keep your heating on all day but on a timer and turn off radiators in rooms you're not using etc. Keeping hot water on a timer is also an idea too.

Hope that helps somewhat.

We need help and advice. Our bill for natural gas jumped from less than 200 pounds last time to over 600 this month. We have a small house, keep it cool enough that we pretty much always wear sweaters, etc. Our bill shows that we use WAY more on average than all our neighbors, but we cannot figure out why.

We are renting our house (Americans...we moved here in July) so how everything works here is new to us.

Could the utility company have made a mistake? If there is something broken that is leaking gas should our landlords be responsible for the crazy bill? (It's like 450-500/month more than they told us they paid in our lease!).

Any help much appreciated.