EDF Price Fix til 2014

donnap83

Forgive me for being a bit clueless on this, but this is the first time i'll be paying the utilities myself, previously lived in sharewd houses etc.

EDF are currently offering to fix their prices til 2014 with a £70 welcome bonus.

I can see the plus side to this i.e. energy prices will no doubt go up so need to get in to fix them, but what is the down side to fixing the price?! There must be some bad points, i just can't see them.

Please help!!

victor2

Look at other EDF related threads in here and decide if you want to be tied into EDF until 2014, without having to pay a penalty to leave.
Prices are unlikely to come down, they have to increase to more than the rate you'll be paying for a fixed tariff for you to benefit financially.
I prefer fixed tariffs so that I know what my unit prices will be for the duration of the contract and in the past, they've also saved me money.

donnap83

AAAARGGGHHHHH!!!


Can someone please just pick a price plan for me!!! I can't work it out!!!!:money:

victor2

Do you have any idea of typical usage over a year?
If you do, put it into a comparison site and see what they come up with. Don't put in your current costs though, you need kWh figures for it to be meaningful.
If you can do that, use the results as pointers to the companies and tariffs likely to give you the best deal. Then you have to make your mind up about which company you prefer and fixed or variable tariffs.

If you don't have any historical data, even if it's just for the property if you're new into it, you'll have to guesstimate it. If you describe the property, equipment it has, particularly for heating, and how you use it, somebody on here might be able to give you typical figures to use for comparison purposes.

melbury

I was a bit miffed to see that EDF are offering people £75 to sign up to their price fix 2014 plan. I signed up in August and didn't get any "sweetener" from them. Seems a bit unfair.

donnap83

That price fix thing is a rip off, just looked at the overall costs.

We've lived here for 2 years but we were living with the girl that owns it, paid her an fixed rent that cover the bills. She said last winter the combined gas & electric was £90, but we were heating all the bedrooms, and had the washer and dryer on a HELL of lot. We also had a dicky boiler that was using gas but wasn't actually heating the radiators or water, so efectively we'd have it on for hours in the hopes that it would eventually fick in.

She's moving in with her partner, so leaving us the house, so we're putting the utilities in our name.

The house is a 3 bed semi, although 2 bedrooms are now unused. We have central heating and double glazing.

She's going to have a look at the kilowatt using for the last year, but the household will be completely differect this year, so not sure what good that will do?!

IS everyone following me so far?!? Sorry to be so confusing!!!:rotfl:

donnap83

We were also using the gas fire in the living room frequently when it was really cold last year, but i'm told that will use bucket loads of gas?!

victor2

If you get the latest annual kWh figures from the current supplier, you can use them on comparison sites to get an idea. If the boiler is now fixed and you're using less energy, you should be looking at a "worst case" usage. With gas heating and hot water, I find that the monthly kWh for electricity is pretty consistent, with only a slight increase in winter, so if you have some recent figures for that, you wouldn't be far off multiplying a month's usage by 12 to get the annual figure.
Gas usage is completely different though, and using the gas fire a lot could be quite inefficient and expensive. But given that last winter was particularly cold, you may well find it easy to use less gas this year.

donnap83

We've already taken measures to reduce or energy usage as much as poss, energy saving pulbs, curtains on the front door and on the patio doors, we're not going to use the fire unless it's -20c, stopping usind the dryer, as thats a big drain on the electric.

I'm hoping that now the boiler is fix we should need it on for as long. It would come on at 5pm and we'd have to leave it on til 11pm as it didn't always fire up, but was still sucking the gas through ( problem with the motherboard and the ignition)

Question though re radiators: We have an oldish system with a wall mounted thermostat, which is set at 20c. Some of the radiators have indervidual temp controls, which are set at 1 or 2 at the moment. Are we doing the right thing, or should we turn the radiators up full and turn the thermostat down?

donnap83

Bumping for more help!

Pincher

You are not Victor Frankenstein, and use ridiculous amount of over night electricity. Just assume you are a normal medium user.

If your boiler is not working correctly, no tariff is going to help anyway.