JoeBloggs80

Sorry - boring gas Bill question...

Just got our first bill from AGL, bit surprised to see it topped over $100 for 3 months considering we only use gas for the cooker.

Upon closer inspection, only $40 is actually for gas the rest is for 'supply charge' and 'account establishment fee'. Pretty sure neither of these were mentioned when signing up.

Are these standard charges for every company?

ozhappy981

Yep. Gas, electricity, phone - they all charge a one-off establishment fee. But the supply charge is on every bill plus the actual gas consumption. (If you're from the UK, you will have had the same: daily fee plus consumption charge.)

mark213

The supply charge and the usage are regulated by government . Depending on which state you are in they are usually standard across all operators, then the operators apply a discount mechanism incentive/offers in exchange usually for some sort of contract lock-in period.

The account establishment fee varies between operators, and can depend on what offers are out there in the market (ie reduced fee, no fee).

ABCDiamond

Did you also have to pay the Refundable Deposit ? That would have been $150 here in QLD, with a $33 Account establishment fee.

JoeBloggs80

Thanks for the answers all, it seems par for the course then.

Didn't have to pay a deposit (i'm in NSW), just $22.50 Account establishment fee.

And I negotiated a 7% discount, but it seems to only apply to the actual gas used, not the whole bill, which is a bit annoying.

There do seem to be hidden charges everywhere in utilities here.

Jaycee1

I am glad you asked this question as I have received my AGL Gas bill also and was slightly annoyed at the extra $40+ for supply and other crap
Is there a website here like in the UK where you can check other suppliers charges?
J x

itigo

Can people please tell me their average winter gas bill (use for heating, water and cooking) for 2 months? We are in Victoria and have just had our first bill and are reeling from the numbers on there!! Just want to know how it compares......

Thanks.

Going to get some more layers on........

MartinLuther

I just got a high one as well. $950 for 2 months. That's for a 50sq house. Same as you, water, cooking and heating.

We have used more than we did for the same period last year. Several reasons: it's colder this year and I've been doing a lot of reno this year (so lack of curtains, open doors and windows, at home more often and no log fire).

This is the "big" 2 months of the year for us. Previous 2 months the bill was $300. Summer months is nearly zero next 2 months will probably be about $450-500.

Wol

Last year's gas bill for the same three months was $668.59 - but prices have gone up quite a lot during the year so this year will be substantially higher.

We don't cook with gas, only hot water and heating.

We're AGL too.

goldchoccycoin

My gas bill (cooking) was $0 for actual usage (I have an electric oven and mostly cook at my partners so didn't use the hob for a while - this was over summer) and $65 for supply charge. Annoying but nothing I can do.

My winter heating bill (electric) for winter this year (May Jun Jul) was $151 - for a 2 bed unit in Brisbane and hot water (gas) was $65 (just in case anyone is looking for costs). I am out at work all day and use a small oil heater in the main bedroom only.

MissyB

There is a website called Energy Watch - www.energywatch.com.au which compares suppliers but you have to call them as they don't show the comparisons on their website (annoying). Not sure of any others...

koalakim

Gas is expensive in Oz full stop!

Our first rental here was an apartment and we only had gas for hob and hot water and it was still twice as much as our UK apartment which was toasty toasty in winter.

Martin Luther.. wow that is some gas bill! $425 a month ...that's 250 quid our most expensive gas bill in the UK ever was 95 for a quarter.

No wonder I'm cold all the time as I'm mean with the gas! Partly because we know in this rental that there maybe a leak in the pipes so we are mainly heating in between floors when the heating is set to downstairs. At one stage all the pipes had come off the boiler and we were heating the loft! The previous tenants spent 3.5 years here heating the loft

Hoping our new house will be a bit warmer and we will look at getting a log burner as we've just discovered a corner we can put it in

Ah yes all the utilities will sting you for connection fees, this fee, that fee everytime you move.

So yep, come to Vic and experience burning $$$$$ to keep warm!

itigo

Oh ok! Thanks. You have made me feel a bit better. Yours is higher than ours but I'm sure our house is less than 50 squares. We are just going to try and minimise our heating use a bit more for the next few weeks until it warms up. We have a plug in radiator and our electricity bill was ok so I think we'll use that instead for short sharp bursts in the evening.

Thanks all.......

MartinLuther

I can see where you're coming from but it still feels like £170 a month to me (the exchange rate change hasn't affected my income). And that's not every month. Over the year I'm looking at $1750 and I used to pay £600 a year back in 2004 which at that time was like $1500 so it doesn't seem so bad. (Although I still get a shock when I see the winter bill. The UK bill was spread across the year so it never had the shock value ) Also my house in the UK was about 12.5sq over 3 levels whereas the one here is 50sq over 1 level.

Once the reno's complete and I'm not wasting so much heat I should have a lot lower bill.

elice_in_oz

I feel better about our last bill now! We paid $400 with Red Energy for water, heating and stove for 2 months for a 120sqm house (not what that is in "squares".

I thought $400 was really high but the company did send us a little flyer with the bill giving the Victorian average consumption and we were under so I guess we're doing OK...