First Home and don't have a clue about Gas & Electric

Cattybear112

Hello

I was hoping someone would be able to help me or give me some advice about how to find the best Gas & Electric deal and provider,
Me and my boyfriend are moving into our first house together in 2 weeks and don't have a clue about how to go about looking for a Gas & Electric supplier.

We are both living with parents at the moment so we have never had to worry about how much we were using per month.
I had a look online at a few energy suppliers websites but I am so confused now as there are so many different tariffs and payment methods and all the websites seem to all ask the same things before they can get a quote from them, like if we are low, medium or high users, how much we are spending a month at the moment on gas and electric, or the monthly or annual usage for each. We can't really answer these questions because don't have a clue how much gas & electric we would use!

I do know that the previous owners are with Utility Warehouse and their bills were set at £85 per month direct debit but this was for Gas, Electric and Phone line. And I do have the Energy Performance Certificate for the property but don't really understand it.
It states that the Energy use is 197 kWh/m2 per year, Carbon Dioxide emissions 2.0 tonnes per year, Lighting £61 per year, Heating £297 per year and Hot water £94 per year.

Could someone please help as we are moving in, in less than 2 weeks and starting to panic as we have no gas & electric organised!


Many thanks

Catherine

Premier_2

I'm sure you have 101 other things more pressing regarding moving onto a first property than to consider choice of energy supplier.

Anyway, you'll have to register with the existing suppliers first. Discuss with those suppliers what they would consider the best tariff for you, else they will probably put you on their standard (expensive) tariff.

Be aware of any early exit fees before agreeing to a different tariff if you are considering switching later, but any switch will typically take about 6 weeks after you have requested it.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

Firstly you will have no option but to initially use Utility Warehouse(UW) when you move in, so make sure you read the gas and electricity meters the day you move in(and the water meter as well.) and inform the company of those readings.

UW is a company that causes a great deal of controversy on MSE and we are not allowed to discuss the company other than in a special thread. However it without doubt has just about the highest gas and electricity prices in UK - you can check this on any comparison website - and the average user will save hundreds of pounds a year by moving to the cheapest tariff.

So my advice would be to move supplier as soon as possible. Your best bet is to go to a comparison website(see Martin's guide) and enter 15,000kWh gas and 4,000kWh electricity for your annual consumption. That will show you the various tariffs in price order. Bear in mind the cheapest tariffs will have conditions attached. I appreciate that you don't know your annual consumption, but that will give a good indication.

It states that the Energy use is 197 kWh/m2 per year

That term is meaningless.