A Queensland family is desperate for answers after their quarterly power bill skyrocketed, leaving them tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket.
Neither Kylie Hill’s energy provider nor independent electricians can figure out why her home is chewing through so much power, yet the bills keep coming.
The power struggle began after Hill received a quarterly electricity bill for almost $1800 from provider AGL.
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“I rang them, I said, ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right house?’ ‘Yes’, they said, ‘Yes’,” Hill said.
“Straight away, I was confused … like, I don’t own a big factory!”
Living in Brisbane’s south-western suburbs with her husband and four children, at first Hill put the bill down to running too many appliances – something she says swiftly changed.
“We have a fan on at night, a lamp, we have lamps in this house because I’m too scared to use normal lights,” she said.
The next bill that came in was cheaper, but Hill claims it still didn’t stack up.
“That was $750. Even that’s a lot,” she said.
“Then the next few quarters though, all over the $1000, $2000, $3000 … $3900 was the biggest bill.”
With consumption-cutting tactics already in place, and no one at home during the day, Hill crunched some numbers and called AGL for a please explain.
“We just averaged out the last two years of bills and it was $15,000,” she said.
Concerned something was wrong with her meter, Kylie asked AGL to send Energex out to run some tests.
“He rushed inside and said, ‘Oh my god, what have you got on?’ Like the fridge – just the fridge,” Hill said.
“The watts were up so high that we had enough electricity going in here for like five houses.”
AGL put Hill’s account on hold while it looked further into the cause of her high power bills.
Despite failing to come up with a resolution, or any answers, it’s hit her with two more bills for nearly $7000.
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Just In Time Electrical’s Justin Czarkowski performed an independent assessment on Hill’s meter and said there was no question the property’s power consumption was high.
“Over $2500 a quarter, there’s definitely some kind of concern there as to where that power’s going,” Czarkowski said.
But his tests showed the meter’s figures were relatively accurate.
“We measured the actual current with the fluke meter, and then compared that to what the meter is saying and those measurements are comparable, they’re within a milliounce of each other,” Czarkowski said.
Despite determining there was no fault at the time of the test, he struggled to pinpoint a particular issue within her home.
“Given what we’ve had today and what we’ve seen, there’s not a lot on in this house as it stands, and doesn’t really explain why you would be getting a $3000 bill,” Czarkowski said.
So, A Current Affair sent Hill’s data to bill-busting experts to see if they could get to the bottom of it.
Richard Foxworthy is the founder of Bill Hero, a subscription service that breaks down and compares your energy bills for you.
He found Hill’s household consumed more than five times more than the average consumption.
“Average consumption across the board is about 15 kilowatt hours per day, but in this case, Kylie’s household was over 8800 kilowatt hours,” Foxworthy said.
“It’s certainly possible to consume that amount of energy, but it would be unusual if that’s actually the case for Kylie and her household.”
When contacted by A Current Affair, AGL said it was “committed to working with customers”.
But it maintains Hill’s usage is accurate, saying “we want to help our customers understand the safe and simple changes they can make around the home to conserve energy and reduce their bills”.
“They haven’t emailed me, called me, left messages, nothing,” Hill said.
“We’ve done the right thing with AGL and paid everything they’ve sent us except for the last one … they need to give us a break.”
FULL AGL STATEMENT
We want to help our customers understand the safe and simple changes they can make around the home to conserve energy and reduce their bills.
Switching hot washes for a cool cycle, air drying your clothing or properly sealing cracks around windowsills and doors are small changes that can make a difference.
In summer, we recommend setting the air conditioner between 23 to 26 degrees. In winter, as a general rule, only heat the room that is in use.
We also encourage customers to get in touch with us early if they are finding it difficult to pay their bills.
We are committed to working with customers and we know from experience that seeking help early can make an enormous difference.