Help - I hate changing suppliers, I don't understand how to do it!

chirpchirp

Ok, it's the time of year when I need to look at changing my electricty and gas suppliers to check I'm on the best deal. I'm currently with EDF on their online v6 account.

I've checked my statements and when I joined them in April last year I submitted my reading of 4341 and tonight my reading is 5066. I make this a difference of 725 cubic feet. When I have tried to covert this to KWH I have got the answer 22963 which seems far too high!

Also having problems with my Electricty. My economy 7 reading is 21707 (this year) -20770(last year) = 937. My normal reading is 71217-68876= 2341. Is this all I need for the KWH? When I put this number in it seems far too high, it seem to think my electricity bill would be over 3k a year which I'm sure it isn't, although I haven't been billed for this last quarter yet.

Where I get stuck, is entering the usuage into the comparison sites, which numbers do I use for the KWH? I calculate my economy 7 usuage to be 28% is this correct or have I used the wrong figures?

For some reason, every time I go to do utility price comparisons, my brain totally switches off. I'd be grateful for any pointers.

notbritishgas

chirpchirp wrote: »

Ok, it's the time of year when I need to look at changing my electricty and gas suppliers to check I'm on the best deal. I'm currently with EDF on their online v6 account.

I've checked my statements and when I joined them in April last year I submitted my reading of 4341 and tonight my reading is 5066. I make this a difference of 725 cubic feet. When I have tried to covert this to KWH I have got the answer 22963 which seems far too high!

Also having problems with my Electricty. My economy 7 reading is 21707 (this year) -20770(last year) = 937. My normal reading is 71217-68876= 2341. Is this all I need for the KWH? When I put this number in it seems far too high, it seem to think my electricity bill would be over 3k a year which I'm sure it isn't, although I haven't been billed for this last quarter yet.

Where I get stuck, is entering the usuage into the comparison sites, which numbers do I use for the KWH? I calculate my economy 7 usuage to be 28% is this correct or have I used the wrong figures?

For some reason, every time I go to do utility price comparisons, my brain totally switches off. I'd be grateful for any pointers.

Your figures and workings seem to be quite normal if as I assume you have gas CH.
Your gas is actually 72500 cubic feet as the meter registers 100's of cu ft. But this has not affected your working out. 22963 kwh of gas is reasonable, it is about the national average. So it is this figure that you enter in comparison sites.
As for the electric, your usage once again is normal, the total of 3278kwh is about spot on the national average. Most comparison sites ask if you are on E7 and then ask for either your night kwh or the % of nightunits.
If you enter correctly you will not get an estimate of £3k.
You should also check if E7 is your correct tariff, you use 28% at night which may not be enough to make E7 worthwile.

chirpchirp

Thank you. Your post was really helpful, thanks for taking the time to check my figures.

macman

As a rough guide, you need to be using a third of your electricity on E7 rate to make it worthwhile.
If you have gas CH (which I assume you do, given your gas consumption), then you don't have storage heaters, which are the maindevices used to benefit from E7.
So you might want to see if you would be better off with a single rate tariff.

dogshome

Hi chirpchirp - Having Gas central heating with ECO 7 Electricity is usually an expensive combination, but often occurs when someone, maybe a previous occupier, upgrades the heating from ECO 7 to Gas but doesn't bother to tell the Elect. supplier and get the Two Rate meter changed to a Standard Single Rate type

The problem is that whilst the Night Rate Units are cheap, the daytime Electric supplied by an ECO 7 meter is dearer than a Standard meter - E7 Prime units cost app. 50% more and Secondary units app 11% more.

Some people do manage to make a Gas/ ECO7 set-up work for them, but to do so requires a religious regime of running Washing machines, Dishwashers and Heating Water only overnight.
However your yearly overnight consumption of only 937Kw, works out to just 2.5Kwa night, which could be used by just the the fridge, freezer, things left on standby and an overnight light.

I would advise that you add your Day & Night units together, ( 3278Kw). Enter this into the Switch sites whilst ignoring the ECO7 tick box, and get annual standard electricity costs to compare with what you are paying nowGood Luck

Fire_Fox

chirpchirp wrote: »

Ok, it's the time of year when I need to look at changing my electricty and gas suppliers to check I'm on the best deal. I'm currently with EDF on their online v6 account.

I've checked my statements and when I joined them in April last year I submitted my reading of 4341 and tonight my reading is 5066. I make this a difference of 725 cubic feet. When I have tried to covert this to KWH I have got the answer 22963 which seems far too high!

Also having problems with my Electricty. My economy 7 reading is 21707 (this year) -20770(last year) = 937. My normal reading is 71217-68876= 2341. Is this all I need for the KWH? When I put this number in it seems far too high, it seem to think my electricity bill would be over 3k a year which I'm sure it isn't, although I haven't been billed for this last quarter yet.

Where I get stuck, is entering the usuage into the comparison sites, which numbers do I use for the KWH? I calculate my economy 7 usuage to be 28% is this correct or have I used the wrong figures?

For some reason, every time I go to do utility price comparisons, my brain totally switches off. I'd be grateful for any pointers.

When you are putting your readings into the price comparison site you can usually submit KWH usage per month, quarter or year - are you changing this field? If you put your annual usage but the default is quarterly you will get an incorrect result. I always use this site as it doesn't require reams of detail:
http://www.which.co.uk/switch/