Pre payment meter

lynda45

Hi looking for a bit of advice for my daughter's mother in law.

She has a pre payment meter for both her gas and electricity. Her gas meter only does her heating and water, But my daughter told me the other day she does not use the gas meter at all she only uses the electric meter and uses stupid little fan heaters to heat up her flat and immersion heater for her hot water.

Am I right in saying if and when they come to read her meter she will be owe them a fortune in charges for having the meter in her house even if she doesn't use it.

Thanks in advance for any replies x

seafarers_wife

She needs to ensure she's on a no standing charg tariff and is on a flate rate that has no primary or secondary/ tier 1 or 2 units to ensure a debt doesn't accrue on her account.

spiro

Also if she is due to be repaying a debt via the ppm then she will have further problems as they may request the debt to be repaid as they may think (quite rightly) that she is avoiding buying gas so she does not have to repay the debt.

chanz4

Gas only has 1 tier, it will have standing charged I would advise requesting its removal by the supplier.

CABBGET

lynda45 wrote: »

Hi looking for a bit of advice for my daughter's mother in law.

She has a pre payment meter for both her gas and electricity. Her gas meter only does her heating and water, But my daughter told me the other day she does not use the gas meter at all she only uses the electric meter and uses stupid little fan heaters to heat up her flat and immersion heater for her hot water.

Am I right in saying if and when they come to read her meter she will be owe them a fortune in charges for having the meter in her house even if she doesn't use it.

Thanks in advance for any replies x

If she has any arrears on the meter and she is not in a position to pay them, she could benefit from making an application to the British Gas Energy Trust fund for a grant to clear the arrears. You do not need to be a British Gas customer to apply.

You can apply online via their website or you can print an application form off/request one over the telephone and apply by post. If you need any further advice on making an application, do not hesitate to contact me as it's basically my job to help people make applications to the Trust fund.

rogerblack

If the question meant that she simply doesn't use the gas - but has no debit built up - it might be worth working out how much extra she's spending doing things this way.
Heating via electricity, when there is gas available - even if you have to pay some up-front debt - may be _very_ expensive.

lynda45

Hi everyone thank you for your replies,

seafarers_wife & spiro I have no idea if she has a debt maybe that's the reason she doesn't use the meter. I will get my daughter to ask her.
CABBGET As above I will find out and get in touch with you if this is the case.
rogerblack That's what I was thinking surely she is better using her gas and heating her whole house. My daughter said she is at the shop every couple of days topping up her electric meter seems silly when you can have gas and heat and hot water when u need it especially the way the weather is just now.

Thanks again for all your reply's. xx

sunflower_2

an elec immersion heater and little fan heaters will be v v expensive.

HappyMJ

sunflower wrote: »

an elec immersion heater and little fan heaters will be v v expensive.

As opposed to? I use both of them and my electric bills are quite low.

My gas boiler is rated at 12kw, the electric immersion heater is 3kw and the electric heaters are rated at 2kw. Heating one room at a time the costs are similar.