# was pro metered electric, but not now



## 96299 (Sep 15, 2005)

Hi all

Just been on a site in Maldon Essex for three nights where they have metered electrics. We have never been on a metered site before, but have always thought that they would be a fairer system with the idea of, you pay for what you use. :roll: 

On this site you can buy £1.00 credits or £5.00 ones. We chose the £5.00 version as we were staying for three nights and after the owner told us that £2.00 a day was pretty normal. Well after fifteen hours and 3 o'clock in the morning the money run out  and indeed showed a £1.16 debit, so rounded up, we used up £6.16 worth of electric in 15 hours. :? Spoke about it with the owners the next morning and they were very quick to blame it on our wet heating system which is Alde. I said leave off, I can run my whole house with everything on including the central heating for a day and it wouldn't come to five quid.

We arrived on site and naturally put the heating on using electric and gas together to get it up to speed. After a while we turned off the gas and continued to have the heating on using electric, only now we turned it down to no.3 on the Alde system. We went out for five hours and left the heating on no.3 just to take the edge off for when we returned, that and about three hours of telly in the evening. The heating continued to run but on an even lower setting of 2.5 for through the night. At 3 o'clock we had used the lot up, does this seem normal or can anyone else tell us of their experiences with metered electric ?

Well we got nowhere with them saying the meters are checked annually and bla bla bla. I told them that it was to expensive and I wouldn't be buying any more credit from them. We just went on gas for the rest of the stay.

Steve


----------



## raynipper (Aug 4, 2008)

Difficult to answer with any degree of accuracy.
Many other variables come into the equation. Battery charger, fridge, water heater, etc. 
We also don't know what they are charging per kwh. Could be a small profit or could be a bl00dy grat mark up.

I guess you need one of those power meters from Lidl £9.99 to see what you are consuming.

Ray.


----------



## Glandwr (Jun 12, 2006)

They should be able to give you the cost per unit. It's the only way to see if it's fair.

Dick


----------



## alphadee (May 10, 2009)

We stayed on a CS a few weeks ago where they sold cards for the EHU. They were £1 each. We were only staying 1 night, and the site owner told us one would be enough. We used heating, water heater, domestic kettle, lights, fridge, battery charger, electric blanket etc (we don't have TV). In the morning we checked the meter, and we had 48p left!


----------



## GEMMY (Jun 19, 2006)

From what I understand, in the Uk you cannot buy electricity and sell it on to a third party and make a profit. Electricity costs best part of 20p a unit. You bought £5 's worth, approx 25 units, equals an average consumption over 15 hrs of 1.6666 units per hr approx.

:wink: 

tony


----------



## EJB (Aug 25, 2007)

In many European countries it normally costs us around 1Eur a day on metered supplies.


----------



## cabby (May 14, 2005)

Perhaps we aught to make sure that on our database we put whether the ehu is on a meter or not.We use at Colchester in Essex a Cl called the Lodge, very friendly people, this is metered but the meters are read and then charged at the end of your stay. I think we used less than £1 per day.They changed to this as they had some RV's on hookup and did not expect it to cost so much, they were out of pocket.
This seems a fair way, but they are only supposed to charge the same rate as their supplier., as far as I am aware.

cabby

added to this the price increases I would imagine site fees will rise next year.


----------



## gaspode (May 9, 2005)

In the UK a re-seller can not charge more for supplying electricity than he pays for it.
We don't know the cost per Kwh here but it's likely to be around 25p/kwh.

From the Alde website, their heating system, when used on 230v consumes 2kw so it would cost 50p/hr to run.
This means you bought 10hrs use for your £5 and that's not counting the electric you used for lights, TV, making a cuppa, charging the battery and all the other things you use it for.

Using electricity for heating is VERY expensive.

That's why many sites limit the supply to 5 or 6 amps.


----------



## peribro (Sep 6, 2009)

gaspode said:


> We don't know the cost per Kwh here but it's likely to be around 25p/kwh.


Unless commercial enterprises pay more, that rate looks pretty high. I pay 9.23 per kWh with a standing charge of 21.92p per day.


----------



## 96299 (Sep 15, 2005)

alphadee said:


> We stayed on a CS a few weeks ago where they sold cards for the EHU. They were £1 each. We were only staying 1 night, and the site owner told us one would be enough. We used heating, water heater, domestic kettle, lights, fridge, battery charger, electric blanket etc (we don't have TV). In the morning we checked the meter, and we had 48p left!


Hi

Is your heating based on a wet system?

