A NOT SO short update on our British Gas Hive EV charger installation.

[Spinynorman]

Guys, do any of you work from Home? I have to as I’m now disabled which means most of my expenses are down to daytime use especially for electricity. Add to that I don’t use my car as much as I used to so cheap charging doesn’t balance it out. What works for me is a reasonable standing charge and a minimum daily rate so I use Octopus tracker. I used to be on their ‘Go faster’ tariff but now find I’ve saved at least 35% on my previous costs. Do wish I could go back to work though and switch off the gas heating and other base electrics that I need on 24/7 now…
Hate BG BTW they screwed me over a boiler service some time ago to the tune of £300 now they’re like EVRI -a company I’ll never again deal with!

 

[Ian Key]

Guys, do any of you work from Home? I have to as I’m now disabled which means most of my expenses are down to daytime use especially for electricity. Add to that I don’t use my car as much as I used to so cheap charging doesn’t balance it out. What works for me is a reasonable standing charge and a minimum daily rate so I use Octopus tracker. I used to be on their ‘Go faster’ tariff but now find I’ve saved at least 35% on my previous costs. Do wish I could go back to work though and switch off the gas heating and other base electrics that I need on 24/7 now…
Hate BG BTW they screwed me over a boiler service some time ago to the tune of £300 now they’re like EVRI -a company I’ll never again deal with!

I'm now retired so like you I'm at home most of the time. I also have rheumatoid arthritis so I probably have the house warmer than some.
I set up a spreadsheet using my annual consumption of gas and electricity so I could easily compare the various tariffs available.
I also worked out by taking meter readings before and after using the washing machine, bread maker etc. how much I could power shift onto the cheaper rates. For my circumstances E.on next Drive worked out best especially as the cheap tariff runs from midnight to 7am.

 

[johnb80]

Guys, do any of you work from Home? I have to as I’m now disabled which means most of my expenses are down to daytime use especially for electricity. Add to that I don’t use my car as much as I used to so cheap charging doesn’t balance it out. What works for me is a reasonable standing charge and a minimum daily rate so I use Octopus tracker. I used to be on their ‘Go faster’ tariff but now find I’ve saved at least 35% on my previous costs. Do wish I could go back to work though and switch off the gas heating and other base electrics that I need on 24/7 now…

I'm at home most of the time and well into my autumnal years, I too have heating on most of the time. My approach is perhaps different to most, I have installed battery storage system so that I can store electricity at 7.5 p/kWh. I use this to operate air conditioning units through the day which keeps me warm (or cool) at very reasonable rate (less than 2p per kWh of heat). It's a bit involved to setup initially but then straight forward to use once done.

Hate BG BTW they screwed me over a boiler service some time ago to the tune of £300 now they’re like EVRI -a company I’ll never again deal with!

Yep, totally agree with you on this, theyre a dreadful company.

 

[Cornish Paul]

A NOT SO short update on our British Gas Hive EV charger installation.

David

British Gas Hive are a total joke. Ordered mine 6 months before the car arrived. A similar run-around. 12 months after the car arrived I am still using the granny charger! To be honest that covers my usage so I have stopped chasing as I found I don't need to spend £700 for a faster charger.

 

[Deep purple]

Went onto BG EV tariff and it took nearly 6 months for them to get the smart meter (which was only 7 months old) to work and for me to get cheap electricity overnight. It cost them £350 in compensation once I got the Ombudsman involved.

 

[johnb80]

Went onto BG EV tariff and it took nearly 6 months for them to get the smart meter (which was only 7 months old) to work and for me to get cheap electricity overnight. It cost them £350 in compensation once I got the Ombudsman involved.

I cant for the life of me understand why people still go to BG, some people even after horrendous experience still promote them, incredible. Cut, run and go to Octopus a.s.a.p.

 

[Ruislip Resident]

I cant for the life of me understand why people still go to BG, some people even after horrendous experience still promote them, incredible. Cut, run and go to Octopus a.s.a.p.

Never had much of a problem with them.

 

[Grriff]

I've had problems with BG Customer Services over meter readings when moving to Octopus. I've never come across such incompetence before. Definitely avoid BG.

 

[DBedford]

 

[johnb80]

The BG circus continues from one disaster to the next. The sooner it gets taken back to a public company the better.

 

[Ruislip Resident]

The BG circus continues from one disaster to the next. The sooner it gets taken back to a public company the better.

Yet I am happy with the EV tariff they give me. Plus on the smart meter the various other times they give you give 50% off (via a cash back to your bill). They have more on this summer and the Sundays ones are from 9 till 5 until the end if Sept, plus a couple of Saturdays thrown in. They just seem a bit of a mix bag. Not so great on the charge point front , but ok on the tariffs. On the regular gas / central
heating / servicing side, plumbing repairs etc, I've never had any problems.

