electric direct debit rise

Cardew

scooby2sue wrote: »

The problem is it has now gone to £160 per month and i am using nothing different and i wouldn't say a tumble dryer that is used occasionally would not cause me to use all this electric, i used to be on pre payment meters and when i first had them installed i was putting about £10 to £12 a week in the meter and then after a couple of years it started to go up to £25 per week and i didn't owe a bill at the time so we arranged to have the normal meters put in because i was told it would save me money, how wrong i was i have landed up with a bill because they were charging to little at the beginning and now the bill is coming down my direct debit is going through the roof, with nothing different in my house like i said i don't have a electric fire, water heater or electric cooker.

Your problem as stated above is that you are using too much electricity, if you were still on pre-pay you would be paying more.

Your bill of £238.96 for 2,404kWh is about right in terms of the price per kWh. Moving to another tariff with BG or another supplier will reduce it a little but not by that much.

The £160 payments, and indeed the £125 before that, have been set to pay off your debit balance as well as cover what you use.

When you have paid off your debit balance your DD should reduce to around £70 a month if you carry on using the very high amount of electricity.

If you can cut back electricity use it will fall a lot more.

Smiley_Mum

I have a small 3kg tumble drier and that uses 1 unit of electricity for every half an hour of use so if you have a large drier it'd be about 1 unit for every 15 minutes of use on high setting. I think my drier is F rated. Dry your clothes as much as you can outdoors and just air in drier, run at 15 minute intervals.

Are your appliances mainly A rated, fridge, freezer, washing machine etc? Have your fridge half full for air to circulate and your freezer as full as possible, if not fill up any gaps with newspaper so it will run more efficiently. Use more power when it is empty. If it is'nt frost free, make sure that you keep it free of ice build up.

Don't fill the kettle to capacity if you don't need to. Just boil what you will use. Turn off before it hits boiling as this is when the kettle consumes most power.

Use a slow cooker for cooking if you can and microwave.

Full loads of washing, economy cycles or quick wash cycles at low temperatures if you can. High spin speed if you have to use the drier to get the clothes dry.

Keep the house at a reasonable temperature, say 21 degrees. Not too warm.

Use energy saving bulbs throughout the house, they are reasonably cheap now to buy unlike years ago where they were £7+ per bulb.

Don't heat the rooms you don't use.

Don't leave things on standby.

I know it's just little things but it will help to chip away at the debt you have to the energy company. Good luck.

scooby2sue

Thats what i don't understand i do all these things to try and save on electric and when i spoke to BG they were of no help they said if they sent someone out to check the meter and it isn't faulty they would charge me for the visit, i also rang the council because i am council property he just come out and said everybodys electric bills have gone up, it is so frustrating when you are scared of using your electric.

adaze

Why not try an electric usege monitor such as http://www.letsautomate.com/12516.cfm it is £40 but you could work out where your wasting the electric. Maplin do a cheaper one but you can only monitor one appliance at a time.... might save you a load in the long run....

Smiley_Mum

The gadget you mention Adaze looks great. I just have a Maplin, check one item at a time, plug. Works fine for me and I know exactly what things are heavy on electricity. Would be a great thing for my parents though, thanks for posting up the info. :T