first:utility - new energy company launches

kevcoo

J20BABY wrote: »

Not when they came to fit my gas meter today it wasn't, I was told I could request a time slot but it wasn't guaranteed(sp) so I asked for a morning, they called early this morning to confirm the fitter would be here between 8 and 12, he came at 1, not too bad, but if i had had to be back at work in the afternoon, then this would have been a pita, and now i have to wait again for them to get an electric meter fitter to me when they feel ready, I have no idea when that is going to be:rolleyes:

My meters now in and fully working took 2 months from live date with supplier both fitted same day

TonyHoyle

Is there any more on this company? I like the idea of smart meters (like others I have one meter outside and one in a cupboard outside the flat) and the prices on their website are considerably cheaper than what I'm paying right now.

uswitch (and confused.com and another I tried but forget the name) no longer list them in results, which is odd... the 'join us' link on their website just goes to a contact form - which I filled in several days ago but got no contact. The FAQ mentions an online signup process, but there is none.

Given how eager these companies are to get your business normally, and are even fully prepared to engage in deception to get it (I get at least one a month turning up on the doorstep with dubious claims like 'your entire block is having its electricity changed to <company>'), their attitude seems.. wierd.

melb

I've just been on energyline and this company came out tops with expected saving of over £600. anyone any recent experiences please? thanks

NonGeographicalMan

melb wrote: »

I've just been on energyline and this company came out tops with expected saving of over £600. anyone any recent experiences please? thanks

Customer service experiences with First Utility are generally bad (including dodgy billing practices) and note that this plan only gives you these prices once a year when they pay big discounts out. If you leave in month 7 or 19 or 31 etc for another supplier you don't get the advertised prices for that year.:mad:

Also £600 cheaper than anyone else is a huge difference. You must be using a huge amount of gas and electricity for that to be true. Have you also run this comparison at https://www.energylinx.co.uk as not all the other switching websites can be trusted to list all the options available to you.:eek:

melb

thaks for the reply - I'm going to try some other comparison sites and will also use the one you suggest. unfortunately our usage is double the national average apparently at 42,000 for gas and 8600 for electricity but we are actually very careful. I'm wondering if we might have one of these meters that's metric and should be converted to imperial (or vice-versa) which I remember being on watchdog or some such programme a while ago. we're going to start monitoring our gas meter - I think we've used 24 units in the last 2 weeks although OH can't remember when he took first reading!

NonGeographicalMan

melb wrote: »

thaks for the reply - I'm going to try some other comparison sites and will also use the one you suggest. unfortunately our usage is double the national average apparently at 42,000 for gas and 8600 for electricity but we are actually very careful. I'm wondering if we might have one of these meters that's metric and should be converted to imperial (or vice-versa) which I remember being on watchdog or some such programme a while ago. we're going to start monitoring our gas meter - I think we've used 24 units in the last 2 weeks although OH can't remember when he took first reading!

What size of place do you live in? 5 bed detached house or quite what exactly? If you are in any doubt about the accuracy of the meters there are various fairly cheap digital electricity monitoring meters you can now buy that track your consumption day by day and and have a collar fitting around the electricity supply cable before it reaches the meter. You should be able to fit this yourself in many houses unless you are unlucky and the supply cable is not accessible prior to reaching the meter for some reason. See https://www.frequencycast.co.uk/energymeters.html for details of all of these meters.

If you are in any doubt that your current meter(s) are accurate I would check them using some of these devices. Also I assume there is a testing process that you can force your supplier to undertake if you have any reason to think their meters are inaccurate. Even if there is a £50 or £100 charge for this if no fault is found (surely they must refund the charge as well as replacing the meters if the meters turn out to be faulty) it is probably worth it if your bills are of the scale you are talking about.

What about obvious checks you can carry out yourselves like turning off all your electrical devices everywhere in the home and all your gas applicances and seeing if either meter is still turning at all. Have you done those checks so far?

Also have you considered carrying out a major insulation program on your home with loft and cavity insulation and have you fitted low energy light bulbs in all the lights in your home where this is readily possible?

I still don't think First Utility should be that much cheaper than all the other supplier and that Eon ought to have a tariff that runs them fairly close on price.

melb

thanks for your very comprehensive reply. the house is 4 bed detached with solid brick construction (therefore no insulation possible) single glazed windows built in 1890ish (I sound like an estate agent!) Scottish Power did say they could send an engineer round but we'd have to pay if there was no problem with the meter - it's the gas mainly - but, as you say, it may still be money well spent. We have only central heating and hob on gas and only very rarely have the central heating on all day even in the middle of winter it's just normally on 2 hours in morning and then from about 4 till 9 in the evening and the thermostat rarely goes above 17 or 18 max.

melb

Oh yeh forgot to say eon did have a traiff similar in price but it was fixed until october 2010 (I think) so didn't really want to fix again

NonGeographicalMan

melb wrote: »

We have only central heating and hob on gas and only very rarely have the central heating on all day even in the middle of winter it's just normally on 2 hours in morning and then from about 4 till 9 in the evening and the thermostat rarely goes above 17 or 18 max.

It sounds like either the gas boiler is horrendously inefficient or has some actual problem with it (although most gas boilers are fairly simple compared to oil ones so this would be unusual) or that you simply suffer from massive heat loss in your home. I live in a ground floor flat in an 1870s converted country house with one foot thick solid red brick walls and the place seems pretty efficient for heating with a gas bill of around £430 per annum at current prices. I tend to have the heating maintain a room temp of between 66F and 71F depending on the time of day (I have a digital room stat that automatically changes at certain times of day).

A gas boiler engineer can do pressure tests between the boiler and the pressure point on the meter to make sure no gas is being lost in between. Assuming that is not the case then a faulty meter is the only other possible culprit. Have you had several smaller indpendent gas boiler servicing people give you an opinion on the boiler. Obviously you need to beware of the fact that all the big boiler servicing firms and some of the smaller ones will try to sell you a new boiler when there is nothing wrong with many older ones.

melb

yeh we keep wondering whether to get the boiler serviced or get someone to have a look but haven't because of the reasons you say - ie they'll probably find something wrong with it otherwise there's little point them coming out. We have had the boiler about 12 years and it seems great to us in terms of heating the house really quickly but that isn't the same as being efficient is it? it's a normal boiler rather than a combi