Prepay Gas - paying too much?

HoneyMel

Last week I moved into a new house that has prepayment electricity and gas meters.

So far (in 8 days) I've had to put £20 in the electricity and £80 for gas. Although I've never had prepay meters before, surely this is a crazy amount for one week? There's still £14 left in the electric but I'll need to put another £20 in the gas tonight / tomorrow morning.

Everything is run from electricity apart from the combi boiler for water & heating.

The rented flat that I am in is over 3 floors (main door flat with entry on the ground floor then living room, kitchen, shower room and spare room on the first floor and bedroom & bathroom on the second floor).
I have the radiators switched off in the entryway (don't see the point heating the street) and the spare bedroom, turned down low in the hallway & kitchen and on at 4 (from 6) in the bedroom and living room. We don't have a thermostat, everything's controlled from the boiler or the radiators themselves.

There's only myself and my partner living in the house, along with the dog but she's happy with a few fleecey throws in her bed no matter how cold it is!

We have roughly 2 showers and 1 bath every day and are out of the house for approx 9 hours every day and everything's switched off during that time.

20/03/13
Reading 1: 01697.963m3
Available Balance 1: £4.60

Then topped up £20 on 20/03/13

22/03/13
Reading 2: 01724.124m3
Available Balance: £10.70


Tariff Charge: 4.460
Standing Charge: £0.2599

If my maths is correct it's going to cost us £300 a month to heat this place!

It is a large-ish period property with high ceilings, but I didn't think it would cost this much to heat! My previous home was a 3 bed end terrace and it me £60 DD per month for gas which covered heating and water also.

Does this usage seem high or am I just going to have to invest in some more jumpers??

peachyprice

It could possibly be that the people who lived there before had the meters fitted because they had a debt and you re still paying off their debt.

You need to give you gas provider a call and go through all the various screens on the meter to make sure everything is set up correctly for a new account.

HoneyMel

There is a debt on the meter but it's not taking anything off for the debt - the full £20 is being used for gas and the debt doesn't go down any.

I'm in the process of switching to another supplier so that I can come off the prepayment meters so I don't know if Scottish Gas would be willing to answer questions when I'm leaving them...?

SwanJon

Well, while you are paying them you are their customer so I don't see why they wouldn't answer your questions.

From the readings, it looks like the meter is charging you as per the readings:
26m3 used is roughly 295 kWh
295 kWh at 4.46 p/kWh = 1315p = £13.15
Standing charge for 2 days = £0.52
Total = £13.67
(Your numbers show £13.90, so close enough)

£7.00 a day when it is cold is realistic, it'll drop as it gets warmer.
It might be that there was a standing charge debt on the meter when you moved in - especially if it had been empty for a while.
Did you get the full gas for each top up? The meter will only recover debt once a week normally so you might not have seen it on the most recent top up.
Check the screens on the meter to be sure.

You can probably turn down the heating in the bedroom if you are not in there most of the day - close the doors to unused rooms etc
Once you swap the meters over the property will use the same amount of gas - so be prepared for this.

macman

PPM's cost exactly the same as the supplier's Standard tariff. You just notice it more because each 'spend' is a conscious act.

212

We're using at least £7 or £8 a day too if it helps. When it's cold (like the last few days) it's up to £10 a day.

Seems absolutely ridiculous, I sorted the bills at the old house and from 1st September 2011 to 1st March 2012 we paid £310 for gas - we're paying that per month here!

Does the type of boiler affect it? We've had comments that this one is really old etc, but then at our old house it was hardly top of the range! Not sure why it's so high - even on a prepay meter it shouldn't be this much more.

We're due to move over to a normal credit meter, but they won't let us have it until at least 5th April, so that's another £140 in gas by then. And at that point it'll be warmer and hardly worth it, because we certainly won't be here next winter!

macman

As I already said, PPM's cost the same as Standard tariff. Have you sorted out your own card yet?
You cannot compare one property to another-the system efficiency and insulation (for a start) may be totally different.

bxboards

The house I bought in June 2011 had a pre-payment meter, and the thing just ate money - seemed to be at least £20 to £30 a week for gas. I was given my own card by nPower, but the thing just ate money.

