What does 'typical use' actually mean in specific amounts

pochase

Bluberry139 said:

Thanks so much everyone, @pochase that is hugely kind of you to work all that out for me.

Can somebody please just check my maths here.... I do have some cognitive impairment so i'm never sure i've got it right & maths was never my strong suit...

So the fix BG are offering me works out at £325 p month (£3900 for 12 months).

I currently pay £169m so in the nxt 12 months i'll have
2 months at current rate          169 =338
3 months at the oct cap of       316 =948
7 months at Jan cap minimum 376 =2632 (assuming the prediction is correct & the april cap doesnt rise higher) which totals £3918

So if i fix now, in total over the next 12 months i'll pay £20 less than the price cap... IF the prdiction is correct & IF it doesnt rise again after the January rise.
Which i'm guessing it will? It seems a bit unrealistic to think it wont keep rising at least a bit? 

They say i can go back onto the variable tariff without fees if i want to at any time during the period of the fix, so it doesnt feel like i have much to lose by fixing.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on that? 

There is a big flaw in your calculation. You are calculating with direct debit amounts, not with what you are going to use.

The above would work if you use every month exactly the same amount of energy. This is very likely the case for electricity, but you will use hardly any gas in summer, and most in winter.

This make sit very hard to give any advice as most likely you will not know what you use every month. There are just a handful people who keep spreadsheets up to date all the time and can answer this question.

As you have correctly said, you will pay the higher rate immediately. So the next 7 weeks you pay much more than on your current SVT.  From October to December the fix is 3p per KWh electricity and 1p per KWh gas more expensive. After that if the current predictions are corect the fix will be cheaper.

You could try to ask BG if they let you start the fixed tariff on 01/09/22 or even better on 01/10/22, that would remove the worst of the additional cost.

Chrysalis

Bluberry139 said:

thanks @Mrs_F_2017 & @Mstty

How did you know those figures? are they on a website somewhere?

When they say 'typical' do they mean 'average' then?

Sorry if that seems thick, but the 2 things mean something different to me. Average is middle of the road between high & low, but a 'typical' family might use more than the average, so i am confused

They on the ofgem website in a pdf, but its very hard to find.  For some reason ofgem dumb down the details given by the cap for reasons only known by them.

Bluberry139

pochase said:

Bluberry139 said:

Thanks so much everyone, @pochase that is hugely kind of you to work all that out for me.

Can somebody please just check my maths here.... I do have some cognitive impairment so i'm never sure i've got it right & maths was never my strong suit...

So the fix BG are offering me works out at £325 p month (£3900 for 12 months).

I currently pay £169m so in the nxt 12 months i'll have
2 months at current rate          169 =338
3 months at the oct cap of       316 =948
7 months at Jan cap minimum 376 =2632 (assuming the prediction is correct & the april cap doesnt rise higher) which totals £3918

So if i fix now, in total over the next 12 months i'll pay £20 less than the price cap... IF the prdiction is correct & IF it doesnt rise again after the January rise.
Which i'm guessing it will? It seems a bit unrealistic to think it wont keep rising at least a bit? 

They say i can go back onto the variable tariff without fees if i want to at any time during the period of the fix, so it doesnt feel like i have much to lose by fixing.

Does anyone else have any thoughts on that? 

There is a big flaw in your calculation. You are calculating with direct debit amounts, not with what you are going to use.

The above would work if you use every month exactly the same amount of energy. This is very likely the case for electricity, but you will use hardly any gas in summer, and most in winter.

This make sit very hard to give any advice as most likely you will not know what you use every month. There are just a handful people who keep spreadsheets up to date all the time and can answer this question.

As you have correctly said, you will pay the higher rate immediately. So the next 7 weeks you pay much more than on your current SVT.  From October to December the fix is 3p per KWh electricity and 1p per KWh gas more expensive. After that if the current predictions are corect the fix will be cheaper.

You could try to ask BG if they let you start the fixed tariff on 01/09/22 or even better on 01/10/22, that would remove the worst of the additional cost.

oh silly me! yes of course i'd forgotten about that use variation. Hmm it gets more & more complicated. I guess i could look back through my bills & note the useage each month, I will try.

The other thing i realised which ptoentially complicates things is that the price of the fix that BG offering (£3900) includes VAT.... does the table of prices you gave me inc VAT or not @pochase

edit : Alnat answered this question thank you

Alnat1

VAT is included in that table

Bluberry139

ok so usage.... looking on the bill, but i cant understand it because the 'units' of gas are clearly not Kwh, it says for example 
for august 2021 i used '10 untis  at 39.7 calorific value', & other months are variously 39._ calorifc value -whatever that means. But when i multiply the calorific value by the number of units it doesnt add up to 15587kwh they say have used in the previous year, so i obviously dont understand it lol.

The units electric seem more accurate -i just calculated it direct from the actual metr readings, but perhaps thats not how its done anyway, because it doesnt add up to 2290 like they say i used last year.  So it doesnt seem like i can accurately work out each month's usage, not by going back through my bills anyway    

but heres whats on the bills anyway in case anyone else can decipher it lol

                        Aug & Sept         Oct -Dec       Jan- Mar       April-Jun       July
Units Elec       214       238             647             688                464             112
Units Gas        10         25              174              205                34                4


Edited: for sense

BUFF

Do you know if you have an Imperial or Metric meter?
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/gas-meter-readings-and-bill-calculation

pochase

Most likely you will have an m3 meter (you can see it on the meter, it either says ft3 or m3).

If it is m3 you multiply by 11.2. And if it is ft3 multiply it by an additional 2.83.

You should also be able to see it on your bill, is there a 2.83 or 2.82 in the formulae for KWh calculation?

pochase

If I add up you gas units it seems you have an old ft3 meter. Using the formula for ft3 I get 14326KWh of gas, near enough to the 15000Kwh they told you.

pochase

Don't know if I want to do this for everybody, but @blueberry139 provided good data so here you go


From the numbers, assuming all the current predictions are correct you will have a loss of £3.96 if you go onto the fixed tariff.

But I have not considered the standing charge in the above and the standing charge you have been offered is much cheaper. I don't know your current rates here so you need to calculate the difference between fix and SVT and multiply by 365.  Could be easily a saving of £50 or more as the offered SC are very low.

Also August is half gone, so the loss is not £84, more like half of it, that is another 4£42 saving.

Try if you can get them to start the fix on 01/09/2022 or better 01/10/2022. This would give you another £42 and £131 savings.

Bluberry139

Oh my goodness @pochase!!! that's bordering on heroic. How incredibly kind of you to work all that out for me, such a lot of work, i am hugely grateful! And it all written out like that gives me a bit of an idea how to work it out in future too. I never imagined I'd end up with all that info when i started the thread.

I will have a go at working out the S/C as you suggest, but i think i am going to go for it, provided they will start the fix on 1st sept at earliest. I'll push for 1st October.
I may not save that much but at least its a year without worrying about what happens to the cap in April, someone said the papers were reporting it will rise to £5k then, but of course dont know how accurate that is. I just didnt want to end up paying a lot more just for peace of mind. 

I cant thank you, and the other posters enough for the excellent info & help. I will try to 'pay it forward' & help someone else in the future.
lol not with this! but with something i do understand haha