Powergen to London Energy (online)

duncan32

Hello all,

I want to change from Powergen to London Energy Online (came out by far the cheapest on the internet search that this site directs you to).

Couple of questions, if anyone can advise, please?

1/ Are London Energy any good? I presume a lot of you have moved to them?

2/ My bills for the last three months are £60.00 for gas and £50.00 for electricity (per month). Is that normal? It seems ridiculously high. I think the wife must make sure all the lights and electrical appliances are on all day while I am at work, whilst simultaneously offering a hot bath scheme to the local homeless!?!?!

Thanks in advance.

Duncan

Cardew

Look at:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=142626

Doonhamer

£60 and £50 sounds a bit much to me but it depends on your house and your lifestyle. Try asking a neighbour in a similar house.

My combined bill is about £65 averaged over the whole year and I'm with Powergen but looking at London Electricity too. I'm in a modern 4 bedroom bungalow and my wife works part time.

In the Winter I have my heating on all the time but have a programmable roomstat in the hall. It drops to 14°C at 22:00 and goes to 21°C at 06:50 till 08:15 then back to 21°C at 3PM. Sometimes at night we set it up to 22°C. All the radiators in the house except for one have TRV's.

It only ever comes on during the night if it is well below zero outside.

Hot water comes on twice a day, I have a tank.

I don't have any energy saving bulbs, hate them.

schiff

I switched to London Energy (via MSE's preferred link) for both fuels a month or so ago,with a projected saving of over £100 pa - and I'm not a big user. Very little to go on so far as I've not had a bill but I'm quite happy.

There are a number of extras with London Energy that only need a bit of research. There are substantial discounts for taking dual fuels and in addition for paying by monthly DD. There are Nectar points offered for routine things eg just belonging! And to my mind quite hefty credits for reading your own meter and reporting the figures online, or by phone (credits a bit smaller).

It all at the moment sounds too good to be true - though I've checked and checked. The crunch will come when I've got the first couple of quarterly bills - which is some way off. But I remain very hopeful.

duncan32

Thanks for all the replies.

Gives me the confidence to move to London Energy (although it will take about four weeks for me to clear the money I owe to Powergen - just hope the rates don't change by then!?!).

Regarding my lifestyle: 3 bedroom detached (small) house. I've got to educate myself and the wife to turn lights / televisions off in rooms we are not in I suppose..... pretty sure that Powergen couldn't be falsely charging us?

Thanks again.

Duncan

Doonhamer

Don't bet on it, they were converting my meter readings from cubic feet to cubic metres even though my meter was already metric and read directly in cubic metres. I think the conversion was about 2.85 times higher!

It took months to sort it out.

I'm going to change to London Energy soon, I've just been waiting for things to settle down.

schiff

duncan32 - if you do it, don't forget to do it via Martin's link for energyhelpline. That gets you an additional £12.50 (eventually).

I think it's well on the cards that LE's rates will go up in the not too distant future. They can't go out on a limb when Powergen and BG are putting theirs up so steeply.
I'm just hoping that they will still be the cheapest for me after all the dust has settled and everybody has put their prices up.

duncan32

Thanks again.

I know this isn't what I originally posted, but do any of you have any suggestions as to why my bills are so high. A friend of mine is in the same sort of house as me, similar circumstance,s but his are both £30.00. That's pretty much £400.00 a year! Makes me want to scream to be honest!
The last few days I have been turning lights off when not in the room, making sure the tele is oof if not in the room and so on, but do little things like this make a difference. I've also tried turning the thermostat down from the usual 21/22 to about 17/18 for the last few days.

Any ideas would be appreciated....

Thanks,

Duncan

Doonhamer

Make sure you have 6-8" of loft insulation.
Put back the CH timer a bit so it comes on later in the morning.
Do the opposite a night so it goes off well before you go to bed.
Turn the TRV's down a little in some rooms.
Try and have the hot water on less often and not on it's own, tie it in with the CH.
Don't leave doors open.
Might sound silly but check you haven't left a light on in the loft.
Don't boil more water in the kettle than you need.
Change the 20% of lights you have on the most to energy saving ones and you will save 80% of your lighting costs.
Fill a flask up with boiling water before you leave work to get a cheap cup of tea when you get home. (that was a joke!)

duncan32

Cheers.

Don't think I have any loft insulation to speak of to be honest! Whenever I've gone up there there's a lot of gaps. I'll get it looked at. But, if the heating is still on does it makes much difference.....

These are all pretty obvious things I suppose, I feel a bit of a fool!?!?

Thanks,

Duncan

Doonhamer

duncan32 wrote:

Cheers.

Don't think I have any loft insulation to speak of to be honest!

:eek:

Is yours the only house in the street that snow never lies on?

I'll bet all the birds roost on your roof.

I would seriously look into this, looks like you have found your problem. :T