Getting rid of Economy 7

vansboy

As we're now getting gas heating into Grandmas flat, we don't need the Economy 7 meters anymore, but....

According to British Gas (both gas/elecric is from them) we need to pay £37 to get the meter changed over to ordinary - IS THIS CORRECT????

Or any hints/tips to avoid this - even by swapping suppliers?

& as another surprise, when we spoke to them it seems they've been billing us for HER electric use & crediting our account! Somehow, 'cos we have on line billing for both properties, they've mixed us up.

Nothing a £900 bill won't cure - have to see what happens thetre!!

VB

MarkyMarkD

Just because you are getting rid of the storage heaters doesn't mean you should necessarily opt out of Economy 7.

We have E7 meters (I suspect everyone in our area does) but no storage heaters. We definitely pay less than on a single rate meter - about £337 instead of £380 - and we only use around 1/3 of our electricity in the Economy 7 period. The break-even point is around 1/8 of your electricity in the night - fairly easily achieved with things that are on all the time (fridges and freezers) or exceeded with use of timers on washing machines and the like.

So, I wouldn't rush to do anything - keep on with the E7 meter for a few months, and calculate the proportion of night:day units, then see if it's really worth stumping up £37 to change meters.

I expect that you cannot avoid that charge - changing suppliers certainly will NOT trigger a replacement of the meter, unless you request it (and probably pay for it).

quiet_advisor

I think that you should ask for a change of tariff from E7 to Standard, not a change of meter.

A change of tariff can be done on the billing system, without a visit or meter change, free of any charge -they may ask you to provide meter readings. Call centres may not appreciate the difference, and this has probably what happened in your case.

All that happens is that the two meter registers from the existing E7 meter are added together to give the total consumption for the standard tariff.

Generally E7 day rates are more expensive than standard, and also the standing charge is higher - so you will almost certainly be better off by changing, once the gas heating is installed.

You can confirm this by doing a price comparison on the price checkers listed on this site. It may be worth checking if other suppliers can offer a better deal for a dual fuel package.

JasonW_2

I'm with scottish power, and they do need to change the meter apparently in the house, but they have said there would be no charge for this.

I will be getting this done in the next couple of weeks, and they said they will change the meter over, and bill me for the units used on the old meter, as it keeps their system more accurate (think they really meant something more technical than 'accurate' though!) and then keep billing under the cheaper rate for normal day units.

JW

aliasojo

Agree here too, I got gas installed and new central heating which meant I no longer made enough use of the economy tariff.

I called asking them to change me onto the standard rate tariff which they did, for free - although I did have to have someone out to change the tariff settings on my meter.

I was definately better off after changing.

Magentasue

We got rid of Economy 7 five years ago when we moved - can't remember if the meter was changed but we didn't get charged. I had Econ 7 for years and it was liberating to be able to run the dishwasher/washing machine/tumble drier during the day without feeling guilty!

I expected higher bills but they didn't happen - suggesting the storage heaters we got rid of were eating up any savings.

mattsaze

Best make sure they actually change your tariff though.
We changed from eCONomy 7 to standard tariff in August 04, just noticed on my Jan 05 bill that I'm still charged on economy 7 rate. Now waiting for recalculation of bill and hopefuly a refund.

JasonW_2

Just called Scottish Power to get my meter changed over which they are doing on 24th. She asked for my meter readings and am apparently using £42/month but direct debit is £30/month!! That means I am £79 underpaid overall so far which is a fair bit as I live alone. She told me just to keep the direct debit at the same amount cos I will use less in the summer and it will cancel out the arrears. Just means I would have to pay it off if I changed supplier, which I want to do anyway, just to make sure I get the same deal. Out of the £79, £35-ish is an unecessary charge as I have not used a single off-peak unit in the last 6 months and with the higher day rate cost and higher standing charge, I have basically given them free money!! Grrrr the sooner the meter is changed the better!

I told her I would call back to make sure the tarrif was changed after the meter was and she actually said that was a good idea! There's confidence for you.

JW

Robert5988

When I changed from Economy 7 to standard rate I kept both meters(and still have both). They add the consumption from each meter and I pay for all of it at standard rate. This was from BG and there was no charge.

Bearing in mind you pay more for daytime electricity when on Economy 7, you need to look at your supplier's rates carefully if deciding to stay on Economy 7 without storage heaters. When I last did my sums the break-even point was about 1/3rd of electricity to be consumed at night. However MarkyMarkD gets a 10% saving for that ratio of day/night use.

Even to get 1/3rd nightime consumption we had to run washing machine and dishwasher at night. It wasn't worth the trouble for me.

jrawle

Some companies (including British Gas) will take two meter readings and bill you on the ordinary tariff. Others (e.g. EDF) won't do this and insist that you have to have a standard meter. However, I believe the regulator's code of practice stipulates that if a change of tariff requires a change of meter, this must be done free of charge within two weeks.

Note that BG consistently appears at the bottom of price comparison tables. I switched from BG to Sweb a while ago. I had to go onto economy-7 briefly, but immediately requested to change to standard tariff. They arranged it with East Midlands electricity, who came and the meter within the two weeks as required.

Robert5988

jrawle wrote:

Some companies (including British Gas) will take two meter readings and bill you on the ordinary tariff. Others (e.g. EDF) won't do this and insist that you have to have a standard meter. However, I believe the regulator's code of practice stipulates that if a change of tariff requires a change of meter, this must be done free of charge within two weeks.

Note that BG consistently appears at the bottom of price comparison tables. I switched from BG to Sweb a while ago. I had to go onto economy-7 briefly, but immediately requested to change to standard tariff. They arranged it with East Midlands electricity, who came and the meter within the two weeks as required.

Certainly BG appear at or near the bottom of the price comparison tables for Gas. However I thought they fared rather better for Electricity alone.