Meter upgrade advice needed

sumxixi

Hi all,

I recently agreed to buy a 3-bed house in Dockland, London and they have pre-pay gas/electric meter installed (pay as you go). I have never used pre-pay meter before and wondering whether it will be cheaper than pay monthly ones. Does anyone know the Pros and Cons and how much would it cost to update it to the pay monthly ones?

Thanks

ic

Firstly ensure you receive a new card for each meter from your supplier - try to avoid topping up using the cards already there. These meters are typically used to recover debt from people and can be configured to take a percentage of whatever is loaded on to the card straight off again for the debt - so if you use somebody elses card, you could be paying off their debt.

Unless you're a very low user and switch to ebico for gas and electric, you will most likely see you bills rise significantly. (AFAIK only ebico don't charge users any different for being on a meter). Talk to your existing supplier, arrange a switch of your account from where you live to the new house on moving day, and see if they'll swap out the meters. Some suppliers are more willing than others (as obviously it costs them to do this). When I moved five years ago, Southern Electric happily removed the meters within a month of me moving in for free. Any decision will be based on your existing account. If you don't have an account then this will be much harder.

At the end of the day do you really want the hassle of having to top up every so often, with the fear the meter could run out on a cold night? I didn't.

ormus

afaik all prepay meters are more expensive than a normal quarterly bill one.
do your sums carefully.

Hintza

Years ago I moved into a flat and one quick phone call sorted it out (it was a 50p meter :eek:)

sumxixi

thanks all for your help