My gas alone is costing £7 a day :(

miamoo

I have just switched from Scottish Power to Ebico and after watching my gas prepayment meter (in horror!) I am now using £1 gas every 3 hrs (heating a 3 bed house and hot water).
This has gone up from £1 gas every 5 hours when I was with SP.

Is this due to the increased gas prices, or have a made a complete mess of switching to save money!

My boiler is an old combi (13yrs old), which only has a dial for rad temps, which we always have set on 1 (lowest). I don't have a thermostat, I am going to ask Muir if we can have a new boiler, but I don't think they will let us, as it's not broken.
I live in a 3 bed end terrace.

(My electric is exactly the same as last year, approx £1.30 for a whole day!)

New_and_Improved_Me

Pre-pay meters are always more expensive than standard meters.

Are you not able to ask for a normal bill meter??

Nada666

How many kWh are you using? Or how many meter units?

Scottish Power gas costs 4.6p on prepayment, Ebico costs 5.6p. If you are on standard meter even cheaper deals are available from Scottish Power.

However there is still the £100 per year or 27p per day standing charge to pay with Scottish Power. But if the price difference per unit is 1p then every 10,000 kWh with Ebico costs you an extra £100.

But what makes you think you need to have the heating on 21 hours a day? £1 per 3 hours is less than £3 per day.

If you do use 3,750 kWh over an autumn/winter month then your usage is too high to make Ebico the cheaper option. What made you think it would be cheaper?

For a high usage Eon (currently) seem to have the best deal for prepayment meters - still a couple of hundred pounds more expensive than a credit meter, though.

macman

Combi temp setting does not control your rad temp, it controls the temp of the water in the CH circuit as it leaves the boiler.
You need TRV's on the rads and a room 'stat, not a new boiler.

MillicentBystander

We've all got so wuss in regards to keeping warm all the time. I hail from a time when there was no such niceties as central heating and timers etc. A coal fire and a fan heater placed round the door of the bathroom 5 mins before bath time was my idea of luxury. Have I died? No, in my mid 50s now and according to my last check up/MOT in rude health.

Controversial opinion alert!

Boiler timers are the enemy of money savers and the friend of energy suppliers. I've totally abandoned timing my heating (I'm lucky enough not to be anywhere near fuel poverty but that doesn't mean to say I am willing to give energy suppliers any more money than I need to. If I was a multi millionaire I still wouldn't be giving them anymore than the minimum possible, would rather spend the savings on my family). Jeez, you get up, you put your clothes on, you put the heating on. 15 mins later it's warm enough to be comfortable.

I live in a 4 bed semi. It's a pretty big house and there's always someone in attendance at any time of the day. Currently burning £1.75 worth of gas a day (EDF Fixed till April 2014 tariff).

MBS (rapidly turning into his father, God rest his soul).:o

societys_child

As mentioned, if you were on a standing charge tariff with SP, you will be paying more per unit with Ebico but saving on the standing charges.

Nada666

societys_child wrote: »

As mentioned, if you were on a standing charge tariff with SP, you will be paying more per unit with Ebico but saving on the standing charges.

No they are not saving. Clearly, they use more than 10,000 kWh per year.

miamoo

I don't know how many units I am using, I am going to have to start monitering this thanks, I don't know what made me think Ebico would be cheaper tbh, probably the not for profit tag line.
Luckily I am not tied in if it turns out to be a bad move.

The heating won't actually be on all that time (I can't afford it) but I can be up early due to illness and my OH gets in very late from work, so ideally is heating is on from 5am untill 2am. I am also at home all day.
I can't find anyone to take the meter out without either a large deposit or a charge

Dunroamin

If you run the heating for 21 hours a day then your bills are always going to be high, you need to be more adaptable and turn it off for a large part of that time.

matelodave

If you don't have a thermostat or TRV's then the boiler is likely to be running almost continuously - how do you regulate the temperature if it gets too hot.

If you've got a combi, then a programmable thermostat will save you lots of money as you can have different temperatures at different times during the day. A bit warmer when you get up, reduce it for when you are relatively active during the day and increase it a bit when you are sitting down & watching the telly.

Also any extra heat from the sun will reduce the boiler running time as well.

spinningsheep

If your combi is 13 years old it will be a non condensing one, therefore turn the central heating water temp up to at least 3/4 if not full, as that way your radiators will get hotter and heat the house faster, and the radiators will continue to emit heat way after the heating has gone off, a non condensing boiler is more efficient and effective at higher temperatures. Having it on as low as 1, the circuit hot water is probably approx 60 degrees at best, not sufficient to heat a house in this weather, so the boiler is working a low output but virtually for the whole time you have the heating on. Try turning it up and see what happens.