British Gas talking silly when I wanted to reduce my DD

wrf12345

I am two months into my fixed BG tariff, s/c for gas and elect 43p a day, elec 32p kwhour. I started out at £48 a month DD but have turned the gas off at the meter so that is only the s/c and have radically reduced my electric use from around 3kw a day to 1.2kw a day, the result that the bills are now £20-£25 a month. This tariff, everything is online only so went to my account and the DD tab -you can only increase the DD not decrease it! After twenty minutes wait got a person on the chat function, told her I wanted to reduced the DD to £28 a month and a refund of my £50 credit. She came back that my projected cost was £72 a month despite being £50 in credit after two months! Told her this was nonsensical. Then came back that they could not allow me to get into debt which might happen if DD was reduced. Pointed out that I was checking the meter every day and could increase the DD if my usage increased. Then said she would have to consult her manager and finally agreed to decrease the DD and wanted to know how much of the credit I wanted back as if the idea of getting all of it was rather an odd concept. Anyway did get what I wanted but it took 45 minutes of my life to do so when it should have been a matter of just altering the DD online. To be fair, the account is updated as soon as I put in the meter readings and can instantly see my balance but you can imagine some elderly people being put off by the customer "service" response. The real answer is to fit smart meters and do a variable DD but where is the fun in that?

BTW, I got on top of energy use by buying a power meter (£7 from aliexpress) that plugs in the socket and into which appliances can be plugged to check their usage. One surprise was an old skybox consuming 25 watts when on standby!

Winter will see higher elec use plus turning the gas back on so not all happy days but the £200 govn loan will cover some of it and the next year will get the winter fuel payment for the first time (hopefully uprated by the govn). So far so good, then. Realistically, solar pv is the only way I can get it down further without impinging on my quality of life. I suspect lots of people are also hammering their electric and gas usage and the energy companies aren't getting all the easy money they expected, which is brilliant from a green prospective.

QrizB

Did you consider switching to variable monthly DD, paying for your actual use each month?

wrf12345

Don't think the tariff has that option (old meters), am okay running a small surplus to use in the winter anyway.

brewerdave

How do you heat water for showers/baths/washing or even cook with no gas and 1.2kwh leccy per day ? Doesn't seem possible to me unless you are using communal facilities and eating out !! No wonder the agent couldn't understand your request.

Ultrasonic

You don't have to turn gas off at the meter to not use any.

Mstty

Well done on the reduction in usage, this is almost off grid territory (I think I read elsewhere you take cold showers anyway?)

You could almost go solar panels(smallish system for the summer months) but with your reduced usage probably not going to give you the cost of return.

I think someone posted a site for second hand ones and they looked reasonable I will try and find that. @QrizB maybe?

QrizB

Mstty said:

I think someone posted a site for second hand ones and they looked reasonable I will try and find that. @QrizB maybe?

I bought my first used panels from eBay but that's a bit pot luck!

If you want to buy from an established business, try Bimble Solar.

https://www.bimblesolar.com

I bought a kit from there to equip an off-grid shed. The website lets you add one of their kits as its individual parts, then you can swap components in and out.

They currently list 260W used panels for £62 plus delivery.

https://www.bimblesolar.com/solar/used-solar-panels/used-260w-rec-solar-panels

Gerry1

wrf12345 said:

Don't think the tariff has that option (old meters), am okay running a small surplus to use in the winter anyway.

I think you find it does allow variable DD: I have with BG this but no smart meters.  However, you'll have to chase them if you want monthly bills.

It's amazing how such a big company can't get the simplest things sorted out (and they can't even support E7 5-port smart meters).

Coffeekup

brewerdave said:

How do you heat water for showers/baths/washing or even cook with no gas and 1.2kwh leccy per day ? Doesn't seem possible to me unless you are using communal facilities and eating out !! No wonder the agent couldn't understand your request.

Yeah 1.2 a day is very low. My fridge freezer uses more than this. I turn everything off at the wall since October and my average usage per day is as follows...
October 3.5 kwh per day
November 3.4 
December 3.4
January 3.7
Feb 2.4
March 2.5.

Everything off at the wall apart from fridge freezer and wifi (some days thta gets turned off), so the rest of my usage is from 1-5 hours of tv a day (through a sky box), toaster used once in morning, 3 kettle boils, and maybe oven use 3 times a week, along with boiler usage when In use for hot water and heating.

Either way 1.2 is impressive

Edit: and a phone and I pad charge once a day.
Also for end of April it looks like I'll have averaged 3kwh a day... Which maybe due to being at home for 3 week's with no school.

Mstty

Coffeekup said:

brewerdave said:

How do you heat water for showers/baths/washing or even cook with no gas and 1.2kwh leccy per day ? Doesn't seem possible to me unless you are using communal facilities and eating out !! No wonder the agent couldn't understand your request.

Yeah 1.2 a day is very low. My fridge freezer uses more than this. I turn everything off at the wall since October and my average usage per day is as follows...
October 3.5 kwh per day
November 3.4 
December 3.4
January 3.7
Feb 2.4
March 2.5.

Everything off at the wall apart from fridge freezer and wifi (some days thta gets turned off), so the rest of my usage is from 1-5 hours of tv a day (through a sky box), toaster used once in morning, 3 kettle boils, and maybe oven use 3 times a week, along with boiler usage when In use for hot water and heating.

Either way 1.2 is impressive

Edit: and a phone and I pad charge once a day.
Also for end of April it looks like I'll have averaged 3kwh a day... Which maybe due to being at home for 3 week's with no school.

I reckon you can do better watch some programs through the Ipad instead of the TV. That's got to be 100w versus 10w??? Ish lol

Norman_Castle

Mstty said:

I reckon you can do better watch some programs through the Ipad instead of the TV. That's got to be 100w versus 10w??? Ish lol

My 8? year old, 32" tv uses 28w.