High Gas Bill

Got my bill today - €320.00 Estimated. That is extremely high as I wasn't here most of the Xmas plus I would be cautious when using it.
Anyway, Called Bord Gais to see how they carry out an estimation - and was told they base it on last years reading - I explained it's a new house and it was a building site last year....anyway she asked me did I want to put a complaint in - so I did. After taking all my details I asked her would someone contact me - she said "no, we just take your details and log them and basically that's it"!
Anyway, they will just have to wait till the funds are there!

I nearly died when I saw the gas bill last week E473 usually about E250 for this time of year. My son (who is renting a 3 bed bungalow with three others), texted me to say their gas bill was a massive E605 and they only have it on for about 5 - 6 hours per day - never very warm either.
I just lowered mine down to 2.5 instead of the usual 3 on the thermostat.

My own was €505. The last one was €190. More than doubled. If everyone is taking a 10% cut then the Gas company should be asked to reduce prices by 10%. I also think that this standing charge should be scrapped.

I have been using Calour Gas since it was installed in my house when i bought it 3 years ago.
Bills are always huge, nothing out of the normal to recieve a bill for 400+
The heating is only on for 3-4 hours a day max, id hate to see what the bill would be like if their was a new baby in the house and we had to leave it on for longer!
Since it is a centralised tank i dont think there is any way of switching as everyone use teh same tank in the development.
The only other option i can think of would be to remove open gas fire and install a normal fire for natural heat which might save on gas.
Does anyone know hoe much it would roughly cost to covert the house to an oil burning system?
From speaking to people they cant believe how much we are paying in Gas bills, i would be willing to take a some upfront expense if it saves money in the long run, do not feel people are getting fair value for money with Gas.

My last gas bill was a really low estimation (I think it was barely the standing charge) and I made the mistake of leaving it alone. When this bill came it was also estimated but came in at a whopping €320. When I rushed out to check the estimation they were almost bang on, so I gulped and checked my finances would be ok for the rest of the month (just about!). I'm on DD so times like that can be scary.

When I thought about it - have I been swizzled a little bit? I haven't checked my bills yet, but if there was a recent rise would that be a reason for a low previous estimated bill - so the later reading gets a higher rating?

Guys, what is going on with this gas bill business? Just received mine the other day. It appears to have gone up 150%. I understand the price went up 25%, however it appears evident to me that such a rise could not possibly warrant an increase of €150 on my last bill, even when I consider an increase in my consumption of 20%. We run a timer and have not at any time in the last billing period changed our level of consumption. Have bord gais increased their deliverable compression to households? This is the only way I could possibly justify such an extraordinary increase in my consumption. I would welcome any thoughts on the matter

I noticed a comment when I did a google search on the subject earlier today, it appeared to me a valid expression of ones frustration at what appears to be a common problem with the provision of Gas to Irish consumers, where has this comment gone?

I just managed to check my bill online there.

My bill in Feb 08 was for €178 (total), units used were 3,186 @ 4.509c/unit
My bill in Feb 09 is for €349 (total), units used were 5,454 @ 5.454c/unit

So the reason behind the apparent extreme increase is that I upped my usage of the heating due to me being at home fulltime with a small baby and there being a couple of extremely cold nights where I had the heating on all night. Couple that with the approx 25% cost increase per unit and I have a bill that nearly doubled.

Explains it for me anyway.

We received a gas bill in December for €215 (usage 3300 kWh). This was high but we put this down to increased usage and variation in price.

To reduce the size of our bill and in spite of the cold weather of the last 2 months, we reduced the number of hours the gas is on (2 hours at most), we turned the thermostat down, and we used briquettes on at least 2 days per week. And the boiler was serviced in January.

So we were speechless when we saw today's bill for €298. It was based on an estimated reading but the actual reading was just slightly lower. If the actual reading had been used our usage would have been 4349 kwh. The increase in usage of 1049 kwh (4349 - 3300) is a 32% increase in usage. We just cannot understand how our usage could have increased by a third in spite of all our efforts.

Any ideas on what we might be missing?