Not living in house... Can I cancel gas and electric

jason.parker.86

Hello,
I am currently with British Gas on Standard Tariff.
At present my house is on the market and I am trying to sell it, but not living in it. I currently live with my Mum as cant see the point in living in the house alone.
My questions is, can I disconnect my gas and electric or do I have to keep it on until it sells.
It seems crazy spending £30 a month on both gas and electric (£60 total) when all I am doing is keeping the heating on for a few hours to keep house warm.
Jason

spiro

You cant 'disconnect' your gas and elec unless you want to spend £000s to get it reconnected. What you can do is keep the use to a minimum and submit readings once a month. Assuming the £60 is a DD (sounds low) then when you get the final bill you will probably get a refund.

jalexa

jason.parker.86 wrote: »

It seems crazy spending £30 a month on both gas and electric (£60 total) when all I am doing is keeping the heating on for a few hours to keep house warm.

You house won't sell, except at auction for a knock down price, if your pipes burst.

SailorSam

Can't you just turn it off yourself, when the house sells and an actual reading is done your bill would be adjusted although in the meantime i;d get in touch with your providers to lower your payments.
Getting towards winter though, is it a good idea to turn things off, you could leave the heating on just an hour or two to keep the house fresh and leave a light on a timer for a few hours to make it look lived-in.

tichtich

I believe the BG standard tariff has no standing charge. So you only pay for what you use. If you're using less than £60 worth of energy per month, then you're building up a credit surplus which you will eventually get back. If you think this situation might continue a long time, get in touch with BG after a month or two and point out how little energy you're using. In principle they should reduce your DD so you don't build up such a big credit surplus.

jason.parker.86

SailorSam wrote: »

Can't you just turn it off yourself, when the house sells and an actual reading is done your bill would be adjusted although in the meantime i;d get in touch with your providers to lower your payments.
Getting towards winter though, is it a good idea to turn things off, you could leave the heating on just an hour or two to keep the house fresh and leave a light on a timer for a few hours to make it look lived-in.

No electric should be used because everything in the house is off! Only my boiler is on for a few hours per day.
Nothing worse than a house wit no heating. Takes months to get the house warm again.
J

Wywth

jason.parker.86 wrote: »

Hello,
I am currently with British Gas on Standard Tariff.
At present my house is on the market and I am trying to sell it, but not living in it. I currently live with my Mum as cant see the point in living in the house alone.
My questions is, can I disconnect my gas and electric or do I have to keep it on until it sells.
It seems crazy spending £30 a month on both gas and electric (£60 total) when all I am doing is keeping the heating on for a few hours to keep house warm.
Jason

Provide the supplier with a meter reading, explain the property is currently unoccupied and ask for the monthly payments to be revised (and the huge credit that must have been accumulated be refunded)

£720 per year? We don't even spend that in the house we live in and our house is bigger than yours.

You may also want to consider looking at a comparison site to see if you can bag yourself an even better deal (based on actual kWh consumption figures)

For an unoccupied house, you should be able to get your total annual electricity bill down to less than £20 (enough to keep your CH pumps working) and your annual gas bill to below £250.

Have you informed your insurer's that the property is unoccupied? That'll probably bump the premium by about £20 per month. :eek:

tichtich

P.S. If this situation is liable to continue a long time, it might be worth switching your supply to Ebico. They work out cheaper for low users (as they don't have a split tariff). And they don't force you to pay a fixed amount each month. You can just pay for exactly what you use each quarter. (You may be able to do that with BG too, but they'll charge you extra for the privilege, where Ebico charges the same regardless of payment method.)

spiro

jason.parker.86 wrote: »

No electric should be used because everything in the house is off! Only my boiler is on for a few hours per day.
Nothing worse than a house wit no heating. Takes months to get the house warm again.
J

How do you think the gas boiler timer etc works if not by elec?

As to telling your supplier the house is unoccupied, my view is the less people that know the better. I do agree that you need to check the t&cs of your house insurnace as there may be limits on the number of days it can be empty consecutively/in a year before the cover is no longer valid.

You need to bear in mind that empty houses get broken into now just to nick the scrap metal - before it was scrap it was your water pipes, tank, boiler, radiators etc. The examples shown by the Police on tv recent would have cost thousands to put right as the thieves pulled down ceilings to get the copper pipes fom under the upstarid floorboards.

Wywth

spiro wrote: »

...As to telling your supplier the house is unoccupied, my view is the less people that know the better....

So you mean, best not to advertise the fact on the world wide web?

I don't think the supplier will grab the pipes, tank, boiler, radiators etc, but the house does look very nice ... if somewhat overpriced.

laptop80

jason.parker.86 wrote: »

Nothing worse than a house wit no heating. Takes months to get the house warm again.

What are you heating it with? A hairdryer? If your heating system would take months to heat a cold house you should probably get it looked at.

Unless you're trying to protect things from frozen weather (and it hasn't been anywhere near cold enough for that to happen yet) or have damp issues, heating an empty house is a waste of money. My heating hasn't been on yet this autumn - the temperature outside has usually been around 15 degrees recently, so not exactly cold.