moving house

tiggerjj

Hey Guys,
I am a FTB curently buying a small 3 bed mid terrace house. Obviously I need to sort out the gas and electric however I am struggling with the comparison websites as I have no idea what usage I am likely to need (never lived in a comparable property)

I will be living there alone or with a lodger, currently there is no central heating, just two gas fires, I will be putting in gas central heating. The house is in cardiff.

All help and advice appreciated....

kjsmith7

Cardiff is a great city

It is very hard to estimate, really it is, what you will be using. The average consumption in the UK is 20,500kWh for gas and 3,300kWh for electricity, but I myself use more electricity than the average and less gas! I would suggest comparing suppliers based on those rough figures at first, and checking unit rates.

I'd also suggest not locking yourself into a tariff (generally Online, Fixed Price, Capped tariffs have a lock in and therefore an exit penalty in most cases) in case you find out your usage is very different - for instance, higher electric usage, less gas - as this can effect which suppliers work out cheaper. Don't get me wrong, Standard Tariff usually works out a little more expensive, however the saving you'd make moving to another company if you realised 6mo down the line that the supplier wasn't that cheap at all would be eaten up by the exit penalty. You will receive a quarterly bill even if you pay via monthly direct debit in most cases, but you can always ring up monthly with a meter reading to see how your balance is going, and I recommend keeping a monthly reading written down for both gas and electricity. Don't allow estimates on your bills - always correct them.

After 6-12mo of consumption information, you'll then be able to exactly work out or extrapolate which supplier will then be cheapest for you.

markharding557

You will have to set up accounts with your properties existing suppliers first and then you can move if you wish after one month.
It will not be easy to work out your consumption yet untill you have been there a while so i would ask for their cheapest tariff which will most likely be an online one