To switch or not after 6 months?

dogshome

Hi cadenza82 - Your Gas billing over the winter is skewed to be high, because of n'powers policy of chargeing more 'NSC Prime units' per day in winter than in summer - n'power are alone in doing this.

The upside is that your gas cost will fall dramatically in Summer.
Also included in your payments is money to pay you a high "Cash-back" after you have paid 12 consecutive monthly D/Debits, which you will lose if you move before making the 12 D/D's

The name of the game is check your meter readings to find what your annual Kwh consumptions really are, and then move from n'power as soon as the Cash-back credit appears on your bill if you can find another supplier offering a cheaper deal

liam8282

I think the problem is you are trying to compare your current bills and usage, with your previous bills and usage for a different house.

You are not comparing like with like.

There seems to be a £60 per month difference between what you are paying and what you would have been paying in your old house, and your actual usage in the new house.

I would say this £60 difference is due to one of the following:

1. When you have switched to N Power in your new house, they have put you on a new standard tariff. So your usage may be the same, your payments may be the same, but your tariff is higher resulting in the underpayment.

2. The usage in your new house is more than your old house, but you are making payments based on your old house usage, resulting in the underpayment.

(There may be other reasons too?!)

You also need to remember if you switch after only 6 months, there will no doubt be a penalty for switching.

First of all I would confirm what tariff you are on with N Power and see if you are on the cheapest available.

HappyMJ

jull wrote: »

Yes, but you haven't given your actual usage in kWhs.

Amounts in £s are useless as we don't know your tariff or your actual consumption.

Seconded...The reason we need to know is when you moved in did you make an advance payment on the gas/electric or was it a few months later so therefore being in arrears. We have no idea if you made 6 payments in 6 months or just a few. If you really do use £76 per month on electric and have gas heating then that is very high. It's about double the national average.

liam8282

HappyMJ wrote: »

If you really do use £76 per month on electric and have gas heating then that is very high. It's about double the national average.

I spend £44 and have gas heating.

That is on the EDF online saver 7 though. If I wasn't on an online saver tariff, I would expect it to be much higher, probably at least £60 pm (in fact I think we were paying about £60pm for electric before we switched, we were with Southern Electric then). When we had a prepayment meter it was probably about £20 pw! But that is only for a small 2 bedroom house.

So I would say £76 pm on a standard tariff, in a 3 bedroom house isn't that unbelievably high.

HappyMJ

liam8282 wrote: »

I spend £44 and have gas heating.

That is on the EDF online saver 7 though. If I wasn't on an online saver tariff, I would expect it to be much higher, probably at least £60 pm (in fact I think we were paying about £60pm for electric before we switched, we were with Southern Electric then). When we had a prepayment meter it was probably about £20 pw! But that is only for a small 2 bedroom house.

So I would say £76 pm on a standard tariff, in a 3 bedroom house isn't that unbelievably high.

I live in a 3 bedroom semi-detached house and have electric heating, electric hot water and electric cooking and I don't pay anywhere near £76 per month. It's high... My gas bill for the rarely used gas fire is very very low. With Npower's annual cashback it is free.

Mrs_Arcanum

Similar 3 bed semi, 2 adults & 2 children over 11. Gas CH & Water. Electric cooking. Today I am £46 in debit, was £72 last month. I overpay to be sure of no nasty surprises I cannot afford, so total £120 pcm (£85/£35). Heating on at odd/extended times due to irregular hours between everyone in the house. Even during the cold snap the most radiators in use constantly were 3 downstairs.

Once September comes (will be a full year) I will look at the annual total and probably reduce accordingly. If I switch it is always at the end of the Summer as there are no huge balances then (got a refund last time)

Yes I could save money, but have arthritis which is aggravated by cold/damp so a price I am willing to pay.

liam8282

Yes but you are missing the obvious here, you can have exactly the same house and exactly the same usage, but if you are on a different tariff the bill is going to be different too.

This could be what is happening here.

DirectDebacle

cadenza82 wrote: »

In fairness, I've given the figures above. For the past 6 months, we've paid a monthly direct debit of £124 and have come out with an underpayment of £350, so in effect to cover the costs we should have been paying about £182 a month. The monthly direct debit has now been reduced to £115 because of the summer months.

As has been said you need to know your consumption in kWh p.a. for gas and electricity.

However assuming the last 6 months usage is 75% of your annual usage then total annual consumption is about £1458.

DD should be @ £121 p.m for a zero balance in Oct 2011. Assuming your 1st DD was Nov. 2010.

With an anniversary date in Oct then £350 debit at this point is to be expected, particularly with npower, as their seasonal weighting will inflate the winter bills considerably.

Why not put your DD back to the original £124. You should then be around zero balance by the time the 12th consecutive DD (Oct 2011?) has been paid. Then if you wish, that is the ideal time to switch away from npower as the aggressive seasonal weighting charges commence on 1/11/2011 (the higher of your two gas prices).

Suppliers are trying to brainwash consumers into believing that accounts should be at zero by the end of winter/beginning of spring for monthly DD A/Cs. That is only the case if your anniversary date falls in that period.

If the DD is administered correctly then there are times when you will be in credit and times you will be in debit over the 12 month period.