Pre-pay gas and electric

scottyb84

I have owned my own home for around 10 months now and the house had an electric and gas pre-pay meters installed. I am wondering if would be cheaper to get a direct debitted account with a supplier? I think I am paying over the odds for gas as I am topping up my meter with £20 every 10 days and am currently only using the gas to fill a bath about once a week and cook food, about 3 times per week. My shower runs on electricity and I am more at my girlfriends house. I am dreading the winter when I will be having to use the central heating. The electricity doesnt seem to bad as doing about £20 every 20 days. My supplier is Npower.
Thanks for taking time to read this and hope I can get put in the right direction

DantheMan

you'll find most companies will offer you a discount for DD payments, as i live in N Ireland i have no experience with Npower, i did however used to work for a natural gas company over here!

You'll just need to be careful and watch your usage! also £10 over 10 days sounds like a lot of use, get them to check your meter and find out if there is a problem!

Hope this helps

WantToBeSE

scottyb84 wrote: »

I have owned my own home for around 10 months now and the house had an electric and gas pre-pay meters installed. I am wondering if would be cheaper to get a direct debitted account with a supplier? I think I am paying over the odds for gas as I am topping up my meter with £20 every 10 days and am currently only using the gas to fill a bath about once a week and cook food, about 3 times per week. My shower runs on electricity and I am more at my girlfriends house. I am dreading the winter when I will be having to use the central heating. The electricity doesnt seem to bad as doing about £20 every 20 days. My supplier is Npower.
Thanks for taking time to read this and hope I can get put in the right direction

Thats WAY too much! I am on a prepayment meter and have 3 baths a week, and have the heating on 30mins-1 hour either everyday or every other day..and i am paying £30 a month!

pka_2

have you let the energy supplier know that the occupier of the property has changed? Prepayment meters are often installed as a way for the energy company to reclaim debt owed so the tarifs are higher. If you get it changed in to your name then you should find that the tariff (and the amount you have to top up by) drops

Wywth

scottyb84 wrote: »

I have owned my own home for around 10 months now and the house had an electric and gas pre-pay meters installed. I am wondering if would be cheaper to get a direct debitted account with a supplier? I think I am paying over the odds for gas as I am topping up my meter with £20 every 10 days and am currently only using the gas to fill a bath about once a week and cook food, about 3 times per week. My shower runs on electricity and I am more at my girlfriends house. I am dreading the winter when I will be having to use the central heating. The electricity doesnt seem to bad as doing about £20 every 20 days. My supplier is Npower.
Thanks for taking time to read this and hope I can get put in the right direction

You can consult a comparison site to see the lowest annual cost for a PPM and the lowest annual cost for a credit meter.

Of course, before you can take advantage of the tariffs offered to a credit meter customer, you'll need to get yourself a credit meter installed!

But as you own your own home and hopefully are up to date with your mortgage payments, getting a credit meter shouldn't be too difficult

pka_2

Wywth wrote: »

But as you own your own home and hopefully are up to date with your mortgage payments, getting a credit meter shouldn't be too difficult

You say that Wywth, but when we were in a similar situation, we rang up to get a credit meter installed but the computer said no! The bank were willing to lend us £150k to buy the house but Scottish and Southern wouldn't give us gas and electric on credit for 3 months :mad:.
Granted that was only a month after we'd moved in, having lived here nearly a year now and not missed a mortgage payment we're going to try again and see if the computer will say yes this time!

Wywth

pka wrote: »

You say that Wywth, but when we were in a similar situation, we rang up to get a credit meter installed but the computer said no! The bank were willing to lend us £150k to buy the house but Scottish and Southern wouldn't give us gas and electric on credit for 3 months :mad:.
Granted that was only a month after we'd moved in, having lived here nearly a year now and not missed a mortgage payment we're going to try again and see if the computer will say yes this time!

Just because one supplier wouldn't give you credit after 1 month, doesn't mean they all don't after 10 months of owning and living in your own property

Each supplier has their own criteria for who they will (and if so, under what conditions) and who they won't extend credit to.

macman

A PPM costs the same as Standard tariff. So with a credit meter on an online discount you'll be saving 4-6%.

t0rt0ise

Most charge to change the meters. British Gas were the only supplier I could find who didn't charge and changed mine for me immediately, following a credit check which I passed.

pka_2

Did you have to stay with British gas for a certain amount of time after they changed the meter? or could i switch to british gas, get them to change the meter then switch back to a different (cheaper) supplier?

macman

There is no time limit unless you are on a tariff with an ETC.