Electricity Readings

[mo]

Seems like the best place for it....so here goes.

I have read about other people getting wildly wrong estimations on their electric meter readings so I decided to check ours today.

Our bill says (the bill was sent on the 18th with their estimation taken on the 17th Aug)

Last Reading 3928 (25 April) Today Est 5341 (17 Aug)

Todays real reading 5287 (23 Aug)

Lets assume the 25th April reading was totally correct as its prob too late to dispute that and it was probably taken by a British Gas employee anyway.

So they estimated our usage from 25 April to 17 Aug was 1413 units. It was 114 days between 25/4 - 17/8 so they estimated we used 12.39 units a day The actual amount we used between 25/4 and 23/8 (today) is 11.78 untis a day (1413/120)

So the actual amout we used in the period they charged us for was 114*11.78 = 1342units So we were overcharged 71 units. Have I done that right?

It seems we are on a tariff where the cost goes down after we use 281kWh so

71*6.678p = £4.80

So I am thinking we were overcharged by £4.80 - I have submitted my reading to British Gas - it seems like they will adjust the amount

Now I suppose my real question is...

We have a person who comes every few weeks/months to take the reading anyway - so say he takes a reading of 1000 one month. In between then BG estimate we used 2500 units - taking our reading to 3500 - we pay for the

2500 units. If the man comes back the following day after we pay our bill and sees the meter is 3000 we will know that we have overpaid 500 units.

My quetsion is will he give the reading back to BG so they can reset on their computers that we paid too much and allow us to have that many units back free or will they try and do something sly so we have lost our money based on the wrong estimated? (hope that makes sense!)

If the man comes every 3 months and takes an accurate reading and send sit abck to BG which they adjust their computers with and refund us - what we pay shoudl always reflect was we use right - just that we may pay too much certain months but we should get back later...

Hmm, can't wait for the gas bill to arrive!

[Gel]

When I get an e mail from my provider requesting reading, if I've also been told price hike imminent, I always inflate reading, so I can have some saving over increase to come!!

mo wrote:

[Peter Andrews]

You won't lose your money - the way that gas and electric prices are going up it is possibly advantagous to buy units at todays prices, albeit that you haven't used them yet! ... yes their estimated bills can be horrendous if you just pay them. I took over as treasurer of a community hall and discovered that the previous treasurer had been paying estimated electricity bills for at least three years - we were so much in credit that I haven't had to pay anything for the past year and I'm still in credit!

Peter

[Christian McArdle]

That's about as accurate as an estimate I have ever seen.

Personally, I wouldn't bother attempting a refund until the disparity was several hundred pounds!

Christian.

[mo]

Our prices are fixed until 2009 or 2010 so ATM every penny overspent counts!!

[Tony Bryer]

If you don't query an estimated bill and the estimate is too high they are probably doing you a favour, since in an era of ever increasing prices you're paying today's price for tomorrow's energy.

[john2]

That happened to me and I once overpaid £100 or so due to a bad meter reading. The computerized billing just carried the excess money over until it was all used up. I sent a meter reading in which effectivly said I used negative units for the quarter, ie the new reading was less than the previous one. No problems.

The same thing applies to credit cards, if you overpay for the month, the credit carries over. But if you don't pay the minimum repayment next time they might fine you. I haven't tried that to see what would happen.

john2