Ditching EDF - an alternative?

SusieWinwood

We've been with EDF now for a number of years and after a few problems I've decided to bin them and look for another supplier.

I just got my quarterly bill of £117.40. I pay £50 per month. This was agreed in about February when they said the this would be adequate to cover my bills. I now find myself £75.57 in debit and them now wanting £100 per month from October (yeah right)! Do they think we have a money tree at the back of the garden we can just pick another 50 quid from??

British Gas have given me a duel fuel quote of £1004.77 for the year. Does this seem reasonable? We have 3 bed semi, and now Winter is coming we have the heating on an hour in the morning and 2 at night.

Any recommendation/praise/vents/warnings about other suppliers?

TIA

jstallan

For comparisons I only use 'consumption figures' for the past 12 months rather than 'monthy payments'. I feel this is the only way to really compare costs.

At the moment, I'm with Scottish Power and can't fault the service. However, my deal ends in Feb (Fixed deal) and so I'm looking to change, but can't decide on whether to get a 12 month fixed or longer.

morg_monster

Hello, in our old flat we had EDF for electricity, and then npower in our new house. We were not that impressed with either, so we changed to Ovo and have been very happy with them. We went on a fixed tariff for a year in April, which was the best value for us at the time acccording to comparison sites, and is even better value now (we fixed just before they put their prices up!). I had to ring them a couple of times during the changeover process and the phone was always answered BY A REAL PERSON! woohoo! When the customer service person couldn't answer my query, they said they would ring me back before the end of the day, AND THEY DID! They also answer emails personally.

As for billing, well we pay a fixed amount by DD every month and they send a "for information only" bill by email every month, based on estimated readings. They have a "my account" facility on their website where you can log in and enter your meter readings, and then it produces a new bill to show the true state of your account.

Since we've only been with them since April we are in credit by quite a lot at the moment, but we get interest payments on it - I think it's 3%! - which is more than we get in our savings at the moment!!

All in all I'm well pleased with them, even if their prices aren't the cheapest when we come to the end of our fixed period, we will probably stick with them as their customer service is so good.

SusieWinwood

Ovo - never heard of them but will have a squizz now.

Had dealings with S Power before and they were not good ones . . .

thanks

dogshome

Hi SusieWinwood - Yes. You have been let down by EDF with their recommendation that £50 a month would cover the Gas & Elec. bills for a year, as it's just not enough
Unless that is, you live in the smallest 3 Bed semi in the UK and it's super, super insulated.

Rather than take quotes from companies, you must do some homework to put you in charge of your of your Utility Bills
It's likely that that last bill from EDF lists your annual consumption in Kw for both Elec. & Gas, If it does not phone EDF and ask, or add up the Kw totals on a years worth of past Bills.

Armed with your annual consumption figures visit a few Switch sites - I always start with switchwithwhich, who not only show the cost from each supplier, but show the tariff details alongside those of your present supplier

SusieWinwood

dogshome wrote: »

Hi SusieWinwood - Yes. You have been let down by EDF with their recommendation that £50 a month would cover the Gas & Elec. bills for a year, as it's just not enough
Unless that is, you live in the smallest 3 Bed semi in the UK and it's super, super insulated.

Rather than take quotes from companies, you must do some homework to put you in charge of your of your Utility Bills
It's likely that that last bill from EDF lists your annual consumption in Kw for both Elec. & Gas, If it does not phone EDF and ask, or add up the Kw totals on a years worth of past Bills.

Armed with your annual consumption figures visit a few Switch sites - I always start with switchwithwhich, who not only show the cost from each supplier, but show the tariff details alongside those of your present supplier

£50 is just for the gas, I pay £59 for the electric as well.

Found the gas bill bar one for a year but can't find the leccy ones - der!

macman

If £59pm (£708pa) represents your actual level of electricity consumption (which it may not if you are paying off earlier debt), then that's around 7,000 kWh pa, or about twice the norm for a house with gas CH, which I presume you have.
So once you've got your annual hWh consumption figure, you really need to address your high electricity consumption and work out where all that power is going. Have you got a back up immersion heater that has been left on? Not on an E7 tariff in error?

SusieWinwood

macman wrote: »

If £59pm (£708pa) represents your actual level of electricity consumption (which it may not if you are paying off earlier debt), then that's around 7,000 kWh pa, or about twice the norm for a house with gas CH, which I presume you have.
So once you've got your annual hWh consumption figure, you really need to address your high electricity consumption and work out where all that power is going. Have you got a back up immersion heater that has been left on? Not on an E7 tariff in error?

I am waiting for the last quarterly bill so will have a more accurate reading for the electric.

We have a toddler and do use the drier, not excessively but it's either do that or put the heating on and it look like a Chinese laundry! We have no Ecomony 7 tariff just on the online duel fuel one. We have a hot water tank that keeps the hot water but no immersion.

We have normal appliances plugged in 24/7 fridge/freezer/tv/dvd etc so not going mad on excessive gadgets.

macman

A quarterly reading over the last 3 months will reflect July-October usage, so will not enable you to calulate your annual consumption accurately just by multiplying by 4-you will use more in the winter months. Call EDF and they will give you your annual consumption over the phone.
A tumble drier is the likely culprit, but I doubt that that alone accounts for double normal consumption-get yourself a monitor and track down the source of the usage.