From a 1938-9 Belling catalogue:
"Many people still think that electricity is expensive to use. This, however, is definitely not the case. At the present time electricity for general purposes other than lighting is available at 1d. per unit or less to 10½ millions out of the 11½ million homes in Great Britain. Actually more than 40% of those homes have electricity available at ½d. per unit, or 70% of all the homes in the country can have a supply at ¾d. per unit or less.
Generally speaking, there is always a special rate of 1d. per unit or less available when electricity is used for heating, cooking or water heating, plus a small standing charge based upon the rateable value of the house, or whatever the system in the town happens to be."
The cost rising to 10d. per unit in four years sounds implausible: the slot meter may be a factor, and I'm not sure whether landlords may have had some leeway in setting charging rates. 1942 is a little early for it to have been one of Rachman's properties...
Paul
Oops: posted the above in response to Sinewave, then I looked back in the thread and noticed I'd found and posted part of the same passage back in March! Ah well... We've struck lucky in having a tariff that's fixed until the end of May '23, so it may not be until the winter of '23-4 that we're really motivated to minimise the use of the Belling Champions in our 1680 building.
"Many people still think that electricity is expensive to use. This, however, is definitely not the case. At the present time electricity for general purposes other than lighting is available at 1d. per unit or less to 10½ millions out of the 11½ million homes in Great Britain. Actually more than 40% of those homes have electricity available at ½d. per unit, or 70% of all the homes in the country can have a supply at ¾d. per unit or less.
Generally speaking, there is always a special rate of 1d. per unit or less available when electricity is used for heating, cooking or water heating, plus a small standing charge based upon the rateable value of the house, or whatever the system in the town happens to be."
The cost rising to 10d. per unit in four years sounds implausible: the slot meter may be a factor, and I'm not sure whether landlords may have had some leeway in setting charging rates. 1942 is a little early for it to have been one of Rachman's properties...
Paul
Oops: posted the above in response to Sinewave, then I looked back in the thread and noticed I'd found and posted part of the same passage back in March! Ah well... We've struck lucky in having a tariff that's fixed until the end of May '23, so it may not be until the winter of '23-4 that we're really motivated to minimise the use of the Belling Champions in our 1680 building.
