Another prepay gas meter horror..maths question..

Sirbendy

We've moved into a property with gas and electric prepay meters that use smartcards. I'm quite happy with being able to watch what we spend. Electric is with Npower, and is coming in at about £5ish a week, so I'm happy.

Gas though..well..it's a yellowy box with "BG Electronic Token Meter" on it, a red "A" button, a black "B" button, and the smartcard slot. It seems to have quite an appetite..

We put £10 on it Saturday eve at 2pm, and today when we got home at 6pm, I poked it again and it had about £2.50 on it! It's done this the last..3 topups or thereabouts. I'm horrified..We put another £10 on it just, and I sat watching it..there are 5 black dials, and 3 red above the digital readout..the cubic metre readout?

It clicked over from 14445.871 to 14446.114 in roughly 10 minutes, and ate 10p of credit.

I've complained to BG - they just shrug and say "within limits". I've got a 2 year old, A rated Potterton Promax system boiler, on a programmer for 7 hours a day (hour in the morning, hour top-up at lunch, 5-10 in the evening), a roomstat set to 20, and a water tank stat set to 40..it only cuts in and out, yet the meter says it eats about £7.50p of gas in 3 days?

Now, I know that prepay is more expensive (7.501p/kwh), but...well..even so..by my sums it costs roughly a penny per minute to run the boiler! Ths can't be accurate, can it? If that's "A Rated"..

I phoned BG to tell them that the meter has "Battery" on the display, and it's being changed on Wednesday next. I also noticed whilst watching it it doesn't count "smoothly"..the dial seems to stick and jump all over the shop...I'm wondering if the idiot box has had it, and that's why the cost is so high!

First query - Can anyone advise me if the costs seem to be stupidly high? £2.50 every 24 hours seems a tad extreme..

Second query - I've tried to figure out costs from the analogue dials..but I'm useless at math. Can anyone confirm if my working is right:

To get KWH from the m3 reading on my meter, I multiply the reading difference by 11.2 (got from the web).

In that case: 1m cubed is equivalent to 11.2KwH. BG charge 7.501p per KwH used.

SO..7.5x11.2=84p per meter cubed of gas

Or am I wrong, and need to divide that by 100 (some other sites suggest it), which gives a far more reasonable 0.84p per meter cubed?

I'm confused...

Thankyou all..I can't believe it works out cheaper to heat my house and water using electric than gas..:mad:

BexTech

7.501p/kwH sounds really expensive for Gas.

I only pay 2.55p per kWh

(BTW it's either £7.50 or 7.50p you only use one currency identifier, I take it you meant £7.50 and not 7.50p).

I am now using eBico for gas, these charge the same rate no matter how you pay, monthly DD (which I do as I hate pre-payment and too lazy to pay any other way) quarterly bills or pre-payment.

Sirbendy

Apologies..heh.

Let me see if I can do it again:
In that case: 1m cubed is equivalent to 11.2KwH. BG charge 7.5p per KwH used.

SO..7.5x11.2=84p per meter cubed of gas

OR, if I do it in pounds form..um..

£0.075p is the cost per KwH, according to the meter and BG website

SO

0.075x11.2=£0.084p or..8.4p per meter cubed of gas..

I said I was awful at it..heh,

I'm in the process of switching to Ebico, incidentally..;) I get the feeling British Gas are rather having a fun time at my considerable expense..I've asked them if they can send someone out to verify the meter functions as well...

Of course, a new meter on Wednesday could make a lot of difference..this one does seem to be a bit clunky..

BexTech

£0.075 x 11.2 = £0.84
7.5p x 11.2 = 84p

Could be dodgy meter. But that kWh price is extremely expensive.

BexTech

Just looked at BGas and their prices listed for standard / pre-payment are.

7.501p/kWh for the first 2680 units per year and then 2.865p/kWh afterwards.

