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Hi everyone, has anyone done a comparison of the costs per unit of gas and electricity, I am trying to find out whether it is cost effective to have gas in the kitchen or not.
Also does anyone have wise words on the subject of telephone companies as there seem to be a number advertised offering much cheaper call rates.I would welcome anyone’s experience. Willem
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Hello Willem,
I don’t have the information that you require but it might be worth your while checking what you actually get now in terms of power now?
Friends of mine bought a place in the Costa Blanca and have spent money doing it up but found that the supply was only 2.63 Kilowatts so their plans to install Airconditioning had to be cancelled.
They had all electric but used gas for cooking only.
Being in a rural area, upgrading would have cost an absolute fortune so the only real alternative was to consider a generator or solar power.stevmk2
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re cheap telephone calls…we found that although all these companies advertise cheap, from 9.99 euros a month, broadband we are not entitled to it! you bung in your number and get told that we can only have the really expensive option…
I would check whether this is the same with the cheap calls etc too. It seems that unless you are in a BIG city, you are penalised!
Didn´t fancy having to keep changing gas bottles, so we are just electric. Seems far more expensive than the UK did a year ago.
Heather
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Thank you for your replie,. does anyone know the website/s that would enable me to find out the costs per unit of gas and electricity.
As regards the cheap telephone lines, from the comparisons I have made it looks as though the E….a system would be a cost effective way to be able to use Skype.
Regards Willem
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Hello Willem,
I can’t help with websites, but my brother-in law claims that fitting a gas boiler, replacing an electric tank, for hot water, reduced his electricity bill from 100 euro/month to 20 euro. Less than a bottle of gas a month, so say 10 euro on gas. Three people in a 3-bed apartment. Even allowing for a bit of exaggeration, gas is cheaper.
Regards, suDan -
Hi Willem
It depends on what supplier you have and that will depend on the area for electric, we are with iberdrola and off my head our price per KWh of electric is around 16 euro cents plus 18% iva, then you have the add on meter rental etc which is around 15-16 euro per mouth, this is for up to 8KWh consumption, they have different tariffs that you may want to look at. It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you use over around 500KWh per month the price per unit goes up around 25% to discourage use
Gas again depends were you are and how you get it be it Repsol or Cepsa, they have the prices of gas bottles on there web sites so you can see the price there, most appliances tend to give there gas usage in litres per hour and the bottles are in Kilograms so it harder to make a direct comparison but as a rule of thumb 1 KG of gas is around 2 litres, you can also get the storage tanks that they fill up from time.
We now have gas hot water/heating on a combo boiler and a gas hoob via a bottle with an electric oven, this works out best for us
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re telephone costs, I have just got rid of Telefonica (with broadband), it costs around 60€ a month which I considered a real rip-off
I now have a WiMAX internet connection (30€ plus IVA), and a VoIP/SIP phone which costs me 6€ a month for a Spanish number
Call costs are low, and it seems to work fine, but it does need a bit of technical setup, and it’s something new to learn, works well for us though
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Once you get on line try using skype and get every1 else on it then your calls are free even to the other side of the world.
download is free, and to buy a a video camera with audio can cost as little as £6 in p.c. world. I use it all the time, and have just got off it speaking to a friend in thailand for over 2 hours all for free. -
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I have ust received my Factura for the last two months when I have not been in my flat -from Iberdrola 32.16 Euros for standing charges.This is a liberty is it not. I would like to do without ! I could run my TV with a solar panel and a battery and usesolar to heat water butnot the fridge as well. In Uk my charge would have been next to nothing on the right tarrif. What can you do ?
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A lot of friends have had very high bills over the Christmas period, all ‘estimated’ bills.
I wonder if Endesa used the customers money to pay Christmas bonuses or parties?
We had a bill for 76 euros and the flat is empty with the electricity switches all off in the box! It was estimated and then next bill was -45 euros.
I wonder if they needed the extra cash upfront?
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@itsme wrote:
We had a bill for 76 euros and the flat is empty with the electricity switches all off in the box! It was estimated and then next bill was -45 euros. I wonder if they needed the extra cash upfront?
I also received a refund from Endesa in January and found out why the bills had suddenly gone up and then been given a refund.
Apparently, the previous Spanish government had stopped electricity companies from increasing their charges. The electricity companies then challenged this ruling in the courts and the courts found in their favour, ruling that it had been unlawful. The courts not only allowed the electricity companies to increase their charges, but allowed them to backdate these increases to the point they had been stopped from increasing them, but only on the basis that these increases be recovered and spread across the last 4 months of 2012.
That’s probably the reason for why the last 4 months of 2012 electricity charges have jumped somewhat. It is also my understanding that Endesa estimate a bill one month and do an actual reading the next with adjustment. The final reading and adjustment in December 2012 is what probably produced that refund.
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@zenkarma wrote:
@itsme wrote:
We had a bill for 76 euros and the flat is empty with the electricity switches all off in the box! It was estimated and then next bill was -45 euros. I wonder if they needed the extra cash upfront?
Apparently, the previous Spanish government had stopped electricity companies from increasing their charges. The electricity companies then challenged this ruling in the courts and the courts found in their favour, ruling that it had been unlawful. The courts not only allowed the electricity companies to increase their charges, but allowed them to backdate these increases to the point they had been stopped from increasing them, but only on the basis that these increases be recovered and spread across the last 4 months of 2012.
That’s probably the reason for why the last 4 months of 2012 electricity charges have jumped somewhat. It is also my understanding that Endesa estimate a bill one month and do an actual reading the next with adjustment. The final reading and adjustment in December 2012 is what probably produced that refund.
We had extra money taken with Iberdrola but the amount was known before hand by them so it should not cause the bill to be wrong, from memory they were allowed by the courts to increase there prices by around 5% from April and the decision was in August, they started taking the extra money in September for the backdated money over the 4 months till end of 2012 so it would have only made a small difference and should not cause the figures to be out, maybe Iberdrola are more on the ball than Endesa, apparently Iberdrola sent a letter to anyone with an extra 55euro or more to pay.
Our UK bill for Gas and Electric was £480 for Dec, Jan and Feb, this is with 5 weeks of that spent in Spain!, energy is expensive most places these days
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It all depends upon your useage really. I cook quite a lot when in the Canaries and I started with a two ring electric hob which was inefficient. I bought a nice gas hob for 110 euros and and was given an 11kilo gas bottle. It cost me last year about 15.50 euros and it has lasted a whole year with daily use over a 6 month period. Before leaving very recently I exchanged for a refill bottle and cost me about 16.50. The price of this size bottle is regulated by the Spanish state. If you use very little gas maybe don’t bother because electricity is not expensive -the greater part of my bill is the damned potencia charge. However standing charges are creeping back in UK now ! If you are with Iberdrola you can use the ‘con discriminacion’ tariff for electricity that allows 12 hrs midnight to noon at about 0.7 cents a unit and 21.cents for the other 12 hours.
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If I understand it correctly, Endesa has two types of contracts – those with prices fixed by the government and those are supposedly ‘market based’ prices. My spouse didn’t know the difference and when a woman showed-up at our front door selling the market-based contracts, he signed, believe everything that the woman said. But this caused a lot of discussion and arguing with family at the dinner table. In the end, he went to Endesa and changed back to the government regulated contract and we got a refund of about 100 euros.
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There is quite a lot of information about electricity charges on this thread that shows utility costs are going up every where but if you choose your tarrif carefully you can get the best deal for your circumstances. Where you choose to live is one thing to bear in mind in Spain . Coastal locations are not so hot in summer and warmer in winter so you save on air conditioning and heating potentially more so in the future .
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