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Why is my energy bill so high?

Three little words — and usually one of about five culprits behind them. The trick isn’t panicking at the number; it’s working out which bit is doing the damage. So let’s narrow it down.

• You’re charged before you boil a single kettle. Both meters carry a fixed daily fee — the standing charge — that you pay just for being connected, whether you use anything or not. Over a year it’s quietly one of the bigger lines on the bill, and there’s nothing you can switch off to dodge it.
• You never switched, so you’re on the default. Fix expired, or never moved? Then you’re on the standard variable tariff — it just tracks Ofgem’s cap, and it’s almost never the bargain. What the price cap actually is →
• The always-on drip. The fridge. The router that never sleeps. The telly on standby, the console, that second fridge in the garage everyone forgets. None of it feels like much — but it runs 24/7, and it adds up to a real slice of the bill.
• Heating — the winter heavyweight. From October to March, gas heating dwarfs everything else in most homes. So a scary winter bill is often just… winter — worth knowing before you go hunting for a fault that isn’t there.
• Or the bill’s high but your usage isn’t. A big monthly payment isn’t the same as using a lot — sometimes the supplier has simply set the direct debit too high and is banking the difference. Are you owed money? →

Which one is it for you? You can’t tell from a typical-home average — only from your own usage. That’s the bit Joulely does: free, impartial, your real numbers.