# high costs of gas bills, help



## alexxx (Nov 26, 2012)

Hi,
I moved to Portugal for studying, and I'm living in apartment with 3 people. Flat is quit big because it has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms etc. We have gas stove, and our gas is for heating and for hot water. In this month it was starting to be cold so we decided to use heating, owners of the flat said us that it is expensive so we have to be careful, so we only used it a few hours per day and turn it off, and we used heating only a half of month. And after that we got bill in amount of 220 euro... it;s really crazy. Do you think guys it's possible?
And also I have to add, that around month ago this gas machine was broken, we didn;t have hot water couple of days, can't cook, and someone repaired it, but i don't know what exacly happend. And after that owners of flat said us that we can;t use this machine on maximum, because temperature is too high.
I don;t know maybe it;s something wrong with this machine?
Because 220 euros.. this sounds like a joke!
I need your opinion!

Greetings,
Alex


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

How are you charged for what you use, do you have an independent meter? what's does your tenancy agreement say about supply of services and who is responsible for servicing?

You need to establish these things but bottled/liquid gas for heating here is expensive


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## alexxx (Nov 26, 2012)

Yes we have independent meter outside the flat in the hall, I don't know who is resposbile for servicing, the bills have owner of my apartment and he bring it.
Yes I know it's expensive but for me it was suprising because we didn't use it so much, and the diffrence in bills beetwen this month and month before in large.


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

You need to take a meter reading so you can monitor what your using is not the bill in the names of you as tenants? if not is landlord charging you the correct figure? sorry but it seems you need to establish exactly yours and his responsibilities before you can start questioning charges, servicing etc


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## alexxx (Nov 26, 2012)

No, our names aren't use on bills, probably owners. 
''if not is landlord charging you the correct figure?'' - what you mean?
Yes, now I know.. I don't know completely in this, in my country is diffrent and also I'm not a person who deals with this in my house.


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## jerryceltner (May 15, 2012)

Dzień dobry,

Once you have established what Canoe has told you to do it could be an idea to see if the landlord if living on the premises has his own meter.
We do not use gas and the heating comes from deisel. My electricity bill was 494 euro for 2 months and this was not an estimate. We have today received a bill for the last 2 months and this time the bill is 143.02 euro.....crazy......summer months high and now cold and much lower. You could also check to see if it was an estimated bill.


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## canoeman (Mar 3, 2011)

Are you being charged the correct amount for the gas you've used i.e the units and service charge or as bills aren't in your name is the landlord allowed to charge you a different rate or perhaps include a service charge.

Your the ones with the agreement so you should have some information about how charges are calculated, sorry but without you knowing what your agreement is, we can only offer advice on what to check.


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