Korean Job Discussion Forums

[boneless]

I've been living in a small one room for the last 2 months. the first heating bill was off the charts, I think 176,000. My gas bill in my last place was only 40,000 a month at the most. I gritted my teeth and payed the bill and this month I turned the heating levels down to half of what they were last month. It's not really ever totally comfortable in my place but I figured it should make for a much lower bill. Well this months bill is 140,000! I asked the meter reader why my bill is so high compared to my last place and she said it's because it's LPG gas. it seems like I am getting gas service from some small mom and pop gas company. They have to come inside my house to check the meter and they handwrite my bills on the spot. A woman usually calls my phone to schedule what time they will come by. I can hear children playing in the background which seems odd. Has anybody else experienced this? Aside from buying a space heater and shutting off my gas, is there anything else i can do? I am going to have my girlfriend help me call the landlord as my Korean isn't that great yet. Hopefully he will have some answers.

[spliff]

Compare your bills to the other residents if they are roughly the same......if not....

[suneV]

[boneless]

[maddog]

Consider this as a comparison.

I have a three bedroom apt and i have no control over my own heating. It is centrally controlled throughout the whole building. I have to leave my windows open as my apt is like an oven! My combined utilities (elec, water, heating, gas, management, etc.) was 170K for the whole month of Jan. To me, that seemed extortionate.

If you've got the heating turned down, and you're still paying 140K on gas alone, you are getting fleeced by someone.

At my last place I got an OUTRAGEOUS electricity bill. I threw the isolations switch and the meter was still running at a fair speed. Some cnut had been running their apt off my electricity. I wasn't the first foreigner in Korea to fall victim to this kind of scam, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

MD

[mistermasan]

i haven't turned my floorheater on yet. it hasn't been cold enough yet so it is just as well because i don't know how.

[nicholas_chiasson]

You're not getting ripped off. I am in EPIK and the gas bill is right from the company and my highest was 176,000won. I've managed to cut back to 150,000. Cooking has almost NO effect on your gas bill. Its just because they jack the gas price in winter.

[cangel]

The private gas distributors are about 4 times more expensive than city gas. My coworkers and I, who live in the same new villa, learned the hard way. We were hooked up to the city line 2 months ago but for some reason, after we were told that the city gas had been hooked up, we still continued to use the private gas resulting in tremendously high heating bills. It would not surprise me if our landlord was getting a kickback to hold off on switching gas until after the winter season.

[joewaller]

Who is supplying the gas does matter. When I lived in Nangok (near Bundang) the residents of the building I lived in had to pay 200,000 plus for heating costs. It was nuts. They company had jacked up the price because there were no other options for gas services in that area. I checked other bills in the boxes and some of their bills were much higher!!

[boneless]

This is what I was afraid of. I asked the woman from the company if it would be possible to change to the regular city gas and she said no. I wonder if using an electric space heater would be much cheaper.

[just because]

I have a pretty large house, 3 bedroom and about 34 pyeong so i have a lot more to heat...

However, my last gas bill came to 320 000 won!!!!!

I was one of the cheaper ones in our apartment complex....


Basically it is measured by per unit of gas used(of course).

The difference is in peak season(approx Dec-Mar) the gas companies pump up the price of heat per unit dramatically and then lower it again during the warmer months...
Check your bill if you don't believe me and compare it.

Don't know how they are allowed to get away with not giving a set price the whole year round but that is one of the logics of Korean companies at play here.

[TheChickenLover]

If you're living in cheaper quality housing, it will cost more to keep warm in winter. Those who have better quality housing usually have much lower heating costs.

Case in point. I used to live in a house where I bought nearly 2 drums of oil a month (400L) & that cost me a pretty penny (nearly 300k). I moved out of that house & bought a new apartment in a nice neighborhood. The apartments are much better for retaining heat to the point I turn on the heat for 2 hours a day. 1 hour when I wake up which warms up the floor & from 6pm - 7pm to make the apartment nice & warm in the evening.

A "large" bill for me is around 65k won (which includes showers & cooking). A cheaper bill to me is 40k won. In the summer I pay between 5000 or 6000 won depending on how many showers I take to cool off.

If your housing has bad insulation, you'll save money for your roof, but you'll pay alot more to keep it warm and end up losing more in the long run.

Chicken

[hari seldon]

[MarionG]

The heater (heating oil driven ondol heating) in my apartment is old and not operating well. The first 2 months I was here (mid Feb to mid-April)
used up all the oil, and filling up was 140,000. That lasted until mid-Sept.

To make a long story short, it's now 400,000 a month. The heater needs to be replaced. The owner and my boss both think its my responsibility, and I should replace the heater. I'm moving out in 11 days, but it might have been cheaper for me to pay for a new heater if I'd known how much the heating oil was going to cost!

[pesawattahi]

Also here in Korea your utulities are progressive. Meaning the more you use the more you will be charged at a progressively higher rate. That is why it seems the price is ratcheted up in the winter.