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Yup. Its Another PP Electricity Post!
he6rt6gr6m
Posts: 163 Forumite
in Energy
Sorry for this, but after doing a search, I came across so many people p*ssed off with their Pre-Payment meters, I didnt know where to start.
So, heres the deal.
We moved into a new property in November, and United Utilities fitted a Key PP Meter, to replace whatever was in place as the last (Im led to believe that the last was a normal quarterly bill meter that displays readings only) and we have been fine until the past three or four weeks.
Being that in the previous property, we coule easily exist with £10 electricity a week, we were under the assumption that it would be the same here. I know many of you are probably thinking that £10 p/w is a little low, but thats what it used to equate to, on one of the old card meters. We swiched off all property installed electric heaters, because they eat electric like it was going out of fasion, and used those funky swivel heaters with three bars in them.
Since moving up here, we have always gone into Emergency Credit territory. And over the New Year, I have had the emergency credit be used, because our £20 lasted from Wednesday last week to wednesday this week. And now, Ive calculated, that in 27 Hours, all the EC has gone. Thats £5, plus whatever pence was on top of that (maybe 47p) in 27 Hours of usage.
If I left the washer, cooker, dishwasher and microwave on, along with the TV, V+ Box, Fridge and Central Heating on ALL day and night, I still wouldnt expect to see £5 go just like that, but it has.
The best bit is that I KNOW I havent used it. The most energy consuming thing in my household is an Xbox 360. It eats electric, not as much as the heaters in the old place, but it does like its electric goodness. Problem is, that over Christmas and New Year, they havent been on. All thats been on is the TV, V+ Box, Cooker for 30 Mins, Fridge constantly, Central Heating for 12 Hours (Gas) and my swivel heater, along with a TV upstairs and the bedroom's Digibox.
These are like the bare essensials in my household, and Ive never experienced a huge credit loss like this.
I guess my options are to ask if there is any company that offers a service without Standing Charge, or if there is a service that is cheaper than what this joke of a company is charging us right here.
My meter reads the folling, as it pertains to debt, standing charge, etc etc. 12.09 per kWh. £1.27 charge per week. No debt now, because I cleared it by putting credit on the meter today. 2616.90 is my reading, but Im putting that here for my own research.
A quick EDIT: After digging through some old mail, Ive found a letter which tells me that there was a 25p debt when we moved in (from a new meter?!) and that I must pay £6 a week to pay it off.
Double EDIT: This site doesnt like the Google spell Checker.
So, heres the deal.
We moved into a new property in November, and United Utilities fitted a Key PP Meter, to replace whatever was in place as the last (Im led to believe that the last was a normal quarterly bill meter that displays readings only) and we have been fine until the past three or four weeks.
Being that in the previous property, we coule easily exist with £10 electricity a week, we were under the assumption that it would be the same here. I know many of you are probably thinking that £10 p/w is a little low, but thats what it used to equate to, on one of the old card meters. We swiched off all property installed electric heaters, because they eat electric like it was going out of fasion, and used those funky swivel heaters with three bars in them.
Since moving up here, we have always gone into Emergency Credit territory. And over the New Year, I have had the emergency credit be used, because our £20 lasted from Wednesday last week to wednesday this week. And now, Ive calculated, that in 27 Hours, all the EC has gone. Thats £5, plus whatever pence was on top of that (maybe 47p) in 27 Hours of usage.
If I left the washer, cooker, dishwasher and microwave on, along with the TV, V+ Box, Fridge and Central Heating on ALL day and night, I still wouldnt expect to see £5 go just like that, but it has.
The best bit is that I KNOW I havent used it. The most energy consuming thing in my household is an Xbox 360. It eats electric, not as much as the heaters in the old place, but it does like its electric goodness. Problem is, that over Christmas and New Year, they havent been on. All thats been on is the TV, V+ Box, Cooker for 30 Mins, Fridge constantly, Central Heating for 12 Hours (Gas) and my swivel heater, along with a TV upstairs and the bedroom's Digibox.
These are like the bare essensials in my household, and Ive never experienced a huge credit loss like this.
I guess my options are to ask if there is any company that offers a service without Standing Charge, or if there is a service that is cheaper than what this joke of a company is charging us right here.
My meter reads the folling, as it pertains to debt, standing charge, etc etc. 12.09 per kWh. £1.27 charge per week. No debt now, because I cleared it by putting credit on the meter today. 2616.90 is my reading, but Im putting that here for my own research.
A quick EDIT: After digging through some old mail, Ive found a letter which tells me that there was a 25p debt when we moved in (from a new meter?!) and that I must pay £6 a week to pay it off.
Thats
hilarious, and as Ive found the number to give them a tinkle,
Im
informed that their Call Centers are temporarily closed as they advise their employees of major information, and will re-open in one hour. Fantastic service, that.Double EDIT: This site doesnt like the Google spell Checker.
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Comments
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12.09p per kWh plus only £1.27 is pretty reasonable - I doubt you could get significantly better than that. (£5 per month is cheap/typical for a credit meter, never mind prepayment.) (Okay, over a quarter there may be savings with an alternative tariff but there will not be a significant day to day difference.)
As you have identified, there seems to be an errant charge. Call centres difficult to reach on 1 or 2 Jan? Outrageous! "Bliadhna Mhath Ur" (*hic*) (or, "Naye sāl kī hārdik śubhkāmnayeṅ", more likely.)0 -
Teehee.
