Advice badly needed regarding fuel plan in new flat...

familyguy12

Hi all

Myself and my OH just moved into a flat in West London.

We were given a letter by the lettings agent saying we can use uswitch to change providers if we so wish.

We do not know what the previous tenants bills were like.

On uswitch it says with one provider we could save up to 170 pounds a year with a Duel Fuel plan.

But the thing is we are only here a few days and have no idea what the average monthly cost is, so I don't know whether a plan costing say 66 pounds a month is going to be a saving or not.

Is there a way to find out what the previous bills might have been or does uswitch get all that from your postcode and address info once you input it?

Sorry for sounding naive but I haven't been through this process before and I find it quite confusing.

matelodave

You won't save anything as you haven't been there before. The comparison sites will always assume that you've already got an account and will therefore try to work out what you might save.

Al you can do is to put in a reasonable estimate of what your consumption might be. The average is about 3300kw for electricity and 15000kwh for gas. If you are all electric then you should be guessing about 12,000kwh. This would be your starting point to enter into a comparison site.

You should already have contacted your existing energy supplier with a meter reading and to set up an account so you should know how much the gas & electricity tariff will be. You can put your supplier and tariff name into the comparison site together with you estimate of your consumption to compare what's out there against what you would pay if yoy stayed with your existing supplier.

Please bear in mind that this will only be an estimate and your guess is as good as anyone elses but it's still a guess. You really must check your meter readings at least monthly and compare them with your bills or statements to make sure that your direct debit is covering your consumption otherwise you'll get a nasty shock come April next year.

Any direct debit that comes out at less than £80-£90 a month for duel fuel should be treated with suspicion as its likely to be under estimated.

Don't accept estimated bills, read your meter, phone the info through to your supplier and get them corrected.