Energy Suppliers

LOL I do have a lamp post right out side my door to...wonder what kind of amps I can draw from it before I cause issues ;)

My next post will be

"how to hide jumper cables from lamp post to property"
 
With direct debits, you pretty much are in control. The only caveat that some people don't like is that energy suppliers expect you to be in a least a months direct debit in credit before winter. This is actually sensible and fair, as it gives you the rest of the year to build up a months worth of credit, to minimise your chances of falling into debt.

I submit my meter readings at the same time each month. From doing this and my own calculations, I can see if I've had a bad month of consumption and predict my annual usage usually far more accurate than the supplier. Another bonus of having your own readings, is that if you change supplier you still have historic readings to calculate your annual usage and set a direct debit which is a sensible amount.
 
Thanks for your reply...I dont know still dont like the idea of direct debit ETC.

Still for now I shall stick to pre payment cards and keys but I will look into direct debit...for now though I need a new supplier.
Still looking but BULB do look good and there pence per kilowatt is very good compared to british gas and the daily charge...(yes yes another pay as you go feature I think? not sure you get that on direct debit ETC?)

Thanks again all :)
 
I switched from British Gas to Bulb at the start of this year as BG refused to put me on a credit meter and would only let me use pay as you go cards I ended up saving 200-300 a year thanks to the switch and bulb are super helpful as well if you're struggling just drop them a message via the app and they will reply to you within minutes the only downside is they don't have smart meters (yet?)
 
D.Roberts said:
awesome info thank you.
Yeah I am not ready for a smart meter any way TBH.

I will give them a message I think.

Thanks for the info :)
Click to expand...

Dude, you really need to get away from that prepayment meter now if you can of course some customers do get refused as they go way into debt on the bills and they cannot afford to pay it back so they get repayment meters fitted by the energy company to pay for there electric and then some goes towards also paying down the debt. What you have to understand is the unit price for your energy is more expensive but also the cheapest deals are not available or not offered to customers on prepayment meters so you don't get the best deals.

If you want some advise get over the idea of paying for it in advance, its all in your head. Sign up with a company tell them you are on a prepayment meter and you want it swapping out for a credit meter. You already have a fairly good idea of your usage which is high and its costing you even more than it should for the reasons above. Tell them you are happy initially to pay around £100 a month, this will take some times to setup anyway and you can just save the money (perhaps even draw it out of the bank keep it in an envelope) so that when you know the payment is going to come out of the bank you can pay the money in the day before.

I can guarantee you will save money if you do this. If you need a bulb referral feel free to trust me a message and we can both get a £50 bonus :)
 
30kw/hour a day is also seriously high use, how are you even managing that? Do you have electric heating?

Get off that pre payment meter ASAP, you’ll save a fortune. As others have said pre payment is THE most expensive electric you can buy. We’re not talking a few £ either, you’ll save significant amounts over a year. You know those adverts that say “you can save £400 on your energy bills if you switch”? That’s the sort of figure you can expect if not more.

Put your use and tariff into compare the market or money saving expert and see what it says.

Edit: give this a read.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity/
 
Last edited:
D.Roberts said:
I am sure I would save but it scares me to know that when the bill comes in its going to be one lump sum LOL.
I was looking into why its a lot (I got me a smart meter thing).

The biggest use is the tumble dryer we have 3 kids that needs clean clothes,school uniform ETC ETC so always being washed and dried.

We have an old LCD TV that seems to use a fair bit which is connected to a PC that has an i5 760 in it so those two things use up a fair bit and is on pretty much all day.

so yeah I need to also lower our electric consumption some how :(
this is one of the reasons I like pre payed meters we use a lot some weeks its stupid high others its just high LOL :(
Click to expand...

LCD and computers use nothing.

It's heating air, water, etc that uses the most. So kettles, washing machines, dryers, hairdryers, etc.

I would as others have suggested move to a meter and pay by direct debit.

Pointless trying to get your usage down unless you want to buy the most efficient products on the market which are substantially lower consumption wise than what you have already.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
30kw/hour a day is also seriously high use, how are you even managing that? Do you have electric heating?

Get off that pre payment meter ASAP, you’ll save a fortune. As others have said pre payment is THE most expensive electric you can buy. We’re not talking a few £ either, you’ll save significant amounts over a year. You know those adverts that say “you can save £400 on your energy bills if you switch”? That’s the sort of figure you can expect if not more.

Put your use and tariff into compare the market or money saving expert and see what it says.

Edit: give this a read.
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity/
Click to expand...

30kwh per day is high.