Steve


----------



## Bill_H (Feb 18, 2011)

Chigman said:


> Hi all
> 
> Just been on a site in Maldon Essex for three nights where they have metered electrics. We have never been on a metered site before, but have always thought that they would be a fairer system with the idea of, you pay for what you use. :roll:
> 
> ...





gaspode said:


> From the Alde website, their heating system, when used on 230v consumes 2kw so it would cost 50p/hr to run.
> This means you bought 10hrs use for your £5 and that's not counting the electric you used for lights, TV, making a cuppa, charging the battery and all the other things you use it for.
> 
> Using electricity for heating is VERY expensive.
> ...


Would seem that the site owners were correct to blame to high consumption on your Alde system, so perhaps I'm subsidising you on unmetered sites.


----------



## 96299 (Sep 15, 2005)

Bill_H said:


> Chigman said:
> 
> 
> > Hi all
> ...


I hope that's the case Bill. rather that than think they are trying to pull a fast one. :roll: :wink:

Well I know one thing. I wont be going on metered again that's for sure 8O

Steve


----------



## cheshiregordon (Sep 24, 2011)

Chigman said:


> Hi all
> 
> Just been on a site in Maldon Essex for three nights where they have metered electrics. We have never been on a metered site before, but have always thought that they would be a fairer system with the idea of, you pay for what you use. :roll:
> 
> ...


I've never been pro-metering! As to my mind once its measured and charged for separately its open to abuse by the site owner.


----------



## aultymer (Jun 20, 2006)

> I've never been pro-metering! As to my mind once its measured and charged for separately its open to abuse by the site owner.


Gordon, can you expand a bit on that, given that it is already illegal to charge users more than the cost price?

Just last week I saw first hand the stupidity of heaters being left on in awnings/safari rooms - wasting power and costing me money in pitch fees to pay for the waste. 
Bring on the meters - you only pay for what you use - just like home.


----------



## Christine600 (Jan 20, 2011)

I have been on sites having metered electricity. Mostly in Germany.

Some gobble coins like crazy - on others one coin lasts for two days. So unless the price per kwh varies a lot around Germany some have a larger markup than others.

I probably should sit down and find how much it costs me to heat the van using LPG so I know when to electricity or not.


----------



## cheshiregordon (Sep 24, 2011)

aultymer said:


> > I've never been pro-metering! As to my mind once its measured and charged for separately its open to abuse by the site owner.
> 
> 
> Gordon, can you expand a bit on that, given that it is already illegal to charge users more than the cost price?
> ...


Yes I understand from previous posts that it is illegal to charge more than cost - but in my experience that doesn't always mean the law is followed!
The seller is not allowed to recover the cost of running their system thro the charges for electricity. It is however open to the seller to decide how these costs can be recovered separately. I'm not naive enough to believe that site owners would absorb these additional costs rather they would simply be added to the basic site fee or in some other way thro a service charge.
The CC&C do offer HS sites without electricity priced accordingly.
Your comments as regards awning heaters is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand.
On the wider point of site fees in the UK I do agree that they are higher than abroad for a lower quality of facility and that should be investigated.


----------



## presto (Apr 22, 2009)

We stayed at a new councal aire in donaghadee co down last week it was Realy nice views over to the coast of Scotland .water on a metre electric on a metre costing a pound for one hour.Whats that all about we were there 48hours bit expensive We are ok without electric for a few days so didn't subscribe Presto


----------



## peedee (May 10, 2005)

I have used metered electricity and remain very much in support of it. I do believe in the case of electricity, which forms and every increasing proportion of the pitch fee, you should pay for what you use. If we don't start doing this then I can only see pitch fees rising through the roof because there is no incentive for vanners to restrict use. In my case it worked out a just about £1 per day in the summer but I can see it could easily work out much higher in the winter. A 2Kw heater running for 24hrs could work out as much as £7 per day at 15p per unit. If it were me on metered electric, I would run the heating on gas in the winter.

peedee


----------



## cheshiregordon (Sep 24, 2011)

peedee said:


> I have used metered electricity and remain very much in support of it. I do believe in the case of electricity, which forms and every increasing proportion of the pitch fee, you should pay for what you use. If we don't start doing this then I can only see pitch fees rising through the roof because there is no incentive for vanners to restrict use. In my case it worked out a just about £1 per day in the summer but I can see it could easily work out much higher in the winter. A 2Kw heater running for 24hrs could work out as much as £7 per day at 15p per unit. If it were me on metered electric, I would run the heating on gas in the winter.
> 
> peedee


I haven't done any evaluation myself but does anyone know the cross over point for electricity Vs bottled gas. It feels as though the cost increase in BG has been greater than for electricity!


