Moving home fuel quote

loobiloo

I am moving from a 3 bed house to a 2 bed flat; how can I compare fuel quotes ahead of time? My current usage presumably wont be relevant to use as a basis for the quote? Thank you

Robin9

Your existing use may be a good place to start but just because you are going to a smaller place does not mean your bills will reduce.

Your flat will probably be electric only - is your house gas heated, double glazed, cavity wall, roof insulation.

loobiloo

Thanks Robin
My flat has gas and electricity, not double glazed as its listed and double glazing not allowed, it's a basement flat so roof insulation not relevant, dont know about cavity walls.

Surely a much smaller flat would be cheaper to run than a bigger, less energy efficient house?

Nada666

Why is your current (pattern of) usage not useful? It is an order of magnitude more important than other factors.

Even if the guess you use is off it is not likely to be that significant - a few tenners short from what would have been optimum over a year will still be less than wasting a few tenners each month until you obsessively have an in situ accurate but still estimated estimate of future usage.

matelodave

As you don't know what you'll be using you'll have to estmate - or make a guess. What you are already using would be reasonable

Most people use around 3200kwh/yr for leccy and 13500kwh a year for gas as a starting point and that's roughly what an energy company would do as well so your guess is as good as theirs.

If your place is all electric then it's more complex depending on the type of heating you've got, whether you are on an Economy 7 tariff and how you use it. Also bear in mind that all your hot water & cooking will be derived from electricity rather than gas so you'll need to increase the electricity consumption to compensate and to apportion your consumption to peak & off peak rates if you are on E7.

There's no reason why you cant estimate 3200kwh as peak rate and about 12000kwh for your off peak as a starting point (electricty is 100% efficient whereas gas isn't).

That will give you figures to put into comparison sites and enable you to compare costs and zero in on a reasonable tariff. It's then up to you to make sure that you monitor your consumption & bills to ensure that they are in line with your estimates and that your direct debits are covering the costs. Make sure you read the meters at least monthly and don't accept any estimated bills - get them corrected immediately.

Spending 10-15 minutes a month checking your bills, readings and bank statements to make sure that everything is correct could save you months of aggro in the future.

Nada666

Robin9 wrote: »

Your flat will probably be electric only

Agree with your first paragraph but a big 'eh?' to this.

loobiloo

Nada666 wrote: »

Why is your current (pattern of) usage not useful? It is an order of magnitude more important than other factors.

Even if the guess you use is off it is not likely to be that significant - a few tenners short from what would have been optimum over a year will still be less than wasting a few tenners each month until you obsessively have an in situ accurate but still estimated estimate of future usage.

Yes my current usage is relevant, I agree

loobiloo

The flat is not all electric, gas heating, oven. No Economy 7 but high spec renovation so I imagine its energy efficient.

macman

Flats and bungalows are inherently less efficient, as heat rises and heats the property above to some degree, which in a house would heat the upper floor or floors. If you are in a first floor flat or higher, that is counteracted to some degree by heat rising from the property below. In a basement flat, you won't get that benefit, and you'll get less heat from sunlight-so a higher rate of heat loss due to the greater temp differential.
So start with your existing kWh usage as a benchmark. Remember that you'll be in a deemed tariff with the existing suppliers from day one..

loobiloo

Thanks Macman
This flat has soundproof ceilings so perhaps that might stop some heat, as well as noise, rising. I'm currently with First Utility who have quoted a cheaper deal than I have with them now. Perhaps as a loyal customer they might do me a further discount by staying with them...

By the way, though it is a basement flat it has huge windows that do get sun, so that may well help too.

All this of course is based on the assumption that we will indeed exchange soon, as was meant to happen last week, but that's another rant for another forum....

System

loobiloo wrote: »

Thanks Macman
This flat has soundproof ceilings so perhaps that might stop some heat, as well as noise, rising. I'm currently with First Utility who have quoted a cheaper deal than I have with them now. Perhaps as a loyal customer they might do me a further discount by staying with them.....

Under OFGEM licence regulations, suppliers are not normally allowed to offer customers a 'one off' discount for loyalty or anything else. The one exception that I am aware of is Ecotricity which gives EV owning customers £40 off the bill. It was given a derogation by OFGEM to encourage EV take up.