Why dont you do something to fucking make your house more energy efficient?
$650 bucks is fucking ridiculous, do you have one energy efficient bulb or 3 star appliance?
Stop sooking and save some greenhouse gasses you fucking sook

thats crazy man, i live in 3 bedroom place with heaters we only paid $220 or something, do you use Origin Energy?

yeh and the bulbs make a big difference to ledisco.

I can see it now a house full of coolsies having 30 min showers with an electric hot water service and using fan heaters to heat every room of the house whilst the doors are open

my last one was pretty nasty too...

how many people is that split by?

is there a chance one of your housemates is cooking up ice or speed in the basement and putting the charges through the roof?

Also go check the meter, I was overcharged 200 dollars a year by Origin as the estimate bills

I got a similar $ amount as well le_disco. It's the largest electric bill I've ever had but I blame it on over using the clothes dryer and the missus using a fan heater in the mornings.

I'm gonna go through the whole house and start looking for things to blame.

Winter electricity bills are fucked when you're in a house that you can't do anything to make more energy efficient. We have halogen downlights that don't take the energy efficient bulbs (though I think they're better than the normal lights) and our rental property is old and impossible to section off to keep the heat in one area because of the spiral staircase going up to the second story.

When we moved in we were told that the fireplace worked, so we went out and bought a couple of hundred bucks worth of hearth stuff (screens, firetools etc.) and fuel. We then found out the chimney has cracks in it which leak smoke through the ceiling, and had to buy an electric heater to warm the house while the real estate agent fucked us around with repairs.

It's almost spring and the chimney still isn't fixed. I just threatened our real estate agent with the tribunal if they don't compensate us for their shitfulness. They're on the backfoot now and are talking to the owner about it, not much they can defend considering we moved in under the false impression that the place had some method of heating it.

you go get em, tiger.

our gas bill was horrific this winter.

And before you start, egg, ya fucken' hippy, I know fireplaces are bad for the environment, but this place doesn't have gas on either.

We really should just move.

turning off appliances at the wall does actually save a bit, i know its a pain but try and do it, kettle toaster, cd player, vcr dvd, etc.

Ha, I will, whatwhat. The Ox has had enough of fighting with agents, but this is chemo week for me and I'm fucken' FIRED UP, SON!

I'm dreading the electricity bill, I think the fact that our electric hot water system is only 50L is going to be a blessing considering how much the heater is going to push it up by.

Yeah, i got one bill where they tried to overcharge us $120. The bitch on the other end of the line just kept on saying 'well somebody has been using something' whilst i tried to explain to her that i'd read the meter and it was a hell of a lot lower than what they were quoting.

The letter they sent me out didn't include an apology so i changed electricity companies. I hate that no company will admit that they make mistakes.

Glassy you can get energy efficient Halogen downlights, places like Bunnings have them sometimes but they aren't clearly marked so you'll need to ask a stooge to help you. And I'd get on the roof and cover the chimney if you aren't going to use the fire....failing that rent a new house

Thanks for the tip, Egg. I'll go check that out next time I'm at Bunnings. We're only staying in this place 'coz it's so close to the hospital, as soon as I'm better we're out of this filthy suburb.

Some egg tips to cut the power bill;

Fix all your doors so they dont have huge gaps under them

Fill any gaps between skirts and floorboards

Replace all bulbs with energy efficient ones

If you have an electric hot water service and you rent, simply sabotage it and get them to install a gas one

Never use portable fan heaters

You can by cheap fairly efficient electric heaters these days that dont suck too much juice

Get rid of you CRT monitor and always turn all appliances off at the wall

Sabotage your electric oven

No worries glassy, I have some of those lights here and they look just the same but suck about 70% less coal

I think i might have to go the sabotage electric oven option, i don't understand why ANY place that is connected to gas would put in a electric oven and stove top.

Shit for efficiency and shit for cooking with.

Electric is cheaper to buy so jewish/wog/stingey skip landlords put them in even though after one year they have already costed more than gas. In my last house I just fucked up everything that was electric and asked for a gas replacement arguing that it increases "resale value". Real estate cocks love that talk, make sure you use their fucked lingo

Sabotage your electric oven

Problem is 99% of all new ovens are now electric w/ a gas stove top. The only gas ovens I found when renovating my home were made by chef. Apparently the new electric ovens are very ecconomical and efficient these days.

$650 for 2 people. in fucking queensland.

it seems like this shit goes up every single quarter.

anyone got any recommendations for a decent electricity retailer? Truenergy are fucking me off majorly.

or does anyone know how this shit is supposed to work? I'm trying to get a copy of my bill, but Truenergy are telling me that (SIX months after moving in), they still haven't got the billing rights to my property because, according to them ''the previous retailer is rejecting our application for billing rights''. This seems like major bullshit, because I spoke to Citipower and they said retailers can't do that.

http://www.ewov.com.au/

just start talking about going to the ombudsman (or even go if its not working for you) they usually try to hustle a bit more, cos it costs em.

Wow, even though my bill doubled this winter, going from a 2bdrm flat to a studio, this thread is making me feel better - $300 for the quarter, and that's with electric hot water (which I didn't have at my old place), and loads of falling asleep with the electric heater going all night.

wintertime - I use clickenergy. Haven't had any problems with them in the time I've been with them (about 2 years) and I can do all my enquiries by email, which suits a phone-shy programmer such as myself.

awesome. THANKYOU anon. I had no idea there was an obudsman. I'm on the phone with them now, a breath of fresh air.

*ombudsman.

They were fantastic. I highly recommend utilizing their services if you are finding it hard to get what you want. They helped me by providing some unbiased information, forming a plan of approach, and gave me a list of options should things need to go further.

cheers for the recommendation coz. I'm going to give Truenergy a final chance, and if they don't come through I'm changing.

Does anyone think that having the one provider for both gas and electricity is saving you nothing?

good thread

$300 for the winter quarter with AGL

2 people, 100% electricity, no gas, and my partner bakes most days. And we don't hold back on using appliances, tv, heater etc

not that shattered anymore after reading some of the stories above

$920 for one fucking month thanks to one dude in the office running a small element heater at his feet, for up to 10 hours a day every day.

dnzr said 15 minutes ago:
$920 for one fucking month thanks to one dude in the office running a small element heater at his feet, for up to 10 hours a day every day.

WHAT KIND OF CUNT IS THAT?

$920 for one fucking month thanks to one dude in the office running a small element heater at his feet, for up to 10 hours a day every day.

Make him pay. Deduct from pay. Are you his boss? If not, seriously cork both his legs,

Tie him up, put his feet in buckets of ice.

just got mine. 200 clams.

he is going to pay.

fucker was told it was gonna crank the bill up and to turn it off, p,us it got left on over night a few times.

A girl at my work used to have one. But it was left on with a cushion next to it over the weekend. Our office was almost on fire. (She also eat durian at the office).

I really need to learn how to use the timer function on my heater.

$920 for one fucking month thanks to one dude in the office running a small element heater at his feet, for up to 10 hours a day every day.

I'd be ropeable, dnzr. Think this ought to be posted in the 'people are fucked' thread. That office dude probably fully reclines his plane seat because 'I paid for the seat, I can do what I like', everyone else be damned.

Last bill I received a letter saying that my electricity company had undercharged me, but I did not have to pay - and that they had corrected it. This bill, I got another letter saying with regular checking they realised they had made a mistake on my account and have credited me accordingly: $200. This bill, the amount oustanding: $0.96 and if I pay before May 9: -$19.60.

I just paid them $1.

WIN