New house - should I switch?

trsn500

Hi all - please reply if you have any advice...

I have just moved into a new terraced house. I rang up British Gas (the current suppliers for Gas and Elec) straight away to give them opening meter readings etc, and will be switching straight away to a different (i.e. hopefully cheaper) supplier, I'll be going for direct debit, online discount etc.

But... upon what basis can I do a price comparison? I've only got a year's worth of data about my previous usage but this relates to my OLD house, which was poorly insulated, presumably has differently-powered boiler, cooker, central heating and hot water, and also accommodated 4 students instead of a young couple...

So... is it worth doing a comparison based on my old data / estimated data / random data and going with the company that comes out cheapest... or should I just go for a direct-debit online discounted package from British Gas and then do a comparison in six months or so (perhaps this is the better option since MSE's energy 'SWITCH NOW traffic lights are on orange at the moment)?

Anyway... what do you think?

[perhaps this is a topic worth discussing, since most of the 'Gas and Elec' topics on here - and most of the comparison sites - presume you've got lots of data already as opposed to being brand new customers in a new house...]

Cardew

BG Websaver(their on-line account) is usually the cheapest, or very near the cheapest, tariff available; so you won't be paying much, if anything, more by having that account until you get an idea of consumption.

The average consumption in UK is 20,500kWh gas and 3,300kWh electricity. If you enter permutations of those figures in a comparison website you will get an idea of who will be cheapest.

It may be worth losing the dual fuel discount and getting gas and electricity from different suppliers. For instance Ebico is very competitive for gas if you have low consumption - but they are expensive for electricity.

When you have it all worked out, the companies will change all their prices and you will have to start all over again!!!!!!