----------



## olley (May 1, 2005)

Our site has just gone over to metered electricity, we get 100kw per week in the price, after that its 15p per kw. The first week our daughter was staying with us, so she was there all day, unlike us, we are normally at work. We used 303kw in that week, last week we used 180kw. Thats why I have been looking at an Air sourced heat pump like these. http://www.heateasy.co.uk/products/Toshiba-Inverter.html

Doing a quick calc. 1 kg of lpg contains about 46Mj or 13kw of energy, I just paid £35 for a 19kg propane refill, so that's 247kw for about 14p a kw. I think. Mind you if you add in the crap efficiency of the RV's heater I reckon you could add another 5p to that. Be good if someone could check those figures as my maths is crap.

So in theory if I fitted one of these I could in effect get my leccy for heating at around 5p per kw instead of 15p, and heat the RV for a third of what I am paying now.

Ian


----------



## Oscarmax (Mar 3, 2011)

I am all for metered pitches if it was monitored correctly, I have first hand seen mindless site members waste electricity, due too the misguided attitudes.

We still use our 2 x 80 watt panel even when on EHU and try and save as much energy as possible.


----------



## cheshiregordon (Sep 24, 2011)

Oscarmax said:


> I am all for metered pitches if it was monitored correctly, I have first hand seen mindless site members waste electricity, due too the misguided attitudes.
> 
> We still use our 2 x 80 watt panel even when on EHU and try and save as much energy as possible.


[fade]

why is that we are all so critical of the other fella - climate change seems to have become the new Inquisition.


----------



## teemyob (Nov 22, 2005)

*right*



GEMMY said:


> From what I understand, in the Uk you cannot buy electricity and sell it on to a third party and make a profit. Electricity costs best part of 20p a unit. You bought £5 's worth, approx 25 units, equals an average consumption over 15 hrs of 1.6666 units per hr approx.
> 
> :wink:
> 
> tony


Which sounds about right to me

ALDE, Fridge & Charger


----------



## 96299 (Sep 15, 2005)

Well, what I would like to see in the case of metered electric then, is a receipt print-out after consumption, just like buying anything from a shop or other outlets. At least you will then get an idea of what you have actually used. Nothing worse than guessing and feeling you have been ripped off. After all, our trust is in their hands.

I still say that it wouldn't come to a fiver a day to run my home on full power for a day (it wasn't even a day on the campsite). This for me is where it falls down.

Steve


----------



## aultymer (Jun 20, 2006)

> Your comments as regards awning heaters is an expedient evaluation based upon limited information at hand.


Good job I am too thick to understand what "an expedient evaluation ", in this context, is, in english! :lol: :lol: :lol: 
P.S. I am not the first to comment on this wasteful habit among some campers.
Bring on the meters.


----------



## aikidomo (Jan 8, 2008)

GEMMY said:


> From what I understand, in the Uk you cannot buy electricity and sell it on to a third party and make a profit. Electricity costs best part of 20p a unit. You bought £5 's worth, approx 25 units, equals an average consumption over 15 hrs of 1.6666 units per hr approx.
> 
> :wink:
> 
> tony


I would say that is how I understand the law as well, had a great big flaming row with an ex landlord who was threatened with prosecution over it.


----------



## aikidomo (Jan 8, 2008)

Question,
What happens when there is credit left in the meter and you leave the site?


----------



## peedee (May 10, 2005)

Chigman said:


> I still say that it wouldn't come to a fiver a day to run my home on full power for a day (it wasn't even a day on the campsite). This for me is where it falls down.
> 
> Steve


Do you heat your house using electricity? I would also like to bet your house is better insulated and not full of holes like most motorhomes, e.g. fridge vents and gas vents.
peedee


----------



## aikidomo (Jan 8, 2008)

We use our motorhome all year round, wild Camping and sometimes in the Winter a campsite.
The Campsites that have unmetered pitches usually the main two big names. I am sure make allowance for Winter and less energy consuming Summer Touring.But the biggest price fluctuation for a pitch is always in the Summer, Up usually. 
I do not waste the electricity, do not leave it on when I go out, have more than one light on at any time, have a great big awning to heat, as I am sure most others on here feel the same.
There may be those that say that I would be an ideal person to be on the side of metered power. That I would only pay a pittance for my power, but I say get real I do not want the trouble of going to put a coin in a meter when I am on Holiday,and haggle the toss with a site owner, and worry about whether I am going to be fiddled for it, based upon human nature and experience by the way, which has, unfortunately made me quite cynical. 
I am not in favour of a metered site and never will be.


