Are we being ripped off?

Cardew

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Interesting, SwanJon. That certainly didn't used to be the case - whilst there was a maximum resale price, it was more than cost.

I wonder how landlords fix their charge for tenants when the landlords themselves are charged at a 2 tier rate.

e.g. Tier 1(primary units) price is 8p/kWh and tier 2(secondary units) is 2.5p/kWh

How do they apportion the 8p units to the tenant(s)?

This is even more of a problem with companies like NPower that vary the amount of primary units charged each month.

The cynic in me suggests that tenants will be paying for a lot of gas at 8p/kWh in the example above.

StevenP_2

cynic or realist....

MarkyMarkD

Indeed. I can't see how meters can cope with recharging the standing charge (or the two tier pricing system, which is the same thing by a different method).

Some landlords may set the meter at a high level to recoup the standing charge, and then rebate any excess charged. Or they may do the former but forget the rebate element.

Cardew

For the OP,

As you state you don't know much about energy prices you need to understand how prices are charged to the Landlord, as he should pass that charge to you without mark up.

Using the prices in example I gave in post #12 above.

The Landlord will be charged for some units at the high tier 1 price of 8p/kWh each quarter and the rest at the lower tier 2 price of 2.5p/kWh

That tier 1 allocation is normally 1,143kWh per quarter - although it does vary by company and tariff.

So if he used 2,000kWh of gas in a quarter the AVERAGE price per kWh would be 5.64p/kWh

If he used 20,000kWh of gas in a quarter the AVERAGE price per kWh would be 2.81p/kWh i.e. less than half.

It is absolutely impossible for your landlord to work out what rate to set the meter at unless he knows in advance how much gas he and all the tenants are going to use.

Big_Col

Why don't you both get a shower together ?
Cheaper & a lot more fun ! :beer:

Hippyer

SwanJon wrote: »

Does the meter have any screens on it that might tell you how much it is programmed at?
Take a reading when you load money on, and again when you've used it.
Check if the meter has ft3 or m3 on it, and then stick the answers on here and we can work out how much you are paying per kWh.
Or you could ask the letting agents. Then find out who the supplier is and see how much they charge.
As Cardew says, then cannot profit from selling you energy.

Hello!
The meter reading ends in m3.
When we took a meter reading there was £5 of gas and the meter read 00473[892]m3
it ran out today and the meter read 00477[625]m3
So we've used 00003[733]m3

She's also recorded the minutes we've used to run through this which was a total of 52 minutes.

Not really sure what to do with the calculations from here.
If anyone could help us out from here, or needs anymore information from us we'd really appreciate it.

Many Thanks

EDIT:
Oh also she has just told me that there is a little disc on the front that reads
Qmin 0.04m3/h P max 50KPA
Qmax 6m3/h V:1.2dm3

Cardew

m3 = cubic metres and a cubic metre is roughly 11kWh

So being generous a cubic metre of gas will cost your landlord approx 35p to 40p.

If you have your meter readings correct and 3.733 cubic metres have cost £5 you are being charged £1.34 for a cubic metre, or approx 12p for a kWh.

That is very clearly not allowed and you need to get your facts down on paper and get some rebate from him or report him.

Hippyer

Cardew wrote: »

m3 = cubic metres and a cubic metre is roughly 11kWh

So being generous a cubic metre of gas will cost your landlord approx 35p to 40p.

If you have your meter readings correct and 3.733 cubic metres have cost £5 you are being charged £1.34 for a cubic metre, or approx 12p for a kWh.

That is very clearly not allowed and you need to get your facts down on paper and get some rebate from him or report him.

Many many thanks for your help Cardew.
I have advised her to write all these calculations down and send it off to the letting agent.
We'll see what they have to say and hopefully wont have to go any further.

Thanks again.

Terrylw1

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Indeed. I can't see how meters can cope with recharging the standing charge (or the two tier pricing system, which is the same thing by a different method).

Some landlords may set the meter at a high level to recoup the standing charge, and then rebate any excess charged. Or they may do the former but forget the rebate element.

In terms of elec, proper supply elec meters couldn't cope with 2 tiered prics (although some gas can) but standing charges could be on PP. Credit meters wouldn't for obvious reasons.

I'm with Cardew on these. They are a grey area and a lot is left up to the landlord. Pricing is often very confusing without adding the extra factors that a landlord would need to make these 'fudges' to get it to balance. It's very unlikely tenants complain much about it so landlords probably get away with a lot.

Scousebird_2

My god that's a riduculous amount of money to pay for your units! Hope you egt it sorted!