Paying for Economy 7 on a Standard Tariff?

libellule1uk

We have lived at the same address for 8 years. On moving in there were only 2 storage heaters in the house and removed these too so have never been used. I checked when we moved in with British Gas and told them we dont require E7 but over the years the bills have been immense! An updated meter was placed in a couple years ago to change from analogue. I have looked back on old bills and all state Standard tariff. However, we had a pre-paid meter put in on Friday and the engineer told us we have the E7 meter running!
Could we have been charged for E7 and standard?
The engineer said we will see a massive difference in our bills now. But Im unsure whether to contact BG because our home has no electric heating and only have a water boiler.
Any advice gratefully recieved.
Our last quarterly bill stands at a whopping £891.61 with just 2 adults and one teenager.

Buzby

No. Your dual readings are added together and you pay the Standard rate for both registers.

As to the cost - who's in the house doesn't really matter. A single user can run up large bills. Assuming you switched to pre-pay, this does usually cost more - and if you did this owing a balance, the cost for this is recovered within the credit you purchase - so you are paying both for what you use and a little of what you owe.

HappyMJ

libellule1uk wrote: »

We have lived at the same address for 8 years. On moving in there were only 2 storage heaters in the house and removed these too so have never been used. I checked when we moved in with British Gas and told them we dont require E7 but over the years the bills have been immense! An updated meter was placed in a couple years ago to change from analogue. I have looked back on old bills and all state Standard tariff. However, we had a pre-paid meter put in on Friday and the engineer told us we have the E7 meter running!
Could we have been charged for E7 and standard?
The engineer said we will see a massive difference in our bills now. But Im unsure whether to contact BG because our home has no electric heating and only have a water boiler.
Any advice gratefully recieved.
Our last quarterly bill stands at a whopping £891.61 with just 2 adults and one teenager.

Is that for both fuels? Gas and electric? What are the opening and closing meter readings on the bill? It is pretty big for a summer bill but you may still have an outstanding balance from last winter... Could you also post the unit rates and standing charges as well as the opening balance...

libellule1uk

Thanks for the reply ~ I still feel something is wrong as we are really careful with electricity.
The engineer stated otherwise with regards to having an e7 meter, but he has changed the meter to a single register now.

libellule1uk

We only have electric, no gas, apart from bottled heaters. No outstanding bills really I was paying £127 a month thank you

Buzby

A great way to check is with your own meter - look for those that clip on to your incoming supply cables (Owl + others). Set your Kw/h cost - shown on your bill - then look at the remote display to see the live cost that you'll pay.

By resetting this when your meter is read you'll get a reasonably accurate cost of consumption (excluding any standing charges). Another neat trick when you vote way for a day of so, is to pull your main switch. When you return, the device should show zero consumption for the period it was off.

If it doesn't - you have issues you beed to explore further - like hijacking of your supply, or supplying other devices not controlled by your consumer unit.

HappyMJ

libellule1uk wrote: »

Thanks for the reply ~ I still feel something is wrong as we are really careful with electricity.
The engineer stated otherwise with regards to having an e7 meter, but he has changed the meter to a single register now.

libellule1uk wrote: »

We only have electric, no gas, apart from bottled heaters. No outstanding bills really I was paying £127 a month thank you

Heating water using electricity is not cheap unless you are on an E7 meter. You should be on an E7 meter for that and the immersion heater set to only heat water during economy 7 hours.

Having three 10 minute showers using 10 litres of water per minute could use up the entire cylinder of hot water. A 3kW immersion element would then take about 2-3 hours to reheat that water. This will end up being a very large proportion of your consumption so it is highly recommended this is done when electricity is cheap...at night and on E7.

Without the figures that I requested I can't guess exactly what your usage is so can't help with 100% accuracy...

lstar337

Why did you rip out the storage heaters if you don't have gas?

Storage heaters on E7 must be cheaper than bottled gas.

Richie-from-the-Boro

libellule1uk wrote: »

Thanks for the reply ~ I still feel something is wrong as we are really careful with electricity.
The engineer stated otherwise with regards to having an e7 meter, but he has changed the meter to a single register now.

Frying pan into the fire :

- the cheapest form of electrical water & space heating is night storage and an E7 tariff, you ripped it out
- you then used the 'triple clanger' much more expensive LPG
- - LPG is more expensive than E7 storage or oil
- - you still need to heat water on expensive core-rate electricity
- - you now need extra costs to rid yourself of the extra 3 pints per 5 hours of condensation and subsequent mould

I feel sorry for you, your first wrong decision led to compounding your self created problem with other related knock on bad decisions, leading to this the last and fourth bad decision, the key meter. Your solution is to stop digging and restore the cheapest form of electrical water & space heating that of night storage and an E7 credit tariff meter. If its a local authority owned dwelling LPG is outlawed in most LA tenancy agreements. Financially maintaining the recommended 18 degrees °C - hall and 21°C - living room [or 23°C - young children or AP] is difficult enough with night store and E7.

With LPG its going to be twice the price, and lots of condensation, you then open the windows, the condensation goes out along with the expensive LPG generated heat. You don't open the windows to conserve the expensive LPG generated heat and you get a massive condensation and eventually mould problem. You then buy a humidifier and run it on core-rate electricity to get rid of the condensation and arrest the developing mould growth.

Best of luck !