----------



## ched999uk (Jan 31, 2011)

olley said:


> Thats why I have been looking at an Air sourced heat pump like these. http://www.heateasy.co.uk/products/Toshiba-Inverter.html
> 
> So in theory if I fitted one of these I could in effect get my leccy for heating at around 5p per kw instead of 15p, and heat the RV for a third of what I am paying now.
> 
> Ian


We have an older type that I don't think is an inverter type and that won't generate heat below about 3DegC. 
The one you link 2 says it works till -15DegC which is great. I would make sure the claimed minus 15DegC is real and not just 'in a lab'.
Ours was a similar pre filled pipe DIY install. It was fairly easy as room on ground floor. 1 problem I did have was the location I was going to use for the external bit was too close to walls and a shed so had to raise it off ground. The first unit we had delivered had a fault where it was originally filled with gas on the indoor part. It was a copper pipe that was crimped then soldered to seal. Unfortunately the crimp was too deep and cut the copper. So if you install one be very careful with the internal units internal copper pipes as they are very delicate.
Must admit I don't have any way to see how efficient it is.


----------



## Crindle (Feb 2, 2007)

Chigman said:


> Hi all
> 
> Just been on a site in Maldon Essex for three nights where they have metered electrics. We have never been on a metered site before, but have always thought that they would be a fairer system with the idea of, you pay for what you use. :roll:
> 
> Hi all.......as intimated else where in this thread, site fees reflect the cost of un-metered electricity usage, and is usually the norm. You don't state what the pitch fee was at Maldon in the posting........Crindle.


----------



## 96299 (Sep 15, 2005)

peedee said:


> Chigman said:
> 
> 
> > I still say that it wouldn't come to a fiver a day to run my home on full power for a day (it wasn't even a day on the campsite). This for me is where it falls down.
> ...


No, on gas peedee. I am talking about heating and lights on all day here. It still wouldn't come to a fiver I dont think ? :roll:

If I would have paid for electric for three days on this site, it would have come to about 20 quid, and that's unacceptable in my book. The site fees were only £22.50 :? Add that up and your talking over 40 quid for a three night stop on a CL - I dont think so.

Steve


----------



## organplayer (Jan 1, 2012)

*organplayer*

Webasto Air Top dsl heater, backed up by 2 110watt solars, and for nightime, Sterling battery to battery charging to l/batts. Seems the way to avoid leccy rip off site merchants. Couple of 15 mins charge from engine an evening, and we have power we need. Just a thought.


----------



## peedee (May 10, 2005)

cheshiregordon said:


> I haven't done any evaluation myself but does anyone know the cross over point for electricity Vs bottled gas. It feels as though the cost increase in BG has been greater than for electricity!


Just come back from a few cold days away and ran the heating on gas for three of them and I was using 4.5lts a day which at 78p per litre equates to £3.50 per day. If I had to pay for electric at 15p a unit, I am pretty sure the cost would have been in excess of £5 per day.

I'll add that I kept the van at 22C during the day and 16C between 2300hrs and 0600hrs. Normally when I am on electric heating I would only use about 0.3lts of gas per day for cooking.

peedee


----------



## gj1023 (Feb 23, 2010)

We stayed at a CS at Wick near Bath and it was our first metered site. We put in £2 in the meter and it lasted us for a one night stay, I was happy with that.
..
Gary


----------



## safariboy (May 1, 2005)

25p/ kWHr seems very expensive to me - we pay about half that. BUT I think that the owner can charge more to make up for the standing charge. The idea is that he cannot make a profit overall.
There are various allowed method of calculation as accuracy is clearly impossible.

In Austria they were charging 1-2 euro per kW-Hr at their aires. So our charges are rather less. Rip-off Austria!


----------



## gaspode (May 9, 2005)

safariboy said:


> 25p/ kWHr seems very expensive to me - we pay about half that. BUT I think that the owner can charge more to make up for the standing charge.


Spot-on safariboy, just because we pay less on our domestic tariffs (after standing charge etc.) doesn't mean that site owners pay that rate. They'll be on a commercial tariff with possible high rates for low useage, maximum demand penalties etc. I've only ever been on one CL in the UK that had metered hook-up and ISTR the rate was approaching 25p/kwh and that was three years ago. Only once encountered metered rates in europe (Germany) and that seemed very expensive at the time but I can't remember now just how much it was, €1/kwh rings a bell so similar to your experiences.


