HUGE electricity meter reading

Hi Utilityman,

All sorted now thanks.

I called BG and gave them my latest reading. They guy on the phone caculated the new bill and it ended up me being only £42 in credit which is better. He also told me that the computer had worked out my monthly payments to be £51! Talk about "computer says no" I said NO! The nice guy did a calculation and said the payment should be about £31 (taking into account my credit). So I asked him to set my DD payments to £35 much more manageable and I should stay in credit as I am being vry careful with my electricity consumption now.

It would seem that their computer, when working out your monthly payments, does not take into account any credit balance you have in your account.

One to watch out for I think. I certainly will be.

Thanks anyway.

Poo

Oh and my name is nothing to do with Pooh bear. My cat's nickname is Poo (short for Portia). lol

Thanks again

Oh I forgot to say

I did have economy 7 and still do. There is a blue button on the meter which if you press several times will show you the different readings, Day, Night and Total. E7 works for me because I use about 30-40% of my elec in that time (since Jan 23rd - night 324, day 808).

Poosmate wrote: »

I did have economy 7 and still do. There is a blue button on the meter which if you press several times will show you the different readings, Day, Night and Total. E7 works for me because I use about 30-40% of my elec in that time (since Jan 23rd - night 324, day 808).

Hi Poo, if you have already worked out break-even point, please ignore this post!

However, on the figures you give you don't make 30% night usage (~28%), on another thread on here, the tarrif break-even point (in that case) was 33%.

Assuming you are using the E7 for heating also, this would suggest that over the year you will use even less than the 28% you have been using in the winter months.

Just worth making sure that the break-even point for your tarrif is below the 28% night usage you currently use and probably under 25%.

HTH

MP

Poosmate wrote: »

Ooooh! I got my sums wrong didn't I? lol

Hmmm... I don't use electric for heating. I'm not sure how to work out my break even point. Although to be honest there are probably some ways that I could reduce my daytime electric use a little bit.

I should find out exactly when my 7 hours starts - I always get confused when the clocks go forward/back and I read somewhere that the hours could start at different times i.e. midnight or 12.30am. Maybe I should set my washing machine to start at 1.00am that should do it.

Thanks for the advice,

Poo

Times vary by region, some are GMT based (i.e. vary by 1 hour) some are clock based (i.e stick with "local" time) - also depends what type of timeswitch you have (mechanical or radio teleswitch), but you have the right idea - if you time your washing machine etc to come on in the "middle" of the period you should avoid any problems with times being +/- an hour.

If you post the unit rates you pay (inc. any tier 1 & 2 or standing charges) versus the rates for the "standard" (Non E7) tarrif with your supplier (or say what supplier and region you are) one of us will be happy to do a quick calculation for you (if you know your past 12 months usage that would help also)

My intention wasn't to alarm you - some E7 tarrifs in some regions can break even below 15% IIRC, I posted just to make sure you were aware that it varies.

MP

russ21282 wrote: »

An update for my post. After putting the check meter in it turns out ours is working correctly. So i rang BG again to discuss the matter further. I basically said something must wrong as its never been this high before and there's nothing in our house that could be using that amount of electric.

The nice lady on the phone went to check our previous usage and called back in the afternoon. She said it did look like something was a miss and cancelled the old bill and sent out a new one based on our previous usage which turned out to be £300 from july to may.

So all has been sorted now. I'm happy with BG as they could have turned round and said "thats what the meter says and the meters correct so you owe us £800" so good customer service in my opinion, thumbs up!

Thanks for everyones advice on here too!:beer:

This makes no sense to me!

"After putting the check meter in it turns out ours is working correctly."

So they have ignored the readings from the 'correctly reading meter' and based your revised bill on previous usage?