Metered CLs
Have just encountered my first metered CL and wondered what others think of this idea. I was intending to stay on site for 6 nights and paid £20 upfront for my electricity. I was horrified to find out that it ran out late evening after 48 hours. This entailed heading off to the farmhouse late at night to top up with another £20. I realised that at this rate it was going to cost me £60 for six nights of what I assume is mostly heating costs. At this rate I reasoned, rightly or wrongly - it is probably cheaper to use LPG as a refill is about £33? Not very environmental and certainly not a very restful experience.
Would be interested to hear the views of others but currently plan to avoid any site that has metered electricity.
Comments
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There are similar discussions in the CL section and some people are happy with metering, some are not. The price is bound to vary as it depends on the sum the site owner is paying - note, the site operator is not allowed by law to charge more than he/she is paying. The sum you paid is a good indicator of why that CL has opted for metering but it sounds as if a better system of charging is needed.
Will you also be avoiding club sites with metered electric? Metering is becoming more widespread across all types of sites and will be difficult to avoid eventually.
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I think you would be better off finding out how much the owner is charging per kWh and then work out how much electric you actually use then work out whether it is worthwhile.
Not all CLs should be tarred with just the experience as you describe. Besides we don't know how much electric you used or the price being charged but I have used a few metered sites. 1 was giving the first so much "foc" but another was charging their business tariff of £0.65 per unit. They weren't making a profit but it did make you think of usage.
Personally I think metering is fine if above board as some members will use it and some won't need it at certain times of the year, if at all.
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MT You do not say how you added the £20.00,is this by a preloaded card or another way.
I have stayed on Wyatts Covert under the new metered scheme,If I recall I used average £2.50 for each night.Unused refunded back on to card.
Now I have just stayed on a CS where non electric pitches were £17.00 and electric pitches £22.00,and by looking at this comparison I paid well over the odds for the CS site electric hook up pitch.
What metered electric does is focus your mind on excess usage,and we do not know your usage for that period,for instance,if you used heating ,was it on 1kw setting or 2kw because over a period this would be significantly more.
I do not mind metered electricity, but I do agree there should be some clarity from the site, of the prices they charge per kw.
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Moore Travel
The Club seem to have set their ambitions towards metering all Club campsites at some point in the reasonably immediate future. Increasingly this is the case with CL's who were very badly hit by the recent energy crisis. So from this I think we can assume that metering of electricity will certainly become more common, if not the norm. £10 per 24 hours does seem quite high but we don't know what the Kw hour charge is. It's likely to be higher than what you are paying at home. Maybe the solution is to use gas, or at least a mix of gas and electricity? Just make sure you have full gas cylinders before leaving for a trip.
David
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Agree with all the posts above around finding out what the charge per kWH is, and that it can vary. What it does do is make the visitor a little more aware of actual usage, as opposed to just plugging in and turning everything on.
We will be quite happy to use metered pitches if the nightly fee isn’t too high. It gives the option of being on a hook up or not, and you only pay extra for what you personally choose to use.1 -
£10 a day is peanuts. Why is he moaning?
Here at home in the old farmhouse on the edge of the moor I have just paid £320 for two loads of ash logs for the woodburner. We have no mains gas so there’s a giant size Flogas bottle to feed the kitchen cooker, and the central heating runs on kerosene - and that was £660 last week for half a tankful. And the direct debit for electricity is £140 a month as well.
I would be quids in at £10 a day.
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Last year we were on Skybarn Farm CL where metering had just been introduced. The pitch fee had been reduced from £25 pn to £20 pn to compensate - which was very fair. Being our first experience of metered sites, I was intrigued to find out what our costs would be.
It was March - and very cold - the night time temperature falling to -5. I ran the van as 'normal' - electric heating, hot water, occasional use of heated towel rail and small 600w fan heater in the bathroom before showers etc., plus a large fridge.freezer.
During that first 24 hours, our electricity costs were £10.60 - charged at 36p per unit, then. So - I don't think the OP's experience is out of the way at all.
Thereafter, I ran the heating and hot water on gas (Safefill) and I reckon I used about £7s worth during the rest of the week. Our electricity costs, however, were about half at just over £5 per day.
On returning in October, when it was much warmer, electricity costs were £1.70, so I was well in front and this June, I got it down to just over £1 by using a portable solar panel.
I'm with ET on this one since, although living in a relatively modern, well-insulated house - £130 for a load of logs - £140 for coal, £200 pm for gas and electricity - costs for using the van are relatively minor.
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At 36p per unit, that means you used just under 30 units the first day Richard, presumably as you say mainly on heating and hot water, which is a little surprising as your van is I think relatively new and well insulated?
We have an old twin axle (2008) which is not well insulated, and also the big fridge/freezer. As we used to go to Germany a lot, where the electricity is often metered and very expensive, we fitted a small metering device in the van so we would not get any nasty shocks in the bill.
Our first outing after doing this was to CAMC Knaresborough on a very cold March weekend. We have Alde heating, only 2kW, and prefer to shower and wash up in the van, but even so we were horrified to find we used 40 kWh in the first 24 hours!
