Enbridge Budget Billing and their Estimation Wonders

Enbridge is a decent company. All calls to them to address problems have been pleasantly greeted and for the most part resolved to my satisfaction. Yet, with every bill that arrives their seems to be a new issue, most of which are based on their estimation practices. The two major estimation issues are as follows:

Estimating The Budget Billing Amount

The budget billing program (equal billing) is a good idea. The concept is that between September and April the consumer is billed the same amount on every bill. The consumer pays a little extra at the beginning and end of the period to keep the costs lower during the most expensive months in the dead of winter. This is very convenient for budgeting.

Enbridge, in order to keep their costs low, only reads the meters every 2 months. The alternating months they estimate (and I use that term ‘estimate’ as loosely as possible) the usage. How did these two scenarios cause an issue?

I moved into a new construction townhouse on December 3rd. The first Enbridge bill arrived the first week of January, and accounted for one month’s usage. The bill fit into the period where the bill was estimated, even though there was no prior billing history. They estimated upwards for $400 usage for the month which was over three times the actual amount. I phoned Enbridge to complain and was told that they could send a new bill, but because my Budget Billing amount was set, it wouldn’t change the amount I had to pay. I paid the enormous bill and anxiously waited for the next bill to arrive.

When the next bill arrived, it was for much lower usage, but the same amount owed. This was because the Budget Billing amount was set on the first bill, but this bill represented the actual usage. I phoned Enbridge again and spoke to someone more useful than I had after my first call. He was able to lower my Budget Billing amount to a more reasonable $85 down from $210. Everything was fine for the remainder of the winter. The estimated months were still three times the actual amount, but the Budget Billing program kept my bills a reasonable $109.

The Next Problem: Spring Estimation

This week my first non-Budget Billing bill arrived since its now May and is out of the Budget Billing timeframe which ended in April. This month also fell on the estimating interval. The bills increased a good deal again, up to $160. When looking at the estimated usage (again three times higher than actual usage), it was actually less than the biggest usage month during the winter. Once again I phoned to complain and again, I spoke to someone very useful.

They lowered my base usage (the amount that is independent of the weather). It turns out that the amount was never reset after it was transferred from the builder to myself. That was an error on their part. They are now sending a new bill, and hopefully things will be more palatable going forward.

As wel,l while speaking with the agent, I got more information about reporting your own usage online rather than having Enbridge estimate. You create an online profile, then report your own usage on the appropriate day. The shortcoming of the system is that they don’t inform you of the day they expect the reading. You need to phone to find out, or just guess. I will be taking the guessing route and perhaps doing it everyday during the expected period.

Problems Solved

There are several keys things that I learned in dealing with Enbridge:

Enbridge will estimate poorly (and in their favour); if you call them, they will send you a new bill
You can change your Budget Billing amount to any value you want
If you push, they will change some of the values of their estimation
You can log your own usage, although it’s not necessarily convenient

The best advice is to inspect each Enbridge bill and ensure that they are not doing anything strange in their estimation. If things are off, the solution is likely only a phone call away.