Unsure what to do

Melissa247

I am with SSE for both electric and gas. I currently have credit balances on my account of £224.72 electric and £92.49 gas. I have also been removed from a no standing charge tariff on the gas to a standing charge due to "new regulation" which has not been specified. We only have a gas cooker in our home and use no other gas so I am currently paying £5.00 per month for gas and £42.00 per month foe electric by monthly direct debit. After using a price comparison site I can only make an annual saving of approx £60 with First Utility, but customer service is supposed to be very poor. I cannot do some comparison sites (USwitch) due to our low gas usage. I am not sure whether to fix or continue as we are. Any advice would be gratefully received.

trigarlaly

Would u consider doing away with gas and get an electric cooker, is your standing charge per day for having a gas supply/meter what makes up a large proportion of your gas costs?
Don't have gas myself so I don't know what would happen to your mains supply/meter if you wanted to go without a gas supply (where would they shut it off from)

DragonQ

If only using a cooker for gas, you're almost certainly better off with a tariff without a standing charge like Ebico's Equigas. The only way this wouldn't be cheaper is if the savings were offset by a dual fuel discount if choosing the same supplier as your electricity.

Perelandra

trigarlaly wrote: »

Would u consider doing away with gas and get an electric cooker, is your standing charge per day for having a gas supply/meter what makes up a large proportion of your gas costs?
Don't have gas myself so I don't know what would happen to your mains supply/meter if you wanted to go without a gas supply (where would they shut it off from)

If going down this route, the gas meter would need to be removed from the property. It's possible to request that this is done, but there's be a charge to do it.

An alternative would be to switch the gas to a company like Ebico which (effectively) has a standing charge of zero, and move the elec to whichever company/tariff is cheapest for the OP. Splitting in this way might be an option that the switching site hasn't checked (it might have assumed that gas/elec would both be with the same supplier) and might, overall, be the cheapest way of doing it.



NB: I work for British Gas, but post here in a private capacity. Any opinion I express is my own, and does not necessarily reflect that of my employer.

Frances63

Do Ebico not supply electricity at all? Just gas?

Yorkie1

They supply both, as far as I am aware.

DragonQ

Both but their prices for electricity are pretty high even for low users, unlike gas.

Nada666

If the OP is using electricity for heating then Ebico is unlikely to be a good choice.

OP, with such a low usage it is important to check the single fuel results on the comparison site rather than just dual fuel options. You are very likely to receive the best deal with separate suppliers.

Melissa247

I prefer cooking with gas and have not long purchased the cooker so am really reluctant to get another. Yes the new standing charge is a daily cost.

Melissa247

I will look into this, thanks.

But what is the customer service like? These smaller unheard companies make me nervous.

Nada666

Why do you care about customer service? Read your meters. Switch suppliers. Check starting reads. How often do you need to communicate with a supplier?

As others have mentioned, separate suppliers for each fuel (or even different tariffs from one supplier) will probably be cheaper than the cheapest dual fuel option.