We now know the F/F alone uses 4 kWh per 24 hours, we did a little cooking with the electric hotplate and microwave, watched TV, had on lights (not LED back then), but the biggest use was of course the hot water and heating.
Soon after that we put in a refillable Gaslow system for long trips abroad, so our gas costs much less than Calor. As a result we often use it in colder weather as the van gets warmed up much quicker on gas.
We have only used one metered CL in UK recently, the pitch price had been reduced by £5 to take account of the metering, and we used less than £2.50 per day, at 32p per kWh, plus a little gas for heating and HW. Bit of a bind to keep topping up with £1 coins, but it was easy to see on the meter how much we had left, and the owners had a supply of coins available.
We would not use a site that is metered without knowing the unit prices as commercial rates can vary hugely.
At home, a 36 year old 5 bed house near Glasgow, we have gas CH and use electricity for cooking. Our average electricity use is 8-10 kWh per day imported, total gas and electricity costs are £175 per month at present. However we do have solar panels on the south facing roof and use another 1600kWh per annum of free electricity from those, and sell the other 1800kWh to the grid for 15p per unit.
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It certainly pays to know and understand how each of the van systems works and whether or not they are most efficient on LPG or electric.
Only then can you decide how best to and most efficiently use each fuel.
For us LPG supplied from refillable LPG tanks works best in both hot and cold weather.
We do use EHU in the winter to keep the batteries up to scratch. In summer the solar panels do the job.
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Our old caravan (1984) and our relatively old MH (2001) both seem very well insulated, we have always toured through the Winter months. Being less high tech, they aren’t power hungry either, we regularly camp off grid in the warmer months, and have done short breaks in the MH in Winter off grid as well. Old fashioned keep warm methods, but very effective. Hence why we like metered sites, if the nightly fee is good as well. We are usually out most of day if away, don’t sit in van in day much.
House? Nearly 160 year old Victorian 4 bed semi, over 3 floors. Winter room has a multi fuel stove, mainly free wood (not rubbish, it’s cut, logged stacked, dried, and only used when seasoned) and today I have just picked up three months supply of smokeless fuel for £110. Gas and electric combined fuel bill was £95 last month. We aren’t away at all at the moment, so it’s higher than usual.
It’s just another changing era of touring. High electric costs, means you have to adapt a bit to keep cost of a night out a bit lower. It’s that or give up.
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MooreTravel, from reading your post I'm guessing you didn't check what the kWh rate was prior to booking/staying.
If the kWh rate is 35p or more (quite possible if the CL is part of a larger commercial enterprise) then yes, I can imagine you would use around £10/24hrs, as richardandros did when they stayed with us when our kWh rate was 36p/unit. As they say in their comment above, they simply then adjusted how they used their electric and brought the ongoing cost down.
Our kWh rate is now 23p and the average cost per pitch per night during October was £2.16 or just over 9 units per 24 hours. The average for 2024 so far since January is £1.98 or just under 8 units. Obviously the above is average use, some people use more, some use less and some choose not to hook up and only pay our pitch fee. Summer use is around an average of £1.20/night.
If you know a CL you're thinking of booking charges for electric you should always ask, prior to booking, what the unit rate is. Our unit rate is advertised on our website for all to see and make an informed decision to book with us or not.
There's no need to boycott all CLs who charge for electric, just do your homework before you book
Skybarn Farm CL, Lincoln4 -
"At 36p per unit, that means you used just under 30 units the first day Richard, presumably as you say mainly on heating and hot water, which is a little surprising as your van is I think relatively new and well insulated?"
I agree Kj - I think we were a little bit extravagant but I wanted to find out what our usage was by using the van as we normally did - and I found out!!
We probably also had the U/F heating on for a little while although that doesn't use that much - it's only 24v through a step-down transformer. As I said, it was very cold that time.It was a good exercise because it brought it home to me how easy it is to run up a big bill and the impact that has on CL owners that aren't recovering their costs through metering.
I'm all in favour of metered sites now and fully support those who are / have introduced them.
There is, however, another side to it. One CL we used to use regularly has not only increased their prices in the last couple of years - but also introduced metering without any compensating reduction in pitch fee. Needless to say, I won't go there anymore as a matter of principle.
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Just an aside here. Whilst I can understand CL's going over to metered electricity what puzzles me a bit are those that charge for showers? Just seen a CL advertised on a Facebook Group, £25 a night including electricity but a £1 extra for a shower?
David
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Many have long charged for showers DK. We have never found it a problem to be honest, as it does give visitors the option.
The only thing I will say, is that the nightly fee without showers, without EHU needs to be value for money for us. We can stay on nice, award winning CS sites for £15 per night that have very nice loos and showers, and gives the option of having a hook up as well if we want to pay another £5. It’s possibly the economy of scale that allows this to happen, as CS sites can take 5 motor pitches, and a further 10 tents, although the reality has been never more than a couple of tents on the CS ‘s we have used.
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Looks like meters are the way forward and we will all have to live with them. It does look essential to check out the rate charged before booking though. I can see that CL operators will need this more as they presumably work on thinner margins.
The rate charged does seem to vary quite a bit in the posts which may be down to what the operator has supplied you with. The difference might suggest that some are charging the business rate and others the domestic one.
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