Units, Meters & Saving Money

Tesla

Hi all,

My GF and I moved into our first home together around 6 months ago.

The meters are prepayment with southern electric.

It's an end terrace 2-bed. We cook on electric and have a back boiler which has recently been fully serviced and is in fine working order.

The house is by no means large with just 5 radiators in total.

Over the summer months, gas use was nominal as we only used it to heat water.

Observing the meter it would drop by around £0.50 for having the water on for an hour. An hour seemed to heat the entire tank and would last around 24-36 hours with a couple of showers and a bit of washing up.

Obviously we're now using the heating and that also seems to cost around £0.50 per hour.

We tend to have the heating on for 3-4 hours per day at the moment and the water on (at the same time as the heating) for 1 hour per day.

So, cost wise is around £2.50 per day, about £75 per month.

I have just got off of the phone from Southern Electric to ask about my tariff as the data is not on their site.

They have said

First 1143 units is 4.69p and the remainder are 3.24p
No standing charge.
I forgot to ask if this is first 1143 units per year or month? Any idea?

Secondly, what is the definition of a unit? Our meter measures m^3 of gas so I imagine a unit is 1kwh?

To convert m^3 to kwh do i multiply m^3 by around 11?

Do these gas costs look normal? A few people have said it's way over the odds.

I did ask S.Electric about chaging to regular meters and they said it's done free of charge!
If I change am I then in contract or can I then shop around after getting the free meter change?

Thanks,

Chris & Lisa

EDIT:-

Have just read my meter:

on 28/11 it read 09748.957 m^3
on 14/12 it read 09852.162 m^3

The balance on the meter has gone down £43.00, £2.69 per day.

If I do multiply by 11 to achieve kwh this equates to: 1135kwh
About 70kwh per day.

I should possibly add that the pilot on the boiler is manual so always lit.

Cardew

It is 1143 Tier 1 units a quarter - 4572 a year.

1 Gas unit on your M3 meter is approx 11.2kWh

You will get far better deals by getting rid if pre-pay meters and getting a normal credit meter. Do it with your present company first as some companies make you pay for new meters.

Internet tariffs are the cheapest, which company depends of your consumption, area and how you pay.

Getting dual fuel(i.e. gas and electricity) and paying by monthly direct debit is cheapest.

Tesla

Thanks, will call southern electric back and discuss option of changing to credit meter and varying tariffs.

Tesla

Having the meters changed to credit meters over the next couple of weeks. No mention of charging for the change or having to credit my account with £100-£200 as I have read on here by other companies.

I can only be put onto the standard tariff initially, southern electric online tariff is actually quite competitive so may shift to that, get some meter reading data over a few months and then look around for a better deal.

Tesla

Well a few months have passed and I am now with Scottish Power on regular meters. Saving a fair bit of money and will be interesting to compare like for like winter bills.

Scottish_Power

Hi Tesla

Just wanted to pick up on your comment about only being able to go onto the standard tariff initially....I've not heard about this before. If you are able to pay by monthly Direct Debit then there should be no barriers put up for the tariffs available to you. If we have agreed to instal credit meters for you then you should be able to select whatever tariff you want (from all that are available at the moment).

Let me know if you have been told different and I will investigate this further.

Kind Regards

Colin @ ScottishPower