Elec and gas with two different suppliers - best way to switch

pinkteapot

Moved to a new house a few weeks ago. Elec supplied by Eon. Gas by British Gas.

British Gas are 17% more expensive than Eon (per unit) for gas! :eek: I had Eon Dual Fuel at my old house and it seems logical to at least switch our gas to Eon and use them for both.

I haven't yet done online price comparisons. It may be that a different, third company is our best option. I prefer dual fuel as I'm lazy and would rather deal with one company than two.

If it turns out that someone else is our best supplier, is it easiest to:

1. Switch the gas to Eon first and then switch both from Eon to new company, or

2. Skip that step and just switch both services to new company. Do switches go smoothly if you're switching gas from one supplier and electricity from a different one, combining them in one new dual fuel account with someone else?

I've never switched at all before and am totally intimidated by the process.

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

pinkteapot wrote: »

Moved to a new house a few weeks ago. Elec supplied by Eon. Gas by British Gas.

British Gas are 17% more expensive than Eon (per unit) for gas! :eek: I had Eon Dual Fuel at my old house and it seems logical to at least switch our gas to Eon and use them for both.

I haven't yet done online price comparisons. It may be that a different, third company is our best option. I prefer dual fuel as I'm lazy and would rather deal with one company than two.

If it turns out that someone else is our best supplier, is it easiest to:

1. Switch the gas to Eon first and then switch both from Eon to new company, or

2. Skip that step and just switch both services to new company. Do switches go smoothly if you're switching gas from one supplier and electricity from a different one, combining them in one new dual fuel account with someone else?

I've never switched at all before and am totally intimidated by the process.

It works both ways, in my region at least BG have cheaper elec than e.on comparing standard tariffs and average consumption.

It is almost certain a third supplier will have the cheapest tariff. The market seems to be inundated at the moment with new suppliers offering very cheap tariffs; probably something to do with the fact that companies with fewer than 250,000 companies don't have to pay as much eco nonsense tax

http://www.which.co.uk/news/2011/06/new-rules-announced-for-small-energy-companies-255996/

There's no point switching 1 fuel to eon first - you're adding an extra 6-8 weeks to the whole process (the time it takes to switch). Choose your supplier, and switch both - even if you had both fuels with one supplier they are treated seperately and often transfer on different days anyway.

pinkteapot

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

There's no point switching 1 fuel to eon first - you're adding an extra 6-8 weeks to the whole process (the time it takes to switch). Choose your supplier, and switch both - even if you had both fuels with one supplier they are treated seperately and often transfer on different days anyway.

Excellent - thanks.

I'm going to wait till I've got a couple of bills first for actual usage. I have looked at online comparisons in the past and if I don't put in my actual usage, they seem to massively overestimate our usage.

Our new house is much bigger than our last house so I simply don't know what our usage will be. I'd rather use actual numbers than estimates though.

Robwiz

You don't need to wait for your bills because you can read the meters that are installed on both your supplies. If you take the reading every week and note them down then you can put your actual usage figures into the price comparison sites.

pinkteapot

I am noting the readings, but I'm not quite sure how gas will pan out during the year. We only had the boiler on for an hour a day during summer at the old house, as we didn't need hot water for showering (electric showers = cold fill only). Now we do, so the hot water is on more.

Electricity is easier as our usage is fairly static during the year, just a bit higher in winter. So far (three weeks in), we're using 20% more units per day of electricity than we were at the old house.

I blame this on the number of lightbulbs. Every single light fitting has been replaced with a fitting with multiple bulbs. Our kitchen used to have four bulbs and now has eight (more when we put the under-unit spots on). Our hall used to have one bulb and now has six. Etc etc.

matelodave

why not just put in the average of 13500kwh for gass and about 3500kwh for electricity to find the best supplier and then when you've switched monitor your consumption to see how it compares. If you wait until the gas pans out you'll still be faffing about this time next year if you wait for a years worth of readings.
It's always going to be more expensive in the winter than the summer - you probably use 60- 70% of your energy between November and March and the remainder throughout the rest of the year. Also this winter has been a lot milder than the last couple of years so isn't all that representative - fixing a low dd based on this winters consumption might bite you next year if you don't keep an eye on it.


Whilst you are on standard tariffs you could be paying 10%-20% more for your energy and you might end up missing out on a good deal.

macman

Before you can switch to anyone you'll need to register with the existing suppliers, with whom you will be in a deemed contract from day one.