help! new house, no idea on costs!

useless

hello, like others I am concerned to switch and/or fix my energy supplier with all the news at the moment!
However, I've only moved to a new house in the past month, and we have no idea how much it will cost us!
we don't plan to heat the whole house, and anticipate that we might use slightly less than the previous occupants.
I've tried looking at uswitch and the mse energy club, but both require cost estimates. any help is much appreciated, feel like such a dunce!
we are currently with one of the suppliers that has already announced price hikes, and not a fix.

Nada666

What was your usage in your previous home? That would be a more reliable base than the national average (16,500 kWh gas, 3,300 kWh electricity). But if you don't have a clue then you can use that average as a starting point.

dexterwolf

We moved house 3 months ago and had Elec with Npower £40 a month DD and Gas through BG £38 a month DD. This is for a two bed semi with two people living there.
I have switched to edf blue price promise and my costs for elec and gas duel fuel will work out about £13 a month cheaper for both.

I hope that helps.

useless

Nada666 wrote: »

What was your usage in your previous home? That would be a more reliable base than the national average (16,500 kWh gas, 3,300 kWh electricity). But if you don't have a clue then you can use that average as a starting point.

thanks so much for your reply, that's a good idea! unfortunately we had economy 7 electric before, and gas/elect now! so not sure if it would work. We've also gone from very different sized and layout of property

useless

bump in useless desperation! is there a vague chance we could switch and it end up costing us more? we plan to minimise heating to one/two rooms and only when super cold (i.e still not yet this past couple of months).

DragonQ

You'll have to just estimate based on your usage patterns and how insulated the house is, then switch to the best tariff for those estimated values that doesn't feature any exit fees. Then after you have some more information (i.e. at least one winter month and one summer month) you can do a more detailed comparison and switch again if necessary.

matelodave

Why is it so difficult to use an estimation based on the UK average, you could juggle it about by plus or minus 10-15% to see if that gives you a different result. You'll only end up paying for what you use anyway and its probably better to be overpaying a little bit rather than ending up with a ginormous bill at the end of the year.

If you keep an eye on your consumption and bills and make sure you give the supplier(s) regular meter readings then you can make sure that your payments reflect your usage

A.Penny.Saved

It's difficult knowing what you will use with all the variables. The best you can do is make the best use of the information that you have or can get.

It might be worth getting friendly with neighbours, those with similar properties and especially people who might have a similar usage to yours. Ask them how much energy they use and how they use their heating.

They can give you the best idea of what your usage might be being a similar property with similar energy efficiency.

The national average will not be even close IMO. My gas usage is a lot less than half, close to a third the national average. My electric is very slightly above.

At the end of the day, you can only guess based on the available information and take regular meter readings and keep giving them to your energy supplier so that any payment adjustments are done based upon your current usage.

CJO_1066

Asking the neighbours is a great idea and can help in putting together an estimate. In addition the energy companies can usually give you an estimate based upon the size of house/flat and number of people. Unfortunately they will all be estimates so the only real way is to check the meter readings on a monthly basis.

I've recently moved into a two bed ground floor flat and can't use the previous bills as the heating system has just been replaced with an all elec system (inc boiler). The neighbours are all elec too however they have the old fashioned night storage heaters so there's no comparison. Fingers crossed its not too cold a winter !!!