Talk to me about... Energy Tariffs.

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
Update from a few posts ago: I’ve received a notification for both gas AND electricity from British Gas. Basically, my combined gas / electric bills for the past year were approx £1,000. If my usage were the same I’d pay (approx) £1,800 - fixed until October 2023 - and reductions if, by any remote chance, energy prices dropped - which sounds like a worthwhile offer in the current escalating price frenzy. Regarding the authenticity of the emails from BG, they included my name, full address / postcode plus the 12 digit number for each account. The emails had the typographical ‘look’ of the regular BG website, so they seem authentic. However, when I rang BG to speak to someone, the operator didn’t seem familiar with ‘my’ particular offer and said he would ‘find out and get back to me’ which seems weird. You’d think they would have been briefed about any new payment schemes.
When son bought his house , I rang British Gas for their tariffs in his area for him to see if any cheaper than what he was about to go on. Operator "I'm not able to see the tariffs on my screen. Go on the comparison websites and see what we offer.."
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I've just filled the oil up today, although I probably had the next winter's requirement in stock, it would have been a close thing.

This, with my consumption records for the past two years, lets me have a good idea of what the place is costing per day.

Oil --------------€4.46 for the five months that it was running,
Electricity ------€1.75
Wood ----------€1.00 - Shed heating
Gas -------------€0.15 - Cooking

This is using current costs, so around €7.50 a day in the winter, dropping to around €2.50 a day in the summer.

That's not too bad, with no water charges and a 'council tax equivalent' of around €1 a day.

Oil and gas stocks on sites should see me to the far end of the 22/23 winter and wood for the Shed ought to stretch into early 2023, at least.
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I just realised at new prices my pond uses over 50 quid a month 😳

UV is 36w for the tube plus overhead for the starter, so say 40w. The pump is variable speed and set to 70%, but is 120w total possible IIRC so about 85w and the 2 air stone pumps must be 20w each minimum. So thats 165w all day every day, or pretty much 4kw/day.

At new prices each watt something uses will cost £4.50 a year if left on constantly. Last time I did this calculation it was more like a quid.
 

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
I've just checked my energy usage and according to good old British gas I will owe them £131 by the end of March.

Their website is really difficult to use and find out how they've calculated this but I found out they don't take into account previous years' average usage, any credit that they actually owe you nor the government energy payments.

By my calculations they will owe me over £50 by March if my usage is similar to previous years.
 

Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
Also they only pay back the full amount of the government energy rebate if your direct debit is less than £66 per month. I assume that the difference will still be credited to my account somewhere but who knows?

Their website also shows that the rebates are paid to them towards the start of each month but they don't refund the money to the customer until the end of each month. I know interest rates aren't great so they're not making much but I don't understand why they're holding on to the money for so long nor why they can't refund it on the same day as they take my direct debit payment in the middle of the month.
 

Alee

Well-Known Forumite
I’m with British Gas and my electric is dd is £130 a month but I get the £66 energy payment refunded to my bank account on the same day and clears about 5 days after direct debit goes out. But that hasn’t happened this month I paid dd on 6th the energy payment isn’t even showing on my British Gas account yet.
 
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Thehooperman

Well-Known Forumite
I also asked for a quote for a different tariff and the response was that "due to the extraordinary energy price changes it wasn't worth giving me a quotation for a different tariff".

That wasn't the question I'd asked.

Makes me wonder what British Gas are hiding by making their website so difficult to navigate and how hard it is to find out what they're actually charging and how much of my money they're holding!!!
 

tek-monkey

wanna see my snake?
I also asked for a quote for a different tariff and the response was that "due to the extraordinary energy price changes it wasn't worth giving me a quotation for a different tariff".

That wasn't the question I'd asked.

Makes me wonder what British Gas are hiding by making their website so difficult to navigate and how hard it is to find out what they're actually charging and how much of my money they're holding!!!
Octopus have a button for 'give me my money back', although I can't use it as they haven't read my gas meter in 3 months and I owe them for that.

Edit: if anyone wants to switch to octopus then there are referral codes where we both get 50 quid, although for most people it'll be the same prices per unit anyway so no savings. They do seem nicer to deal with.
 

The Hawk

Well-Known Forumite
I've hopped around many of the smaller energy companies over the years, before finally settling with Octopus. With their innovative range of tariffs and excellent customer service, I intend to stick with them (as long as their huge growth in customers does not negatively impact on their service).

As for the others, well there are two in particular I would never go back to, Scottish Power and British Gas. I only ended up with Scottish Power, as my previous supplier went bust but, in the few weeks I was with them, they messed up so badly, they ended up having to pay me compensation.

As for British Gas, well I had the misfortune to use their central heating cover and their Hive cameras, whilst a family member had the misfortune to use them for their energy supply. Both of us ended up being awarded substantial compensation for their incompetence.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
I’m with British Gas and my electric is dd is £130 a month but I get the £66 energy payment refunded to my bank account on the same day and clears about 5 days after direct debit goes out. But that hasn’t happened this month I paid dd on 6th the energy payment isn’t even showing on my British Gas account yet.
We're with British Gas and our £66 energy payments have gone into the bank about a fortnight after paying the £105 direct debit ( gas & electric together) each time so far.

Son is with Shell Energy and they just reduce his DD , crediting the £66 onto his account balance straight away the same day.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
I also asked for a quote for a different tariff and the response was that "due to the extraordinary energy price changes it wasn't worth giving me a quotation for a different tariff".

That wasn't the question I'd asked.

Makes me wonder what British Gas are hiding by making their website so difficult to navigate and how hard it is to find out what they're actually charging and how much of my money they're holding!!!
I rang them 3 years ago when son bought his house , and wanted to compare their rates , as couldn't them on their website. British Gas operator told me he couldn't see the rates on his computer , and to go on Compare the market type sites to find out what they were charging :o
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I've just filled the oil up today, although I probably had the next winter's requirement in stock, it would have been a close thing.

This, with my consumption records for the past two years, lets me have a good idea of what the place is costing per day.

Oil --------------€4.46 for the five months that it was running,
Electricity ------€1.75
Wood ----------€1.00 - Shed heating
Gas ------------€0.15 - Cooking

This is using current costs, so around €7.50 a day in the winter, dropping to around €2.50 a day in the summer.

That's not too bad, with no water charges and a 'council tax equivalent' of around €1 a day.

Oil and gas stocks on sites should see me to the far end of the 22/23 winter and wood for the Shed ought to stretch into early 2023, at least.
I've just done my midday on Sunday meter reading and this week has consumed 34.7kWh, so, just short of 5kWh per day, not too bad.

Probably two of those kWhs were due to leaving the desk heater in the shed on whilst I went to the pub on Friday, despite all the effort to install the indicator light...

I've had to push the oil on a bit, to heat the house, but it's hard to quantify the short term usage of that, probably about 50% up from 'normal' - the same with the wood in the Shed fire, although I'm still using wood from the 2021 delivery in there and have a good few weeks worth of that left yet, before I start on the 2022 wood.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Because of the way I've been stacking the wood for the Shed fire, I can tell with reasonable accuracy that I have used the equivalent of one load between mid-November and today. That means that the cost to heat the Shed is near enough €1.50 per day, and I haven't been overly frugal with the stoking.

This also means that I know I now have the space to store and dry a new load, but I might leave that for little a while yet.
 
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