SUM like it 'ot

Robert_Sterling

I red the gas Metre. 9680
On larst bill it woz 9636

Sow it 'ad gon up ........44

I did a some

44 imperial units hour much dus it corst.

Yew av to times it by the metrick conversion factor witch is 2.83.

I make the arnser 124.52

Butt then yew av to times it by the kalorifick value witch is 39.1481

I make the new aunt-sir 4874.7214

Butt there is then a volume korrection factor 1.0226400

Sew I get 4985.0851

next to get to kilowatt hours you av two divide by 3.6

This makes 1,384.7459 units

First 609 units cost 6.914p each and costs £42.11

The rest 775.74586 units cost 3.343p per unit i.e. £25,93

Total bill should be £68.04

Yew need two bee good at arifmetic, if not at spelin to work

out yore own gas Bill.

I kid you not.

uptomyeyeballs

Robert_Sterling wrote: »

I red the gas Metre. 9680
On larst bill it woz 9636

Sow it 'ad gon up ........44

I did a some

44 imperial units hour much dus it corst.

Yew av to times it by the metrick conversion factor witch is 2.83.

I make the arnser 124.52

Butt then yew av to times it by the kalorifick value witch is 39.1481

I make the new aunt-sir 4874.7214

Butt there is then a volume korrection factor 1.0226400

Sew I get 4985.0851

next to get to kilowatt hours you av two divide by 3.6

This makes 1,384.7459 units

First 609 units cost 6.914p each and costs £42.11

The rest 775.74586 units cost 3.343p per unit i.e. £25,93

Total bill should be £68.04

Yew need two bee good at arifmetic, if not at spelin to work

out yore own gas Bill.

I kid you not.

Of all the supply companies i've been with, i've yet to get a gas bill that is easy to read and work out for myself. The worst i've seen is Scottish Power. It's impossible to know what's going on there!

tuggy12

uptomyeyeballs wrote: »

Of all the supply companies i've been with, i've yet to get a gas bill that is easy to read and work out for myself. The worst i've seen is Scottish Power. It's impossible to know what's going on there!

I was with Scottish Power and the gas calculation was exactly as Robert Sterling said. It couldn't be easier really

Robert_Sterling

Instead of giving you 4 numbers to multiply by they could have said 1 unit on your meter equals 31.46 kwh.

tuggy12

Robert_Sterling wrote: »

Instead of giving you 4 numbers to multiply by they could have said 1 unit on your meter equals 31.46 kwh.

No, because the calorific value and volume correction factor are variables.

If these were not variables, then it would be easier to calibrate the meters so that 1 unit equals 1kWh

mech_2

At the end of the day, none of this is necessary unless you want to double-check the utility company's calculations to the nearest penny. You only generally need to know the total at the end of the bill, and then all the complicated stuff can be ignored. Rough estimates from any given meter reading can be made with rule of thumb figures of 11 kWh/unit for a metric meter and 32 kWh/unit for an imperial meter. The confusion of two tiered pricing can be avoided by switching to a tariff with a standing charge.

The only really confusing part of billing is direct debits. When paid by direct debit, many suppliers don't actually put a figure at the bottom of the bill as a total. They take new charges away from the balance of the direct debit account without ever printing a VAT inclusive total and often without letting you know what the previous account balance was, making it a pain to work out what was debited. They also don't tend to tell the householder what they expect the householder to consume over 12 months in order to set the direct debit amount. If these two issues were cleared up bills would be a lot easier to understand.


The lengthy conversion to kWh above isn't really what's important. But for the uninitiated here is an attempt to explain...

The reason there are so many steps is that these numbers relate to the underlying physical units. The conversion factor between imperial and metric is exactly that: conversion between units of 100 cubic feet and one cubic metre. The "calorific value" converts this volumetric measurement to a measurement of the energy consumed (in megajoules). The quality of the gas in the system varies according to where it comes from, so it's continuously monitored by National Grid for each region of the country and figures published daily. The calorific value used in the bill is an average figure that applies to all the days since the previous bill. That conversion will tend to be slightly wrong because of pressure and temperature differences between where the gas is measured by National Grid and when it gets to your meter, so the "correction factor" is an industry standard figure designed to compensate. The final stage is a conversion from the final corrected megajoules figure into kWh.

The two tiered pricing is just a clumsy way of them having a standing charge and at the same time claiming there isn't a standing charge. The number of units charged at the tier 1 price will depend on how many days the bill is for and how many units are stipulated at the higher rate per year. The details may vary according to the supplier and tariff, but let us suppose in this case the total number of units charged at the higher rate per year is 2680 (as it is on the EDF tariff I'm currently on). To work out the effective standing charge you divide 2680 by 365 to get 7.34 units per day and multiply it by the difference in price between the tire 1 and tier 2 units. In the case above it would be 26.22 pence/day standing charge (though without knowing the full details this figure is only for illustrative purposes). Then you can work out any combination of consumption figures at the tier 2 rate (3.343p) and just add on a standing charge at the end based on the number of days in the billing period.

Don't forget to add 5% to the bill calculations if the per-unit figures exclude VAT.

DVardysShadow

mech wrote: »

...
The two tiered pricing is just a clumsy way of them having a standing charge and at the same time claiming there isn't a standing charge.

I do agree. It does add to the confusion though, so I suppose you would expect it to be this way.