How can they charge £6 for a 25p debt though? Crazy!
On the uSwitch site that offers an incentive to switch, I found a £75 saving per annum. As you say, it might not be a significant day to day change, but its pretty good.
Im not sure what else to try, really, because it still seems like its more expensive than I expected. It could even equate to double what I was previously paying, if things continue on this road.
Could it be, though, that because Ive been using the Emergency credit, that the charges are becoming more significant? I might just have to bite my teeth and spend all the money I wanted to save for a concert in January on electricity to get us out of the debt margin, and any money I would spend on paydays on electric, that could be put back into my concert kitty.
It just doesnt seem like in the old place that we were getting charged this much... or spending this much. Whichever.0 -
12.09p per kWh plus only £1.27 is pretty reasonable - I doubt you could get significantly better than that. (£5 per month is cheap/typical for a credit meter, never mind prepayment.) (Okay, over a quarter there may be savings with an alternative tariff but there will not be a significant day to day difference.)
As you have identified, there seems to be an errant charge. Call centres difficult to reach on 1 or 2 Jan? Outrageous! "Bliadhna Mhath Ur" (*hic*) (or, "Naye sāl kī hārdik śubhkāmnayeṅ", more likely.)
if you are on a pre payment meter change to EBICO !!! (just google it)
they charge the same for prepay and credit meters, plus no standing charge !!0 -
Kernow_arrowmaker wrote: »if you are on a pre payment meter change to EBICO !!! (just google it)
they charge the same for prepay and credit meters, plus no standing charge !!
275 * 0.03 = £8.25 ; ((£1.27*52) + (£1.27/7)) / 12) = £5.52
It depends where the OP is but comparing 12.09p to the range of Ebico prices (13.75 to 15.20p) yields a difference of £4.56 to £8.55 per month. So the OP's £5.52 is not all that unreasonable.0 -
take a reading of how many kwh you are using per day
i have worked you 20-00 out to roughly 156 kwh per week at your rates
we use about 100 per week but there are 5 of us and we use a lot of electrical items 3 tv's at a time 1 pc 3 laptops games consoles two freezers etcremember it is nice to be important
but more important to be nice0 -
something sounds wrong there we have 2 or 3 computers running at different times of the day and have lights on in the stairs etc due to my wifes fear of the dark despite this we use about £10pw on edf prepayment(midlands)0
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Something sounds odd to me too...
Bear in mind I don't have a dishwasher, but I do have an electric oven (gas hob), 700w microwave, A rated washer, A rated fride and freezer, older 60w CRT TV+Wii+digibox, CFL fitted uplighter, a PC, 2 laptops, more lights (all CFL here)..all the usual things..
Lights are on when needed, off when not. Everything gets turned off at the mains at night, no standby allowed..PC/Laptops in use every night, TV/Audio stack too for a few hours tops.
Plus the power shower etc...I'm with NPower, who are reputably expensive, and on a prepay meter with the £1+ charge..and I'm using about £5/week.
I bought one of the £20 plug in energy usage monitors when I had an in-depth argument with NPower at my last place about misreadings and overcharging...it's the best thing I've bought. It allows me to test everything and reports back on instant power usage, and power cost (£/p) over any time period.
Well worth it, IMO..0 -
Nice. Quite an ingenius invention, that, actually.
Im positive Im being oversharged somewhere. Theres no way I should be spending this amount of money on basically nothing.
The hallogen heaters are very low users of electric. The only big users are the washer and cooker. The washer is A grade... not sure about the Cooker, but given its about 3 or 4 years old, it cant be too bad.
Im gonna keep tabs on it, and might even get one of these energy plugs to back my story up, if I have to contact someone, but I doubt Ill go with Ebico. No standing charge is a plus point, but the prices work out at roundabout the same (infact, a uSwitch tell me Ill be spending an extra £10p/a compared to BG.)0 -
Ive just moved from Ebico
Average weekly Electric bill was £30~35 but we do use alot of electric
2 computers on 24hrs, 2 laptops 12hrs
tvs, sky, dvd player on nearly 16+hrs a day
washing machine + tumble dryer atleast once each a day
5 and 6 spot strip lights on 12hrs atleast
fish tank, double pumps, double lights on 24hrs /8hrs
believe its around 24units a week.
we have just switched to EDF (which amazingly is cheaper per KWK on PPM than there Credit meters), and the price drops been noticeable from the get go. should work out around £20~23 a week.0 -
Hmm..Well, thinking on, We're doing washing loads tomorrow in prep for work..if it helps (and if I remember), I can stick the monitor plug on the washer and record the consumption..it's A rated, and I daresay it'll vary a bit from yours, but..it might help with a ballpark rough figure.
With your washer, what temp do you wash at? Missus bumped ours from 30 to something higher and it did cost a bit more..still not that much more though. We also use..I think it's the "daily 30" programme.
We've had to call in the old fallback oil-filled rad today...even with the heating on, the poorly installed and uninsulated solid floors make the ground floor bitterly cold quite fast. I'm contemplating dragging the futon up to the warmest back bedroom and setting up my freeview stick on my 19" TFT PC screen so we can "withdraw" ourselves to the one room bar cooking for a while until the temp evens out a bit.
Winter, got to love it.. 0
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