I'm going to assume it's 5 people spending an awful lot of time in electric showers. Excessive use of hairdryers and tumble drying.

Having non led light bulbs on all day. Electric heaters.

People leaving the fridge open too long and filling kettle to the top, etc.

Basically all common sense.
 
Last edited:
I learnt a lot from having a watt meter clamped to the neutral able to see what each device was using instantaneously. I was not so bothered about high draw devices that only operate for maybe up to an hour. However I did move away from water cooling and SLI in my gaming PC at the time as it was rather a power draw over time (600-700W for hours).

Then I got a SMART meter and could see both daily usage and relate that to cost per unit. When I started charging an EV at home that put everything else in the shade! So now I run CCTV cameras via a PoE switch and record to a NAS and that literally only a few pence a day. My "modern" PC with a single GPU is only 300-400W now while gaming so again no sweat.

I can appreciate having kids etc. to cater for could easily match my daily EV usage though.

So the two biggest energy draws in my house are s Gas central heating at ~ 10kwh per day and charging my EV at 15-20 kwh per day.

I have no problem with Direct Debit as you can usually make changes very easily online. My experience with the larger suppliers is their systems can be less flexible such as having a cap on changes. Switching to Bulb was great and I would stay but Octopus can offer me either Go (fixed 5p/kwh from 00:30am to 04:30am) or Agile which uses 30 minute slots to advise when the wholesale price of electricity will be cheapest in the next 24 hrs. That includes payments back to you with surplus generation on rare occasions.

Anyway just those two suppliers could offer benefits especially if you can shift some appliances to run in the lower tariff periods. I understand that can complicate things in a busy household but may be worth the effort.

Now lets not get started on SMART meters as mines been dumb since switching away from Scottish Power and can't be used with Octopus (or Bulb) currently but the LCD panel still gives me useful data at a glance. I just enter my readings manually as I had done for decades before :)
 
Last edited:
Marvt74 said:
Yeah, just looking at mine and it's around 10-15/day on average
Click to expand...
seems high itself ?

D.Roberts said:
Still looking but BULB do look good and there pence per kilowatt is very good compared to british gas and the daily charge..
Click to expand...
justy looked, the bulb pre-payment charge(left) seems very competitive with what I pay bulb middle,
£30p/year more on 30kwhs a day ... they seem to be best at the moment, £150 cheaper than BG,
bulb seem to be trying to buy themselves into this market, i would ask how long that variable rate will remain ?


49198321268_f78098bbb7_c_d.jpg


[incidentally - I see people are, fairly, offering £75+ bulb referral online ... so can we get rid of noise of those posts ]


bimbleuk said:
Octopus can offer me either Go (fixed 5p/kwh from 00:30am to 04:30am) or Agile which uses 30 minute slots
Click to expand...
unless you have an ev ... the cheap overnight still seems of little use - we put washing machine on at night, I'm not sure I'd run a dryer - do you ?
GO wasn't worthwhile for me , electric hob/oven @7pm
 
We're averaging £39 a month electric.

That is with my MIL at home all the time, usually with the tv on, my 2700k Unraid server on 24/7, and my wife working from home 3-4 days a week. No tumble-dryer though.

I mean, we do have solar panels, but surely that wouldn't offset things that much.

Gas we'll need to see as we have only been in the house since April, but November was £66 and December is already on £22.

British Gas.
 
Last edited:
jpaul said:
unless you have an ev ... the cheap overnight still seems of little use - we put washing machine on at night, I'm not sure I'd run a dryer - do you ?
GO wasn't worthwhile for me , electric hob/oven @7pm
Click to expand...

Nowhere near as much as a family may need to run so not such of an impact.

The Agile tariff and similar future tariffs will allow you to see (via alerts as well) the next 24 hours ahead and maybe shift some of your activities to a cheaper period.

Unfortunately as it doesn't average like a typical tariff you will pay a premium between 4 - 7 pm like 30p/kwh for example but it would be an option if you are able to work around that. Not for everyone of course.
 
Hi all thanks so much for the info.
I have taken a few pics of my smart meter I got and here is my usage ETC :)

OK so last months usage total was

https://i.imgur.com/HStxoqA.png

Last weeks usage was

https://i.imgur.com/3un5G93.png

Yesterdays usage was

https://i.imgur.com/HSlW8ac.png

And so far todays is

https://i.imgur.com/jmGQoqg.png

now you can see currently I am using about 540 to 550w

and that is about 12p per hour on my tarrif

https://i.imgur.com/aCT5gvk.png

I shall seriusly give BULB a ring and see what they can do for us :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom