Ebico-ppm 90p to fry an egg

HappyMJ

cardiffforthefacup wrote: »

made a mistake, put £5 on card on tuesday morning, the meter reading was 6479(35), it took £2.91 off for emergency credit and left me with £2.09 for gas. Tuesday evening had oven on for 20 minutes to cook garlic bread and fish fingers and hot water on for ten minutes for wash/spruce up. Wednesday morning the gas left was £1.10, no hot water was put on that day the only gas used was for cooking an egg in the evening which took approximately 4 minutes used cold water for washing. Thursday morning check gas again and £0.22 left for gas and meter reading 6479(45). I pay a debt back of £3 a week on a wednesday when I top up the card. Looking back on the rest of the meter readings I have it seems I am paying too much because if the numbers in red are not the Kwh but part units. I have been looking at the meter almost obsessively lately as it is summer and I only use hot water for washing/bathing then switch off or for the oven. It has been costing 70-90p a day which I think is a bit much. I can't afford £30 a week for gas and last winter spent around £12 a week
after the £3 was taken. This year I have struggled to afford the £3 a week and often over the summer have only had around £4 a week over for the gas but it seems to be using it up faster than it was in april/may when I tended to have the heating on in the evening. Does it cost to have the meter checked to see if it is faulty? it was last fixed/changed 15/09/1999.

The meter seems fine. Unfortunately that is the price of gas. It does cost about 70-90p per day for cooking and hot water. Then you need to add £3 a week for debt repayment then add a large amount for heating. If you don't want to use the gas then repay the outstanding £189.01 at £3 a week and stop using gas at all. Use the electric for cooking and hot water instead.

70p a day (£5 per week) is 17kWh per day and your annual bill would be £250. That is very low.
90p a day is 22kWh per day and your annual bill would be £320. That is still low at only 8,000kWh per year.

edit: I use an electric grill to cook things like fish fingers. It's cheaper than heating a whole oven.

HappyMJ

cardiffforthefacup wrote: »

I checked the meter readings from 1/12/2010 the reading was 6313(03)
today 18/8/2011 reading 6479(45) so I have used 166 Kwh since december? is this correct?
I have paid out £326 on top ups £114 for debt at £3 a week.

You need to multiply the reading by 11 or 32. So you have used 5,258kWh according to UKPower assuming an imperial meter costing £210 on usage and £114 on debt repayment. Adds up to £324 which is close to your £326.

cardiffforthefacup

oh right so its just expensive then. Thanks for the help, its an electronic token meter, does that mean I multiple it by 11?

HappyMJ

cardiffforthefacup wrote: »

oh right so its just expensive then. Thanks for the help, its an electronic token meter, does that mean I multiple it by 11?

Most probably an imperial meter so 32 look at the meter it may say hcf(imperial) or m3(metric).

cardiffforthefacup

looks like this but no m3 or hcf on it
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2441/4026634700_d8f9776689.jpg

HappyMJ

cardiffforthefacup wrote: »

looks like this but no m3 or hcf on it
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2441/4026634700_d8f9776689.jpg

Yep that's cubic feet. Multiply by 32. The first white digit means hundred cubic feet(hcf).

cardiffforthefacup

thanks for the help

bengasman

Sounds like you are paying off a debt.

cardiffforthefacup

I am paying £3 a week but that comes off as soon as I top up, it says so on the meter, just didn't figure things were so expensive as I only paid £1.50 a week last summer when I left the water on and used the gas stove took around 20p a day to use. My get an electric cooker as I only spend £5 summer and around £7 winter, still may be cheaper than gas

HappyMJ

cardiffforthefacup wrote: »

I am paying £3 a week but that comes off as soon as I top up, it says so on the meter, just didn't figure things were so expensive as I only paid £1.50 a week last summer when I left the water on and used the gas stove took around 20p a day to use. My get an electric cooker as I only spend £5 summer and around £7 winter, still may be cheaper than gas

The meter you have repays the debt at 2AM on a Wednesday morning. When you top up you are repaying Emergency Credit. You need to stay out of the emergency credit and just use normal credit. I'd be putting on another £10 this week and every week from now on and never using the emergency credit button again.

I still don't get why you think this tariff is expensive. If you were on British Gas you would be paying £3 a week debt repayment and £2.30 a week standing charges for no gas whatsoever. Then an additional £1.29 for every unit on the meter used (4.01p/kWh). The Ebico tariff is very cheap in comparison.

I think you are remembering the days when it was 2.55p/kWh (w/e from Feb 2008) then 2.86p/kWh then as recently as last year it was 3.675p/kWh then in January 2011 it went up to 4.011p/kWh. Now it's 4.788p/kWh. If you paid £12 a week in Winter last year at unit rates of 3.675p then this year you will need to spend 30% more for the same heat. i.e £16 a week plus your £3 debt repayment. So you must top up by at least £20 every week in winter.