FTB choosing gas and electricity provider

pledgeX

Evening all.

I'm hopefully going to moving into my first house in the next few weeks and my job for today has been to look up the different options available. It's safe to safe I'm overwhelmed, my brain hurts, and I'm no closer to getting an answer!

I knew there were a few providers and assumed they'd have a few tariffs each. How naive of me! There's thousands! I've really got no idea where to start with this.

I've been on a few comparison sites like uswitch and confused, and the cheapest options are the online options, British gas WebSaver 11 and NPower's SignOnline22 for example.

I've gone to the providers site direct but there's so many options I don't know where to start. It doesn't help that the sites are all terrible and just hurl introductory offers at you and you have to dig for a while until you get the actual unit prices. The most annoying thing though is that they all only seem interested in find out what you currently pay and shout about how much you can save with them, not what that particular tariff actually includes! I don't have an existing provider or tariff and therefore don't know how many units I'l be using so this method is pretty much hopeless!!

Has anyone been in this situation before and found a smart way to approach this? If the comparison sites like uSwitch are accurate and cover most tariffs then that'd be good but I'm not sure if it's like car insurance where a lot of companies don't include policies on comparison websites.

As for my actual requirements, I want the cheapest option available really, as long as the tariff is not likely to shoot up massively while the others stay low. There's only 2 of us in a 2 bed semi. I imagine our usage would be low, or low-to-medium. I don't believe it has an economy 7 meter installed but I don't think this is relevant to us as I can't see us using much gas/electricity overnight. And I think a dual option looks the best as I've yet to find 2 individual tariffs that work out a lot cheaper, so for the sake of a few quid it'd be easier to go with the same provider. An online options sounds like the easiest way to manage it as well.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for any help.

pstigar

Hi Pledge,

I have just moved into my first home and I was overwhelmed with all these tariffs also! Before I moved in I used comparrison sites and entered average consumption figures, I think these were the most accurate I found (16,500 kWh for gas and 3,300 kWh for single rate electricity).

The searches returned British Gas and Scottish Power as the cheaperst providers, I knew the previous owners were with British Gas so I had decided to go with Scottish Power but when speaking with them they said they would need exact figures and the way to do this would be to wait until I move and ask British Gas what the consumption from the previous owner was.

On the day I moved in I called British Gas, gave my details and read them the meter readings. I then explained I would be switching although they were showing as competitive I wanted to take advantage of cashback offers for switching. I was then offered £75 account credit if I choose to stay - which I accepted.

I still need to choose a tariff but received an email yesterday saying I could still sign up to Websaver 11 - Which I hope is correct. I think I will also fix the price for 2 years with the major price hikes reported this week.

I hope this helps.

macman

There are certainly multiple tariffs, but it's not that complicated if you use a comp site. Online discount tariffs are invariably the cheapest, standard are the most expensive.
If you're not on E7 metering, then you'll probably be looking at a dual fuel tariff. (NB: there is no E7 gas tariff!) The only decision you have to make is whether you want a variable tariff, or a fixed-price/capped tariff.
Make sure that you select fixed monthly DD as the payment option-selecting quarterly billing will filter out many of the best tariffs.
Once you've decided that, let the comp site do the work. And then ensure that you switch via a cashback site to maximise the savings.
Register with the existing supplier (and take readings)) on day one. Once that's done, you can commence a switch if you wish, which will take 4-5 weeks.

pledgeX

Thank you both very much. Very helpful.

Pstigar, Scottish Power (Online Energy Saver 14) and British Gas (Websaver 11) are coming out on top on most of the comparisons I've done too.

I like the sound of managing it online as I'd feel more in control of it then, plus the fact it's cheaper and I can't see any disadvantages of using an online based service makes it seem like a bit of a no-brainer.

You mentione the price hikes, I should read up on that but I'm not too fussed as I can afford slightly higher payments as I've budgetted for way over what I think it should be. And if it's only that provider that goes up I can always jump ship to another one (although I've seen some have exit penalties). It's not like a mortgage where I'd be out of a home if the rates rise.

The one thing I'm still worried about is how accurate these comparison sites are. Even if I can narrow it down to two tariffs, comparing them is still not easy as sometimes they have a fixed unit price, other have tiers for the time of day, and others have a price for the first x units, then another price after that :mad:

macman

If you use the right input (annual kWh consumption, not monthly DD amounts), then yes the comp sites are accurate).
Most of the best online discounted tariffs will have a lock in of anything up to 12 months.
There is no 'time of day' distinction unless you are looking at a E7 tariff.

pstigar

If you search for the MSE News: British Gas hints at price rises thread you'll see my post with more info I received from British Gas yesterday.

I'm edging towards the OnlineSaver 3 tariff now to avoid cancellation fees if prices rise too much and I jump ship.