Not sure how your pre-payment meter works and how it deducts the money from the credit, maybe it works out an average or deducts one amount and in both cases waits for the yearly statement to come through to detail the correct amount, either then refunding you if you have overpaid or requesting payment if you have underpaid. (This is how it used to work).

Sirbendy

That's a good point there..I'm that frazzled with the whole thing I missed that.

I know everyone says credit meters are cheaper and so on, but..in all honesty, I like to see what's coming, and if I didn't have a 24/7 view of the amount used/cost, I'd only worry about it.

It's a little challenge I set myself..

Like I say, the electric is excelling itself..I budgeted on £7/week for that, on the basis of what we used in the old flat..and we're well under. CFL bulbs throughout, 1 laptop, one PC built specfically from low power parts, everything on timeswitches that needs it, nothing left on standby...I'm even using LED lightbulbs in the desk lamps and have a solar garden multi-lamp ornamental thing in the bathroom that charges on the windowsill and lights the bathroom overnight with a gentle glow.

I even bought a kill-a-watt meter to measure energy usage of appliances..I think I may be a tad addicted to low costs..but this gas has floored and appalled me..

SwanJon

Based on another thread, the meter will charge all at the cheaper price, then take the difference at 2am.
I'm sure they didn't use to do this, and would actually charge you the more expensive price at the start of the day, then when you passed the threshold (now about 0.75m3) you paid the cheaper amount.
That would put you at around 84p for the first three quarters of a m3, then 32p for the rest. That fits with your readings in the first post where you used about 0.3m3 and used 10p.
Looks like the meter is programmed correctly - start looking at how you can use less and you should see instant benefits.
Does the room ever get to 20C or does the boiler run all the time? Could you drop to 19C and see if that makes much of a difference?

Sirbendy

problem there is the system is set up to be the minimum required as it is..6.30-7.30am for a "pre-get up" heat and water heat for a shower, the topup at midday could be got rid of, but 5pm-10pm is needed to keep the temps liveable...this whole place has wood flooring. VERY cold. Thankyou, previous tenants.

Room thermo is set to 20, it only ever clicks around 15 though..and the boiler doesn't run continuously..it cuts in and out all through the evening..

What REALLY bugs me though is that we know 2 people with BG, on PAYG meters the same as ours..they have theirs running 24/7 and are putting 10-15 a week on their meter...ours is eating £25 at least!

The only "rate" I've found in the meter screens that in any way correlates with BG is the 7.501...if there's a cheaper rate, I can't see one in there...does anyone know of a site/document/person that can detail each of the 30-odd screens on these meters and what each one shows, or is it a gas secret?

bazbaz9

please can anyone tell me the easy way to convert gas & electricity meter readings to kwh

or in reverse kwh to meter readings

last year I used (according to staywarm)
gas 21579kwh
electric 5295kwh
I have my meter readings taken every month for the last 2 years & never known how to convert them

bazbaz

michellefromessex

I have a BG prepayment meter and on Sunday I used £3.68 in one day because I had the heating on 21degrees for most of the day as we had snow, its ridiculous the amount I am putting on the meter atm, I know when it was originally fitted 6 years ago I was using £7 a week gas I am now putting £17 at least in the winter months, today I was stopped in supermarket and asked to switch over to EDF, so ive signed up. Anything has got to be better than BG.

BexTech

michellefromessex wrote: »

I have a BG prepayment meter and on Sunday I used £3.68 in one day because I had the heating on 21degrees for most of the day as we had snow, its ridiculous the amount I am putting on the meter atm, I know when it was originally fitted 6 years ago I was using £7 a week gas I am now putting £17 at least in the winter months, today I was stopped in supermarket and asked to switch over to EDF, so ive signed up. Anything has got to be better than BG.

You won't get the same low rates you could get if you switch to an online account, switching in shops at the door, just puts you onto the high cost standard tariff, so they'll be little difference.

Saying that it seems in the last week or so many of the cheaper online tariffs have disappeared.