Electricity charges

[Johndeb]

I'd agree that electric here does appear really expensive.  We have a 4 bed modern villa and it costs 1,200 euros a year and we get a shock every time a bill comes in.  However, when you break it down, we have electric heaters, an american fridge, a pool pump and aircon! So I guess on balance it's not so bad.  It just comes hard after years in a colder country and our gas and electric combined were about a third cheaper.

Does anyone have any knowledge of gas heating in France? It's now in our street and wonder whether it'd be worth switching.

Our biggest shock was when we rented a 2 bed property for a year and stupidly didn't come to an agreement re electric up front.  After 9 months we were presented with a bill higher than our villa cost for a year!!!  Wouldn't have minded but we were freezing the whole winter, so it wasn't like we felt we'd got any benefit for our money.

It turned out that it had a very uneconomical boiler and after some negotiation, we came to an agreement with the owner over the final bill but it was quite scary at the time.

Rgds

Deb