First Time Buyers

linsjay2001

Hello

Me and the missus are moving into our first house this coming weekend and are wondering if anyone would be able to help with a few queries.

As we have never had a house before, we have no idea of what amount of electricity and gas we will be using. Does anybody know which electricity and gas supplier(s) have the cheapest, basic kwh prices, please? At the moment, that's all we can go on, I would assume, prior to knowing our usage levels and then perhaps switching sometime in the future. We are willing to go with the same or seperate providers for the electric and/or gas.

Our usage levels (hopefully) shouldn't be too high, although some things may be taken into consideration. Both of us work full time and are usually out of the house between 7.30am - 5.30pm on weekdays. Of a night, as there are only the two of us at the moment (person #3 on way Jan 2007!), we would be using television, PC/internet, occasionally the microwave and, of course, lights - though we intend to get energy saving bulbs. We will also use the washing machine and condensor dryer 2/3 times a week, and the iron once maybe twice!

As the house does not have central heating, as we head into the winter we will probably be using the gas fire on a daily basis. We will probably use our gas cooker on most days.

Can anyone please recommend which provider we would be best going with on a 'for now' basis?

We also have another problem. The last person who lived in the house died in April. The people selling the house have no idea which provider(s) were used. Obviously the first thing we will do is to take meter readings. But does anyone know how we can find out who the providers were/are and if it is possible to go with 'another' provider as soon as we move in?

In the near future we would like to get gas central heating with a combi boiler. After the initial outlay, does getting GCH make financial sense?

I know it's a lot of questions for so early in the morning, but any help would be greatly received and appreciated!

Thank you

Jay and Linsey

Dan29

I'm no expert but at least this reply will bump your questions back to the front of the board..!

I think you can find out which company or companies supply your utilities by 'phoning any supplier, so if were me I'd give British Gas and your local electricity supplier a call. Make sure you take readings when you move in, as you've said, and then as far as I know you can switch straight away - possibly even without knowing who the existing suppliers are.

I don't know of a way of just comparing the basic prices without going to each company's website - and even then the tariffs can be hard to locate - but if you go to one of the comparison sites listed in Martin's article, you'll find that you can estimate your usage based on type of house, number of people etc, which might be a good starting point.

If you switch you can always check again in a few months' time when you've had a bill, to see if there's a better company to switch to.

Good luck!

Cardew

Gas fires have a reputation for being highly inefficient. They are OK for occasional use to boost heating - but expensive for heating the whole house.

Your best bet is to estimate your electricity and gas annual consumption and enter that in the various comparison networks.

Your heating bills will be pretty high after Jan assuming Mother and child will then be at home full time for a while?

You don't say how big or well insulated your house is, so it is difficult to help with a gas estimate. Try 3,000 kWh for Electricity and 25,000 kWh for gas.

It would certainly be a big improvement to get GCH and in the long term make financial sense.

Many experts are recommending a modern system of Electric Storage heating with an Economy 7 tariff - particularly for small houses.

The main advantages are much cheaper installation costs and no expensive annual boiler servicing. This can balance the higher running costs. Also having gas fires already fitted you can overcome the main disadvantage of storage heating which is running out of heat late evening.

At least it is worth some investigation.

anniecave

To find out who your suppliers are:

For electricity, you can phone MPAS (the metering point admin. service)
they will tell you what your supply number is and who your current supplier is.

This website has the numbers for mpas - it depends what area of the country you live in:

http://www.good-energy.co.uk/contact/65_MPAS.html

The number for finding your gas supplier and your m-number (gas supply number) is 0870 608 1524

I would then recommend one of the comparision search engines to see what your cheapest supplier would be. when you move into a property, the existing supplier would just put you on their standard tariff.
As a rough guess you could put in £30 a month each for gas and electricity. As a general rule it doesn't really matter what figures you put in, the search engines will still spit out the cheapest as as long as you're using more than a few units a day, the cheapest will be the cheapest for you whether you're using less than average, or an average amount or a lot if you see what I mean.