First home and a bit clueless

CaptainAwesome

Me and my partner are getting the keys to our first flat together tomorrow and we have no idea how we go about switching to a new supplier for our energy ( electricity I think, not sure if we have gas).

We found the place through Belvoir lettings and today after the manager of the office sent us a draft agreement to read through we had an email from iammoving.com that said this..

"Dear Miss H_____,

Your letting agent has informed the below services about your recent move out of or into one of their properties by using iammoving.com for agents:

Local Council - City of Worcester Council
Electricity - npower
Water - Severn Trent Water"

They then rang to seemingly talk us into switching with them but we put it off as we have no idea whether this is how utility switches go or whether we'd be getting a better deal elsewhere.

Ant help would be much appreciated.

Plushchris

You will need to take meter readings once you get into the property and phone Npower and register with them, giving them your opening readings.

Once you have done that then hit the comparison sites, its a little difficult to know what to put in as your usage as you wont know what you are likely to use. Some of the comparison websites have usage estimators, but these are only a guide. To give you some idea, the national average usage for gas is 20500kwh and for electricity is 3300kwh

The letter only mentions electricity though so if the flat doesnt have gas you need to check if its on economy 7 (two readings on the meter - Day and night)

If its electric only then your usage will be a fair bit higher than 3300kwh

If you give a little more info on the size of flat etc, I'm sure someone will offer up some usage figures on here but again, only use these as a guide. Try a few different amounts of usage and if you get similar results in terms of the top three suppliers then it should point you in the right direction

You may well find it could be Npower at the top of the list but you will need to upgrade the tariff as when you move in reverts back to the standard tariff (the most expensive obviously) unless you tell them otherwise.

I would avoid using anyone thats got anything to do with letting agents as its unlikely they will be offering the best deal (I bet it would be Southern Electric they offer you) and there have been plenty of horror stories on here associated with letting agents getting involved in the utilities (its nothing to do with them)

Water you have no choice over sadly.

CaptainAwesome

Plushchris wrote: »

You will need to take meter readings once you get into the property and phone Npower and register with them, giving them your opening readings.

Once you have done that then hit the comparison sites, its a little difficult to know what to put in as your usage as you wont know what you are likely to use. Some of the comparison websites have usage estimators, but these are only a guide. To give you some idea, the national average usage for gas is 20500kwh and for electricity is 3300kwh

The letter only mentions electricity though so if the flat doesnt have gas you need to check if its on economy 7 (two readings on the meter - Day and night)

If its electric only then your usage will be a fair bit higher than 3300kwh

If you give a little more info on the size of flat etc, I'm sure someone will offer up some usage figures on here but again, only use these as a guide. Try a few different amounts of usage and if you get similar results in terms of the top three suppliers then it should point you in the right direction

You may well find it could be Npower at the top of the list but you will need to upgrade the tariff as when you move in reverts back to the standard tariff (the most expensive obviously) unless you tell them otherwise.

I would avoid using anyone thats got anything to do with letting agents as its unlikely they will be offering the best deal (I bet it would be Southern Electric they offer you) and there have been plenty of horror stories on here associated with letting agents getting involved in the utilities (its nothing to do with them)

Water you have no choice over sadly.

I did have a look at some comparison sites, that's when I realised I have no idea how much I'd be using.

The flat is a 2 bedroom, one double and one single over one floor. The living room is about the size of a childs shoebox (OK maybe a BIT bigger) and is open plan with the kitchen. As far as I recall the oven/hob was electric and there was no central heating but there were little heater things scattered around, stuck to the wall ( I assume these are electric and there is no gas in the property).

I guess companies are banking on people being too lazy to switch and so they reset everything to the highest rate, earning them more profits.:D

I had a list of questions to ask when signing tomorrow, whether the property was on Economy 7 or not, I'll be sure not to forget.

It's also going to be a surprise whether the phone line is connected/requires us to pay a connection fee but that's another story altogether.

As far as Southern Electric go, I have heard plenty of horror stories first hand as I used to work in a call centre contacting/selling to their customers. Brilliant company to work for in terms of rewards/comission (although that may have been the call centres doing) but not exactly focused on looking out for their customers.

Plushchris

CaptainAwesome wrote: »

I guess companies are banking on people being too lazy to switch and so they reset everything to the highest rate, earning them more profits.:D

Spot on!


The reason I mentioned Southern Electric is because that seems to be the company that sets up deals with letting agents, whenever we see posts on here concerning problems with letting agents and energy suppliers then I would say its most SE that are the supplier.

Letting agents should keep their nose out of the utilities, its nothing to do with them and dont rely on any information they might give you regarding meter readings etc. Take your own readings and contact Npower yourself if you want to avoid any problems further down the line!

CaptainAwesome

Well, we got the keys today and found it it is indeed electric only and isn't Economy 7, so that is at least a step in the right direction in regards to getting things sorted.

We'll be ringing nPower first thing Monday with there meter reading and to ask them to put us on the cheapest tarriff that doesn't have a charge for leaving, then switching to the cheapest provider as soon as possible.

I used the energy estimate calculator on USwitch with all of the information I could about the flat size etc and that suggested I'll be using 9123kWh of electric with nPower at a price of £1256 annually.

I have no idea if this is accurate, but it also suggests we could be saving as much as £4-500 a year by switching, are there any catches to look out for?