Dreaded Prepay meter

dillydally2096

Hi,

we are currently using a prepay gas meter in our house, and its taking a silly amount of money off us (we put £10 on 2 days ago and there is only £4 left now and we all work so aren't in from 9 to 5!) and have been monitoring our usage, which has been roughly 1 hr in the morning and an hour or 2 in the evening. Basically we are wanting to switch back to billing, but i just wondered where we stand in terms of switching back to bills. My housemate claims british gas told them we cant switch back for 6 months as we are new customers! (great way to treat a new customer!) If that's the case I am considering switching from British gas altogether.

I have looked through British Gas T&C's and cant seem to find anything relating to switching back to bills, some advice would be really helpful!

Thanks

WhiteHorse

Firstly take meter readings (not the money reading), and calculate out the cost. See if that tallies. Then check the tariff to see if it's right. See what uses gas and see if you can estimate usage. Make sure the meter isn't taking money for debt, legitimately or otherwise. You could even try the most basic test of all, turning the gas off and seeing what happens over the course of the day.

You can get the meter checked too. Oh, and get rid of British Gas.

Joyful

British Gas will do a credit check to see if they can remove the meters. as far as I am aware there is no timescale for this.

A Gas Engineer mentioned to my Daughter yesterday that when he has been visiting properties over the last week the average people are using is between 5 and 7 pounds a day.

spiro

Given that we in the coldest winter possibly for the last 100 years your gas will high especially as it will be running full blast for the 3 hrs you have it on to heat the house. Also you system may have a 'frost stat' which turns the heating on if it gets too cold to avoid freezing.

chippytea

Ive got to agree with the last few osts.The charges do sound reasonable.I realise thats robably the last thing you want to hear!! As for meter removal I wasnt aware BG had a minimum timescalebefore they would remove a PPM,but this isnt unusual for most suppliers now

Tupperware_Queen

I'm on prepayment, just moved house recently. I too am using about a fiver a day, bit more at weekends when I'm in during the day for longer.

I moved back to Eon, who have agreed to change me back to credit meters, but I was on those at the previous house and have a good record. If you don't have a previous account they will charge you to change (£50 per meter). You have to agree to set up a fixed DD also.

t0rt0ise

British Gas will generally change meters for no cost but it may be that there are circumstances that we don't know about.

davidgmmafan

Suppliers can be quite fussy about removing prepayment meters. If there's a company you were with previously where regular payments were made they may be happy to remove the meter free of charge.

It takes a minimum of 28 days to switch supplier, and in practice longer before the account is setup and the job can be done.

WhiteHorse

I'm currently using £2 per day with the heating set at 16c. That includes a gas stove.

spinningsheep

In this awful weather that has given us UNPRECIDENTED temperatures for lots if us (temp has not risen above -5 here, down to -15 some nights) we will all be spending silly money on gas/electricity in comparison to a "normal" british winter where we are used to wet rather than extreme cold. We will just have to grin and bear it. My consumption is probably going to be somewhere near £6-£10 per day, and I pay by DD and on a cheap online BG tariff, it's one of those things, we will just need to cut back on other areas to pay for it.