How much is a unit?

[Weatherlawyer]

I am trying to find a page that tells how much a therm or whatever of utility meter reading is. Most energy companies skate past that doorstop.

So when the little hand is on the 1 and then the little hand is on the

1 more, how much is that? Gas and electric, please.

One jolly little chap must have thought I had puthim through the wringer asking me such banalities, so he upped their guestimate by

1000 units.

How do they do that then?

[Rick Hughes]

[Andy Burns]

Depends on the meter.

First off, if you have a red dial or red digit (which is just 1/10ths of the main unit) ignore it.

electric meters measure in kiloWatthours (kWh), this is directly the units they bill you in.

older gas meters were in hundreds of cubic feet (HCF) newer gas ones in cubic metres m^3

The volumentric gas readings get converted by a factor (the calorific value in Btu per cubic foot) many years ago this was billed as "therms", but now it's further converted into kWh (3412 Btu per kWn), so that both bills are in the same units.

[Old Codger]

Do you want the answer in KWh or BTU?

An electrical unit is 1 KWh. Multiply this be 3412.14163 to get BTUs.

Gas calculation depends on which meter you have. An imperial meter measures cu ft X 100 whilst a metric meter measures cu m.

To convert imperial to metric multiply by 2.83

To convert cu m to KWh multiply by approximately 11.15.

Detailed calculations can be found here:

[Weatherlawyer]

Thanks all. I could have been a lot clearer: How much do they charge for a unit?

[Andy Burns]

For gas about 3p per kWh and for electricity about 11p per kWh

Varies slightly by region.

Cheaper at night and more expensive by day if you're on an E7 tarrif.

Surely you see prices on your bill?

[Toby]

Depends on what tariff you are on!

You need to read the bill to find out.

[Chris J Dixon]

Exactly as simple as that. You aren't actually saying anything that differs from the previous poster.

Chris

[Weatherlawyer]

No; I never read those things.

Thanks all.