 

[johnb80]

Yet I am happy with the EV tariff they give me. Plus on the smart meter the various other times they give you give 50% off (via a cash back to your bill). They have more on this summer and the Sundays ones are from 9 till 5 until the end if Sept, plus a couple of Saturdays thrown in. They just seem a bit of a mix bag. Not so great on the charge point front , but ok on the tariffs. On the regular gas / central
heating / servicing side, plumbing repairs etc, I've never had any problems.

BG are as low as they can get in terms of customer service. They constantly dart around like headless chickens with their tariff prices and schemes. Their track record with Hive also leaves a lot to be desired.
If it’s working well for you that great but caveat emptor for the majority.

 

[DBedford]

And I guess this may just cap off our 2 1/2 year journey with BGas and their Hive EV charger (Alfen S-Line), which I have to say has been 95% reliable since October'23.

1st October the charger went off-line (reliant on internal SIMs card, no house wifi connection) I contacted Hive help and was told their telecoms provider was updating the back office and it should be back up shortly.

Within 5 minutes I got a call back, offering a visit to install a hardwired LAN connection between the charger and out router, which I accepted for later in the month (20 days hence!)

Believing what I had been told previously, the last saved schedule should been stored in the charger, which was 00:00 to 05:00 on their EV tariff. After an hour in the rain that evening trying to get the charger to talk to me car I had to give up.

I called Hive the following day , pleasant enough, but was told there was little or nothing I could do, but wait for the engineer to attend, they did say they would come back if they could get an earier appointment. nothing so far.

I've sent a complaint to BGas, but still can't get my head around the lack of joined up management at BGas (I know I will be told 'I told you so', but boy, this is next level). Surely they would have tested this revised set up before going live?? (clearly not !!) , and why was/is there not notification on their website. And now this morning the Hive Forum is down!!

This is why you British Gas, are now no longer Britain's No.1 utility provider, and be prepared to slip further unless you start treating customers as your first priority !
Rant over.

 

[Fluffykins]

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I helped my daughter trying to solve Hive problems. Suffice to say I am rather glad I opted for Drayton Wiser controls on my home heating. Theres been a few issues at odd times but the customer service has been exemplary.

 

[Black estate]

Another vote for
I'm.currently charging my Skoda up for free from 12to2pm and dinner is being cooked for nowt as well
I'm on intelligent octopus and their green plus
Got 1 hour free tomorrow as well

 

[Shrink Proof]

"Appalling so-called service from British Gas. Inexcusable inefficiency and contempt for the paying customer. There's really only one solution for an organisation so demonstrably failing - privatisation."

Oh... wait a minute...

 

[johnb80]

1st October the charger went off-line (reliant on internal SIMs card, no house wifi connection) I contacted Hive help and was told their telecoms provider was updating the back office and it should be back up shortly.

This is why you British Gas, are now no longer Britain's No.1 utility provider, and be prepared to slip further unless you start treating customers as your first priority !
Rant over.

Sorry to hear you're having problems.

Just a thought, do you have a smart phone eg iPhone? if you do you can make a wifi hotspot and may be able to link your charger via that hotspot to get you going again.

 

[orudge]

1st October the charger went off-line (reliant on internal SIMs card, no house wifi connection) I contacted Hive help and was told their telecoms provider was updating the back office and it should be back up shortly.

Within 5 minutes I got a call back, offering a visit to install a hardwired LAN connection between the charger and out router, which I accepted for later in the month (20 days hence!)

We have an Alfen from Hive too, installed last April. It’s generally been reliable enough, but frequently shows up as “inaccessible” in the Hive app, presumably due to relying on a 2G connection. We moved to British Gas a few months ago, so ended up taking advantage of their ‘FreeCharge’ offer, which has generally been fine, except when the charger loses connection and then doesn’t properly record the usage - so presumably no credit will be coming my way for those charges.

For whatever reason British Gas only sends a bill every 6 months(!) so I’m still waiting to ensure that the credits for the past few months (which do show in the app) are actually credited to my account.

Anyway, the charger lost connection a couple of days ago and it hasn’t returned. Maybe Storm Amy is related, but I’ve emailed British Gas in the hope that they might do something. A hard-wired Ethernet connection would be fine, as we have a network switch in the garage so that’d be pretty simple to install.

Perhaps we should have gone with an Octopus-compatible charger to begin with, but British Gas did have a decent offer when we ordered this (plus something like 20% cashback on TopCashback), and we already have Hive heating and some Hive lights, so it made sense at the time. The connectivity issues are really the only problem we’ve had.