Be Excellent To Each Other

Hi folks. Has anyone here ever been charged electricity according to being in a broad usage ‘band’ rather than for actual units used? I’ve just never heard of this before.







I wondered if anyone here had ever been part of something like this. She said it’s been this way in three different flats and now her house, but I didn’t even know this existed.

It's common with water meters, but for gas and electricity, almost unheard of.
The only time it might be the case is in a house that's been subdivided into flats without their own meter, but then you'd be paying the landlord rather than a utility company directly.

That’s what I thought. She’s in a detached house with her partner, not in a subdivided house, but she says she has it there and in the previous three places they lived (though those were flats), but I’ve known her 20 years and her and her husband have never been in a communal living place, and she said her husband shops around for the best deal, which wouldn’t be possible if they were stuck in a group paying situation. I hadn’t heard of it before, especially in a privately owned house.

Yeah I think they're getting confused. When the bill arrives it tells you exactly how many kWh you've used and been billed for. Once off I could believe it was some sort of weird meter situation. Three times, no way.

Russell said maybe she is getting the direct debit payment confused with the actual cost of what they are being charged, especially if the bills are handled by her partner. I did think it would have been something people would have heard more about, especially given the current situation.

And even with credit, especially such a small amount, your monthly payment might go up if the cost has gone up substantially. Seem to be a lot of people not understanding the averaging out that happens, and just wanting to pay for what they've used - which would cause a horrible shock in winter even in non-priceshock times.

At the previous house, we had a 'bill smoothing' plan where we would pay a set amount each month and periodically end up in credit or owing a little bit extra which we could do as a one-off payment. This was far easier for me than having to worry about HUGE gas bills in winter and then TINY gas bills in summer.