Cheap energy for new home

Rosalam

Hi all, any advice for a new family who have just moved into our first house house from a flat? We had just completed a year with edf but now we're in a bigger property with a small baby (so extra person) and the house is not very energy efficient yet (it's currently single glazed, has old loft insulation, etc.). Because of all this change to our circumstance we don't know our consumption as yet and I'm not sure how to get cheap energy. Any advice would be very welcome as I don't know where to start. Thanks in advance.

JJ_Egan

MSE energy club or any comparison site .

Use an average figure .
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cheapenergyclub
Key is the tariff cost per Kwh and daily standing charge not the estimated direct debit .

BargainGalore

I would get that loft insulated more as well. Unless your a very high user I would budget at least £90-£100 a month on energy. Bills for modest users now average around £1100-£1200 a year now and your heating usage may be slightly higher give you lack of of double glazing and old insulation in loft. As you just moved house might be good time to update any high usage bulbs start with any halogen bulbs and replace with led's

Its also worth monitoring your usage monthly at least. i do mine weekly that way you less likely to get too much into debt

Horseunderwater

British gas were offering free loft insulation whether you are a customer or not. See if U can get that. Put up some thick/thermal curtains, draft exclude doors/windows - freegle or freecycle can be a good site to get furnishings etc to help. Curtains often come up.

Rosalam

Thank you for replies everyone. I will look into loft insulation from British gas. How do you monitor your usage weekly? I do have a thing you plug onto your electric cable by the meter and it tells you what your using. Is that what you use? Also thanks for light bulb tips.

BargainGalore

Just read the meters. The energy monitors use describe are not entirely accurate especially on low powered appliances. I put meter readings in Excel once a week so have a history of weekly usage

Rosalam wrote: »

Thank you for replies everyone. I will look into loft insulation from British gas. How do you monitor your usage weekly? I do have a thing you plug onto your electric cable by the meter and it tells you what your using. Is that what you use? Also thanks for light bulb tips.

Rosalam

Ah yes, good idea. That's really organised of you. Regarding finding a cheap supplier, I did look at the mse cheap energy club before but you have to know all of the derails about your consumption which we don't know yet, plus we're still on the supplier who supplied this property when we took it over so we need to sort out a new tariff but without knowing our consumption at the moment I'm not sure how to go about finding a cheap one. Sorry if this seems obvious to others, I am notoriously rubbish at getting energy providers correct as it's all gobbledygook to me.

matelodave

Your estimates are as good as anyone else's. The UK average is about 3500kwh a year for leccy and about 15000kwh for gas. Try that as a starter to give you a reference. You can then monitor your meter readings to see how well you are doing.

Ideally read your meters weekly (at a minimum monthly) and record them, and always check your bills against meter readings and ensure that any estimates are corrected by phoning, texting or e-mailing the correct readings to your supplier and getting revised bills issued.

If you make sure your bills are correct and that your direct debits are covering your consumption then you should avoid any nasty surprises. Also check your bank statements to ensure that DD are being taken.

Always keep your own records and save the bills, even if you swap suppliers in the future, so you've got evidence of your consumption, meter readings and payments in case of any problems in the future.

You've only got to read some of the threads to see the state that some manage to get themselves into by not taking a couple of minutes a month to make sure all is well. It's much harder to sort out problems if you haven't got any records - you can't rely on the suppliers records to be correct.