I got fed up and got nPower to change it over to a normal meter and paid by Direct Debit, and my gas bill dropped dramatically, down to around £30 a month and I ended up in credit with them by the time I moved out in November 2012.

212

macman wrote: »

As I already said, PPM's cost the same as Standard tariff. Have you sorted out your own card yet?
You cannot compare one property to another-the system efficiency and insulation (for a start) may be totally different.

The 'standard' tariffs are never the cheapest though, and we aren't given the option to pay monthly by direct debit for instance (which is normally cheaper).

E.g. EDF 'Standard Variable' which we're on is 26.25p per day standing charge, with a 4.245p uni charge.

Looking at their 'Blue Price Promise', which has no termination fees and is fixed until June next year (so I'd imagine not even the cheapest, just picked as it's the recommended one on their site) - gas in my area is the same standing charge, with a 3.969p unit charge.

That's not a massive difference, but would add up, especially with the amount we seem to spend! Other providers beat the 3.969 unit charge too

Wywth

HoneyMel wrote: »

Last week I moved into a new house that has prepayment electricity and gas meters.

So far (in 8 days) I've had to put £20 in the electricity and £80 for gas. Although I've never had prepay meters before, surely this is a crazy amount for one week? There's still £14 left in the electric but I'll need to put another £20 in the gas tonight / tomorrow morning.

Everything is run from electricity apart from the combi boiler for water & heating.

The rented flat that I am in is over 3 floors (main door flat with entry on the ground floor then living room, kitchen, shower room and spare room on the first floor and bedroom & bathroom on the second floor).
I have the radiators switched off in the entryway (don't see the point heating the street) and the spare bedroom, turned down low in the hallway & kitchen and on at 4 (from 6) in the bedroom and living room. We don't have a thermostat, everything's controlled from the boiler or the radiators themselves.

There's only myself and my partner living in the house, along with the dog but she's happy with a few fleecey throws in her bed no matter how cold it is!

We have roughly 2 showers and 1 bath every day and are out of the house for approx 9 hours every day and everything's switched off during that time.

20/03/13
Reading 1: 01697.963m3
Available Balance 1: £4.60

Then topped up £20 on 20/03/13

22/03/13
Reading 2: 01724.124m3
Available Balance: £10.70


Tariff Charge: 4.460
Standing Charge: £0.2599

If my maths is correct it's going to cost us £300 a month to heat this place!

It is a large-ish period property with high ceilings, but I didn't think it would cost this much to heat! My previous home was a 3 bed end terrace and it me £60 DD per month for gas which covered heating and water also.

Does this usage seem high or am I just going to have to invest in some more jumpers??

What size boiler do you have?

You see, according to your meter readings, and assuming the meter redaings were taken at about the same time each day, then you have used about 700kWh per day :eek:

That's a heck of a lot of heat going somewhere!

Furthermore, if as you say there is nothing being consumed for 9 hours per day, that leaves a possible maximum of 15 hours per day something is being consumed.
On average that would be over 46kWh per hour!!! :eek:

I think something is wong in your meter readings or your meter. as I don't think they make domestic boilers that size.

molerat

Wywth wrote: »

What size boiler do you have?

You see, according to your meter readings, and assuming the meter redaings were taken at about the same time each day, then you have used about 700kWh per day :eek:

That's a heck of a lot of heat going somewhere!

Furthermore, if as you say there is nothing being consumed for 9 hours per day, that leaves a possible maximum of 15 hours per day something is being consumed.
On average that would be over 46kWh per hour!!! :eek:

I think something is wong in your meter readings or your meter. as I don't think they make domestic boilers that size.

I make those figures 302 kWh over the period (1724-1697=27x11.2=302) so not totally unreasonable.