Utility Bills - Electricity

We have an apartment on Phase 1. Until recently our electricity bills were issued bi-monthly & payment collected by direct debit (also bi-monthly). I have just noticed (on-line banking) that the last 3 direct debit payments have only been one month apart?

We haven't been out at Roda since 4th January to collect our post so am unable to check the actual invoices.

I appreciate that I will need to take this up with Iberdrola (previous experience tells me that this won't be easy).

I do find it very frustrating that we are unable to personally check our meter readings anyway...we have had a couple of invoices where there has been a high KWh usage and NO occupancy (we switch EVERYTHING off, apart from the fridge/freezer & security system as we depart...apartment is not rented out)? Having queried this previously I've got no where!

I know that we will incur standing charges irrespective of whether the apartment is occupied, but there appears to be no plausible explanation for the actual high KWh usage, with no occupancy (my concerns are based on previously working for one of the major regional electricity companies in the UK for 25 years ...in various disciplines) and I do know that meters can be callibrated incorrectly.

I was just wondering whether anyone else had experienced the same scenario's?

Hi,

We live in Spain currently and can confirm that from January Iberdrola have changed their billing to MONTHLY. The 1st bills to most customers seem very high (ours last 2 month bill sent out in Jan was 525 euros!! Normally it is 250 -300). Our 2nd bill for Feb for 1 month was over 150 euros, even though we had been in South Africa for over 3 weeks and our electricity tripped while we were away and was totally off for 3 weeks!! So 200+ euros of rotten food to chuck out, but a bill as well.

Aparently many people have been complaining about the new bills.

Mike

Not sure if this will help. 

We had similar problems on our ph2 apt when we first got it and managed to get meter cupboard opened for us to check  meter spining whilst we switched off appliances etc in our apt. 

We found that the meter was still spinning fast when all appliances unplugged.  Finally noticed that even though though bolier was set to min temp for hot water and heating but selector set to heating/hot water meant that boiler pump was continually running hence spinning meter dial.   When we switched boiler selector to either off or hot water only pump stopped and meter dial stopped. Since we have made sure on leaving apt for any period of time unoccupied to set boiler as off or water only and bills now 35 euro bi-monthly on average

Hi All

We completed on our property in December 08 and have had a direct debit for the water but nothing for Gas or Electricity as yet, Can anyone advise how long after completion does it take for the direct debits to start coming through?

Many Thanks.

Our solicitor has recently offered us a service where by they receive our utility bills for us, check them to make sure they are reasonable, taking into consideration when the property is occupied & forward them on to us.  We haven't yet taken them up on this so I can't recommend that this works.  I think they wanted 100€ per annum.

PM for their details if anyone is interested.

Hi

Thanks for all your comments & suggestions.

It would be good to be able to have access to the meter at regular intervals to check the running of the meter (as per the experience of ydigold). In the UK most properties have external meter cupboards and we have keys to access our own meters. We can then check the meter readings at least!

We always switch off our bolier to the OFF position as we depart and nothing electrical is left plugged in apart from the fridge/freezer. The security system also obviously uses some electricity but we can't believe that this is a huge usage. We have tried to organise someone coming to the meter cabinet whilst we were over at Roda to check the running speed of the meter but not managed this yet....guess like everything else we just have to keep trying!

We had a simialr thing with our water ....for the whole billing period there had been NO occupancy but we were billed for actual cubic metres of water usage (in addition to standing charge)...absolutely no explanation for that either?

Hi to All

Can I give a warning if you have the same boiler as we do ROCA VICTORIA you should NOT turn the power of to this type of boiler for long periods of time. The boiler is designed to have the power on all the time. This allows the water pump to operate for 15 seconds every 6 hours to prevent the pump seizing! If you turn the mains off when the apartment is not used the boiler pump could become seized.

I have some tech spec PDF's for ROCA VICTORIA 20/20F. In our apartment we had no instruction left of how to use the boiler.  the PDF's explain how to top up the water pressure, setting, errors and faults. Please email me and I can forward the data?

Hi

We do have written instructions for the boiler (provided by Roda)....but thank you for offering the pdf'. documents.

We don't turn off the power to the boiler just leave the actual boiler setting in the off position.

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/publish/article_20215.shtml

The above may be of use?