Help please - £10 in Electricity on Tue now only £1 odds left?

blueye

what type of lights do you have in your home? normal single light or spotlights?

littlepinkstars44

blueye wrote: »

what type of lights do you have in your home? normal single light or spotlights?

we have normal ones, but have spotlights in the kitchen

blueye

i only asked because i recently found out my spotlights were costing me £90 a month to have on, i have 15 in my living room which were on almost all night every night, when i got my bill i checked my meter and could see the dial spinning quite fast so turned the lights off and it slowed down to the same speed as everyone elses, im now lighting my apartment with lamps lol.

if its any help my mum and dad use about £6 a week on their pre-payment meter my bro still lives there so they have 2 tvs on when they are all in from work and washing machine is always going plus the lights and a heater in the kitchen which is electric

littlepinkstars44

blueye wrote: »

i only asked because i recently found out my spotlights were costing me £90 a month to have on, i have 15 in my living room which were on almost all night every night, when i got my bill i checked my meter and could see the dial spinning quite fast so turned the lights off and it slowed down to the same speed as everyone elses, im now lighting my apartment with lamps lol.

if its any help my mum and dad use about £6 a week on their pre-payment meter my bro still lives there so they have 2 tvs on when they are all in from work and washing machine is always going plus the lights and a heater in the kitchen which is electric

thanks for that, although the lights in the kitchen aren't on that much, only when my mum is making dinner as we don't need them on during the day, and they always get switched off when we leave the kitchen.
I'm going to try and figure out how to read our meter and see how much we use on a daily basis.

SwanJon

onetomany wrote: »

yea just have to rember you get carged for using emergancy we are on ones for electric and gas you could always ring the electric board and ask if this is right

NO. This is a commonly repeated myth.
You do not get charged for using Emergency Credit.
No you don't. Just No.

Magentasue wrote: »

If I used a 2kw plug in heater, on full, for an hour, it would probably cost me about 25p. On prepay, that could be 40p or more. Maybe it doesn't sound a lot but you could get several loads of washing done for that!

I don't think any PP units are as high as that (except Tier 1, but that goes for credit too).
You can check the price the meter is charging on the meter by looking through the screens (on the newest models on screens F (standing charge) I (Day or Tier 1 depending on meter) and K (Night or Tier 2 depending on meter).

Oh, and you don't get charged for using emergency credit on electricity or gas.

Magentasue

SwanJon wrote: »

I don't think any PP units are as high as that (except Tier 1, but that goes for credit too).

Oh right. I stand corrected but I thought someone had said they were paying 20p kwh on prepay.

KimYeovil

SwanJon wrote: »

Oh, and you don't get charged for using emergency credit on electricity or gas.

You don't get charged but what may confuse is that when you do pay back the emergency you also have to pay back the standing charge. For an electricity meter this can be 13p per day or it can be as high as 40p per day. So if you use £9 emergency credit over three days you have used £9 electricity but you also have 39p or £1.20 standing charge that you have not paid. That's a total of £10.20 to pay back. So when you top up 70% is claimed back to repay this. So when you put in £10, £7 goes to repay the emergency and you have a further day's standing charge - so you are left with £2.60 of the tenner to use for power! On the next day, another £10 is paid, you have £3.20 of the emergency to pay plus another daily standing charge of 40p so you only have £6.40 of that tenner for power. This gives the effect that you have spent £9 in emergency, paid back £20 but only got to use £9.00 of power instead of £11!

(hmm. clear as mud. never mind.)

Fire_Fox

blueye wrote: »

i only asked because i recently found out my spotlights were costing me £90 a month to have on, i have 15 in my living room which were on almost all night every night, when i got my bill i checked my meter and could see the dial spinning quite fast so turned the lights off and it slowed down to the same speed as everyone elses, im now lighting my apartment with lamps lol.

:eek: Are you sure?? I recently calculated that my 14 x 50W halogen lamps would cost £21 a month if switched on for ten hours a day .... and I calculated this on my expensive day rate electricity (10p per kwh).

blueye

Fire_Fox wrote: »

:eek: Are you sure?? I recently calculated that my 14 x 50W halogen lamps would cost £21 a month if switched on for ten hours a day .... and I calculated this on my expensive day rate electricity (10p per kwh).

okay maybe not the whole £90 but a huge chunk of it and the 15 are the ones i have on constantly but i have about 40 altogether which oh sometimes leaves on until i notice and switch them off, i think i was told i was useing 36units a day this is up from an average of 9 units a day in summer only explination is the lights. i never have them on in summer but have been having them on from 4 till i go to bed (about 1am) this winter. and as i said the dial on the electric meter was spinning like a crazy spinny thing until i turned them off.
now with everything on and the lamps its going as slow as everyone elses

storminbalder

Magentasue wrote: »

Yes, she will.

No she won't!

Most utilities do NOT carry out credit checks. I know British Gas did on me, but can also tell you that Scottish Power, Npower, Eon and Altlantic did not.

I am a regular swapper as you can tell!