----------



## peedee (May 10, 2005)

I guess what a site pays for electricity depends on its size. I can imagine a large site being on a commercial rate which I have always been led to believe is cheaper than domestic rates which I would think small sites would pay. I am fairly sure sites can only charge a unit rate for metered electricity, any standing charges must be included in a pitch fee or in the case of statics, in the rental fee.

peedee


----------



## Easyriders (May 16, 2011)

The small campsite we are on in Portugal has now gone on to metered electricity. The owner says this is for two reasons: 

1. People last winter were leaving electric heaters on 24 hours, even in awnings!

2. The owner has applied to the electricity company for more power, but has been told he can only have it if he goes over to metering. In fact, all camp sites in Portugal will have to go onto metered electricity soon.

Portugal is a very green country, and electricity is expensive.

However, there is none of this nonsense with coin meters or cards here. You can read your own meter, and so see your own usage, and you only pay at the end of your stay. This seems a very fair system to us


----------



## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

We frequently stay at a privately owned aire where the electricity is not metered. The supply is limited, to 6 amps I think. The owner is a friend of ours and constantly complains about her electricity bills. I know that many people carry little electric heaters and will leave them running all the time at the maximum setting the electricity supply will allow.

We don't use electric heating because our diesel powered circulated hot water system gives comfortable even heating which an electric heater does not. The only appliance we do use on hook up is the fridge. Add to that a little power for battery charging. 

Staying on our friends aire electricity costs us €28 per week. Last week we stayed on another aire where the electricity is metered and the cost for the week was €8.

I am completely in favour of a metered supply providing the price per unit is reasonably fair, Alan.


----------



## safariboy (May 1, 2005)

peedee said:


> I guess what a site pays for electricity depends on its size. I can imagine a large site being on a commercial rate which I have always been led to believe is cheaper than domestic rates which I would think small sites would pay. I am fairly sure sites can only charge a unit rate for metered electricity, any standing charges must be included in a pitch fee or in the case of statics, in the rental fee.
> 
> peedee


If you look at example 5 from this document:
http://www.digicard.co.uk/assets/mrp.pdf
You will see that the standing charge can be added to the unit price giving:

a sale unit price of total electricity = total cost(inc. standing charge)/total units.

He is not allowed to charge anything for the installation and maintenance of his equipment on the site.
He is supposed to adjust the meter to collect exactly the correct money - I expect that he would work on the safe side from his point of view.


----------



## eddievanbitz (May 1, 2005)

For or against there is no appetite in the UK for campsite owners to introduce meters on sites so it is unlikely that it will happen anytime soon

If and when it does, given the cost it will be done to benefit financially the campsite owners not the paying guests.

I personally am still not convinced that the system will be inconvenient to use, allowing for late arrivals, early levers, theft of electricity from other campers etc.

It would be cheaper and greener if all motorhome and caravans had meters built in so people could see how much power they use!


----------



## Christine600 (Jan 20, 2011)

eddievanbitz said:


> It would be cheaper and greener if all motorhome and caravans had meters built in so people could see how much power they use!


I have something like this:

http://www.ecocentric.co.uk/acatalog/eco_centric_energy_saving_Ecosavers_energy_meter.html










I have connected it to the EHU sometimes to check the power my MH used connected to the mains at home. Put it in a plastic bag since it's not ment for outside use.


----------



## olley (May 1, 2005)

eddievanbitz said:


> For or against there is no appetite in the UK for campsite owners to introduce meters on sites so it is unlikely that it will happen anytime soon


Hi Eddie, when can I stay? :lol: I only used 380kw in our first week on the meter, a poster on another forum worked out he had used £56 of leccy a week since he had been on CL site, giving the owner about £5 a week profit from the site fees.

Ian


----------



## eddievanbitz (May 1, 2005)

olley said:


> Hi Eddie, when can I stay? :lol: I only used 380kw in our first week on the meter, a poster on another forum worked out he had used £56 of leccy a week since he had been on CL site, giving the owner about £5 a week profit from the site fees.
> 
> Ian


 :wink: Hi Ian, your always welcome lol

BTW I didn't say that we don't know who uses what now did I?

Regards

Eddie


----------



## peedee (May 10, 2005)

safariboy said:


> peedee said:
> 
> 
> > I guess what a site pays for electricity depends on its size. I can imagine a large site being on a commercial rate which I have always been led to believe is cheaper than domestic rates which I would think small sites would pay. I am fairly sure sites can only charge a unit rate for metered electricity, any standing charges must be included in a pitch fee or in the case of statics, in the rental fee.
> ...


Safariboy, Those are the Ofgen Guidence notes for the resale of gas and electricity. The wording is such that I think it can be done either way although I agree there is no concrete example of this. I also interpret it that installation and maintenance cost can be recovered but not in the price per unit but in a service charge or rent, i.e. the pitch charge.

peedee


----------

