£40 in 13 days on electricity!!! HELP

healingtouch

Hi,

Had a shock the other day, was sitting in my flat and my electricity went. Checked meter and it had 26p on it. the reason i was shocked was because 13 days earlier it had £40 on it. Can't believe i have used £40 in 2 weeks. I live alone in a one bedroom flat and have a keymeter. Although i live alone i do do alot of washing and quite often leave my computer on for several hours a day. The only thing i have done different over teh last couple weeks is have my oil heater on a few times but only for about 3-4 hours in total. I am with British gas and meant to be on economy 7. Now i have a few questions:

1. I have never used my storage heaters, so is it worth having economy 7. I thought economy 7 meant all my electricity was cheaper at night, whatever i used (tv, computer, washing machine etc) but when i called british gas they said it was just cheaper to heat the storage heaters.

2. I called British Gas twice and asked the same question and got two completely different answers. My question was that i had done a energy comparison and found the discounted electricity tariff with british gas was the second best (only £10 more than the first) so could i be switiched to that. The first lady said to do that i needed to change my keymeter to a card meter and pay monthly. But the internet information said i could still do this by prepayment. The second lady said that i was already on the discounted tariff and there was no need to change my meter. But i'm still left with the puzzle of how come my electricity cost £40 for 2 weeks??, when it is normally about £10 a week (which i still think is high).

3. How do i know if my electricity meter has been fiddled?

Any suggestions appreciated,

HT

Hardworkingmum_2

Hi HT,

You are not alone, many British Gas customers on a key meter have had the same shock! On 01/03/06 their electricity price went up 22%!
Firstly you can check yourself whether you really are on E7, go to your key meter and you will see a blue button, by pressing this you will find how much they are charging you.
If my memory serves me correct...by pressing the button to screen 3, charge/week £, screen 5, price per Kwh 1st rate and if you are on E7 screen 7, price per Kwh 2nd rate. If the 2nd rate is the same as 1st rate or no 2nd rate displyed then you are on a standard tariff.
Alot of the comparison web site do not compare prepayment tariffs so you may have to do some detective work to find out the cheapest.
Let me know your results and I can advise you on what to do next.

healingtouch

Hi Hardworkingmum,

First hope your not working so hard today with it being mother's day!

I checked my meter, have got two different rates so am on E7. from memory rate 2 was about 3-4p and rate 1 wasn't too clear how much as there was about 8 numbers, the lasts ones being 14 something, so think i must be paying between 14-15p on rate 1. But if thats the case, it hasn't changed since last year.

HT

Hardworkingmum_2

Hi HT,

If you let me know what the electricity region you are living in then I will check the prices for you as I have a list of all British Gas prices.

Workinghardmum

healingtouch

Hi,

I'm in south east region. As far as i know, the rates i mentioned are right, but can't understand why i am using so much electricity. When i was looking at t he number son the machine and pushing te blue button i noticed one that was for £14.40 that had E by the side of it. Not sure what that is, do you know. It isn't what i have put on as tonight i added another £10 so i have £12 now.

HT