Martin Lewis says 'within a few days' as alert issued to British Gas, EDF, EON and Octopus Energy customers

Some people could pay 'more' if they do not act

Martin Lewis has urged households to do one thing 'within a few days' of the start of October. From today (Tuesday, October 1), energy bills will rise by 10 per cent in line with Ofgem's new price cap.

The move will see the average household's bills increase by about £149 a year. But Money Saving Expert founder Martin said some homes could risk paying 'more' than they actually should.

This is because energy firms will price bills based on an estimate instead. Martin said that households should take a meter reading within days of the price change.

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Speaking on his podcast last week: "Reminder that it's Meter Reading Week. It used to be Meter Reading Day but I managed to crash most of the big energy firms by doing so.

"Now I say it’s Meter Reading Week because it really doesn’t make much difference. If you don’t do a metre reading and you pay by monthly direct debit your usage is estimated and it’s your energy firm that using an algorithm will decide how much was before the price went up and how much was after.

"If it estimates too much after the price went up, you will pay more. I’m not suggesting that they’re trying to diddle by doing that, more you might just fall foul of the algorithm. You might also gain from it.

"The way to make it totally fair is to give a metre reading within a few days on either side of October 1." He added: "Most firms you can do it a day or two before and a couple of days afterwards and backdate the metre reading as long as it’s an honest one.

"If you’ve got a working smart metre, working being the operative word, you don’t need to do this because your smart metre is sending in metre readings anyway." The price cap sets a maximum price energy suppliers can charge consumers for each kilowatt hour (kWh) of energy they use.

Energy regulator Ofgem reviews and updates it every three months.