Gas and electric questions

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
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Location
Finchley, London
I've been on a gas payg top up card for years but with central heating installed 3 months ago, I'm seeing £30 go about every 10 days, using just 3 radiators out of 5, and everyday hot water usage. I used to cook on gas up till a few weeks ago, but now it's on electric. I just called british gas asking to change over to a direct debit meter. Surprisingly I was told that these days there's no difference in the cost of gas whether it's top up or direct debit. They can change my meter no problem, for free, but asked me to consider some things. That I'm more in control with pay as you go, no bills, and even with some discounts on direct debit, I'd be paying the same amount throughout the year. Also with direct debit, it's easy to leave radiators on and run up the bills, whereas with my top up meter, I can keep my eye on how much money is being used by looking at the meter readout which shows me how much credit remains, which reminds me to conserve gas and turn rads off.

So I'm not sure whether to change the meter. Opinions?

Also, my electricity is with Eon. They sent me a letter a few months back offering to deliver my gas, along with some reward goodies for giving it to them. Who offers the best duel fuel tariffs? British Gas reckon they do. Naturally. But maybe they do?
 
I don't really understand energy tariffs but dual fuel deals are usually better value. I've found pay as you go very expensive and inconvenient. £30 over 10days is horrific, I don't spend that in a month but depends on how much you use I suppose.
 
Nobody understands energy tariffs - that's the point of them. The obfuscation is deliberate.

You can trawl the websites of every supplier, find and download the exact details of each of their tariffs (they usually have a dozen or more each) and create a spreadsheet to calculate the cost from each tariff of the energy you use. That's the most accurate and comprehensive way.

Or you can use a comparison website, which just requires you to input your postcode (tariffs are different in different areas) and your usage, then shows you the costs for different tariffs in order of cost. That isn't as comprehensive as the above, but it's a great deal easier and quicker.

I used the moneysaving expert site to start with, to get some info and links to comparison sites. If I recall correctly, I used energyhelpline as the comparison site and switched suppliers through it.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/you-switch-gas-electricity#spowercash

I'd be surprised if prepay meters ran at the same tariff as ordinary meters. Maybe there's one tariff on ordinary meters that's the same as prepay. Maybe.

You may as well have a look at comparson sites. They don't cost you anything to use. I assume they get a fee from a supplier when someone uses the comparison site to open an account with the supplier.

EDIT: Here's a page specifically on prepaid meters:

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/switch-prepaid-gas-electricity

It appears that my tentative assumption, above, is probably true.

You'll often hear 'prepay users don't pay more now' - that's compared to bog standard tariffs with normal bills. Bill meters offer a wider choice of tariffs including cheap online deals, direct debit discounts and more. It's simply a more competitive marketplace.
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They want to keep you on your current gas setup as they charge you more for having an Electronic Token Meter. Get rid of it and get a normal Credit meter in if you have the choice.
 
Thanks guys, I think I'll definitely change to a credit meter. My nephew is paying about £58 a month for his gas with southern electricity which is considerably less than I pay. He has more radiators than me as well, in fact, I only really have 2 radiators on, not 3 as I mentioned earlier. Think I'm getting ripped off here. I'll get the meter changed over by british gas since it's free, then change to another company for duel fuel. Whether it'll be southern electricity or someone else I don't know yet. I think I'd better call energyhelpline that Angilion mentioned, seems like a good place to start.
 
Merlin5 said:
[..] I think I'd better call energyhelpline that Angilion mentioned, seems like a good place to start.
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Despite the name, it's a website.

The links I gave in my post are a good place to start. The pages they link to contain links to energyhelpline.com
 
I had a pre-pay meter for a few years up untill 2010. I think they made it 'illegal' to charge more for pre-pay around 2008 at a guess. I'd gladly swap back to pre-pay tbh.

I look at it this way; imagine that you didn't have to put petrol in your car. It just ran and ran, then every 3 months, they sent you a bill for how many miles you had done. It would be (at times) horrendous
 
mame said:
I had a pre-pay meter for a few years up untill 2010. I think they made it 'illegal' to charge more for pre-pay around 2008 at a guess. I'd gladly swap back to pre-pay tbh.

I look at it this way; imagine that you didn't have to put petrol in your car. It just ran and ran, then every 3 months, they sent you a bill for how many miles you had done. It would be (at times) horrendous
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Well that's one of the things about pre-paid, you see at a glance how much of the money you've put in has depleted and it reminds you to reduce the amount of heating to be used. With direct debit, it'll be easy to forget about it and just keep the central heating running, and then as you say, get a huge bill. Neverthless, if I change to direct debit I'll just have to be careful and try and remember to keep radiators on only when I really need to. But having recently had a load of building work done, I'm trying to keep dampness out of new sand and cement and plasterwork on exterior walls of my bathroom and kitchen, so I've kept the heated towel rail and kitchen rad on most of the time, particularly now while it's very cold weather.
 
Seeing as you have to keep an eye on your meter, I imagine you have (or can work out) your energy consumption? If so, head over to uswitch and plumb in your meter readings.

It might not be 100% accurate and may miss the odd tariff, but it will be a good ballpark, and at £90 a month just on gas I imagine you'll be able to find a cheaper deal elsewhere - probably a online dual fuel tariff.

Whether they'll be available if you want to remain on a pre-pay meter I'm not so sure about though...
 
A little help to keep the gas usage (and the money used on gas) down.

Only have the hot water on (if the hot water is run into a tank) when it's needed and turn it off when it isn't.

With the cooking included (excluding any heating as it rarely gets used), my gas usage is around £10 every fortnight which is on a pre payment meter.
 
Too many variables. But even with no information those numbers are well within the normal tolerances for avg user. 3300 kwh for elec and 16500 kwh for gas . Those are industry avgs. Elec easy to calc as one unit =1 turn of th dial. Whereas as gas is some mad equation based on calorific values. So if you're reading 392 turns of the dial on the gas mtr you have not used 392 units.
 
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