Comments on: Power Bill Blues

By: Jayce

Jayce — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 23:28:01 +0000

You think that’d bad.. last months bill from Genesis for our family of 2 and a half (two adults and a 5 month old) who live on the Kapiti Coast? $814.

By: Pegi Spencer

Pegi Spencer — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 22:23:08 +0000

I’m in the USA & out Elct. bill comes once a month, well it came one mon. for $25.00, I thought that was strange, but payed it, the next mon. it came it was $17,00 So I call the Elct.Co. to ask why my bills have dropped so much? & I didn’t want the next bill to be so high I couldn’t pay it,I guess us ‘Americans are spoiled, I like lights, using my Computer, ect. It took me 10-15mins to get across to the woman, what I was asking, why is my Elct. bill so low all of a sudden. Well they never told me & had me read the numbers to them, they were way off just as I thought, we should of been paying something like $400.00 more then we have been paying, but since it was ‘their ‘ mistake they let it slide. But the nest 4-5 mons. I was still reciving ‘low’ Elct. bills, I called again, yep they would fix it, well I finally recieved a ‘normal’ bill but also with a letter that they wanted a $300.00 ‘Deposit’ cause I wasn’t keeping my bills current!! BUT IT WAS THEIR FAULT!! & NO THEY WOULDN’T TAKE PAYMENTS. sO A mAN COMES TO SHUT MY elct. off, the day before the dead line of the deposit, so with the man in my house & another Hour, I got it all straigned out I just HATE it when the Gov. or whever does it sets up JUST ONE CO. for you to work with, Boy they all hold all the cards & your A. This was 8-9yrs ago & they still haven’t credited me with the $300.00, they still have hold of it & I haven’t moved from this house in over 30yrs.YEP ‘BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING US & GIVING US THE BIG STICK…YOU KNOW WHERE.

By: Graeme Edgeler

Graeme Edgeler — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 02:26:43 +0000

Our flat has had massively fluctuating readings too (thankfully nothing near $500) – last month $350+ (an estimate, they physically read the meter ever second month) this month $90. They’d massively over-estimated hot water last month (so much so that they owed us $80 for hot water). Check the readings, and compare to previous bills – this could be a too high estimate, or you may have been undercharged at your last estimate).

By: gary

gary — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:34:22 +0000

Does sound high,
Trustpower have a useful sheet that documents how much electicity certain things in your house use, If you think your bill is excessive it might be worthwhile having a look and attempting to total up your usage, what sort of KWH or units did you use (I assume that it is a reading and not an estimate)
TPowers sheet is here
http://www.trustpower.co.nz/
Content/documents/MeterReadingGuide_000.pdf

By: dave

dave — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:03:55 +0000

$500 sounds very high for a family of 3 for the type of usage you describe, Ana. Have you checked the meter readings yourself (not unknown for meter readers to get it wrong) and if it is your actual usage, you should check out some of the power company sites for guides on how to trouble shoot high usage – sometimes faults with hot water cylinders can cause high usage. Just by way of comparision, our last bill for a family of 5 in Auckland (gas and power) was about $420. Brisbane is a lot cheaper – a friend of mine moved there from Wellington and set up a fixed amount auto payment based on his NZ bills, and ended up with $1000 refund by the end of the first year.

By: Birdy

Birdy — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 01:01:44 +0000

That does sound like a lot. Esp with that big f-off gas heater. Maybe Stevie needs to stop singing in the shower?

By: llew

llew — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:16:13 +0000

Two words. Max Bradford.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 23:10:36 +0000

$500.00 a month. What a rip off. Winter in Brisbane (and yes, we do use the heater during the winter) our power bill is around AUD$350.00 per quarter.