BG electricity bill query - usage?

barginsrus

Hi, I wonder if anyone can help. A friend of mine who lives in a small single person bungalow received his elec bill today from BG. He is on economy 7 and has storage heaters - no gas.

His night readings from 9 Oct 08 to 28 Jan 09 was 790.00 kWh used (over 112 days).

His day readings for the same period was 3072.00kWh used.

Is this about average? BG installed a different meter on 23rd Sept 08 (this was not new but was zero'd). Actual readings were taken on 28 Jan.

Does he still have a faulty meter? as I have a 3 bed semi and have only used 150 units for the last month and there is 5 in our house.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Magentasue

Well, the storage heaters will be responsible for the night units. The day units work out at 27kwh a day which is high. Does he have any other electric heating other than the storage heaters?

barginsrus

Magentasue wrote: »

Well, the storage heaters will be responsible for the night units. The day units work out at 27kwh a day which is high. Does he have any other electric heating other than the storage heaters?

No other heating is used. We thought maybe they had got the readings the wrong way round - as more electric seems to be used during the day with only the usual kitchen appliances etc using electric.

Magentasue

barginsrus wrote: »

No other heating is used. We thought maybe they had got the readings the wrong way round - as more electric seems to be used during the day with only the usual kitchen appliances etc using electric.

Yes, that would make sense. Has he done the obvious things like check the serial numbers and readings on the bill against those on his meter? Checked that the opening and closing readings are actual (A) and not estimated (E)?

If so, he should be able to tell by watching the meters when using something like the washing machine during the day - should be the day one going up! If that's all OK, he needs to make sure the storage heaters are recording on the night meter.

Cardew

The other thing to check is if the storage heaters and Immersion heaters are actually coming on during the night rate period.

Most houses are wired so they only come on during that period - but not all have that wiring.

If he has an older 'mechanical' type meter, the clock can be very slow(or fast) and he might be getting his 7 hours during the day and the storage heaters coming on at night but registering on the day meter.

barginsrus

never thought of that one. I will get him to check it out. He has done the test of turning everything on during the day and seeing which dial is moving the fastest - turned out to be the 'night' dial that moved when this was being done.

kjsmith7

It's highly unlikely for a mechanical meter to speed up, as it is mechanical. It's more likely that it's going slow, but it's worth thinking about. Bear in mind that a meter check is chargeable if the meter turns out not to be faulty (chargeable by local meter operator). Check whether the timeswitch is faulty (the bit that switches from the day rate to the night rate) by just watching which one is going around. Most switches happen between 11pm and 1am over to the night reading, then they stay on for 7 hours. I would also check that your storage heaters are just in general good working order. If they are inefficient, this could be why the bill is really high.

Electrical heating is much more expensive than it's gas equivalent. Economy7/two-rate meters help, but if you are using more electric in the day than at night it will work out very expensive to be on a two-rate meter. It may be worth asking your supplier to bill you as though you had a single-rate meter (this is possible with some suppliers) or paying to change your meter over to a single-rate one instead.