One Bedroom Flat - HIGH energy bill! HELP!

kabaly90

I appreciate the candidness of your feedback honestly Gerry!
I have just gone on the Citizens page and got the following quote based on 6000/900 day/night annual usage. 
As I'm going to not use the radiators anymore and just rug up for rest of winter, we move out end of November this year anyway.

For what it's worth this was our exact meter readings:
2DEC: day 33678 night 38088 
2JAN: day 34484 night 38200 - billed 31DEC £179
26FEB: day 35990 night 38323 - billed 31JAN £193
billed 3MAR £196

Vari-Save Extra

 No tie-ins or cancellation fees

Annual cost:£856.32per year

Monthly Direct Debit

Save £611.81a year

MWT

kabaly90 said:

I guess my question should be... when going through Uswitch, do I tell them the consumption i'm currently using cause that will just generate a fairly high comparison. Alternatively, do I just put in an estimate of what we expect to pay each month say £80 and do it as pay upon billed usage?

Please use the actual consumption, the moment you start using monetary amounts as a surrogate for  kWh you just make it easier to be fooled by the so called 'savings' they will present.

Check the calculations for any potential savings using the tariff you are currently on and your current consumption, against the tariff you decide you want to switch to.

Don't just look at the theoretical savings the comparison sites say you will get as they are not usually using the actual tariff you are on as the base.

Gerry1

Forget all claimed savings, Ofgem's rules are crazy.  Just work on annual cost based on annual kWh.  At only 9.2% night usage, E7 is unlikely to be cost effective.

Make sure your next place has gas central heating !

kabaly90

Gerry1 said:

 Ofgem's rules are crazy.  Just work on annual cost.  At only 9.2% night usage, E7 is unlikely to be cost effective.

Sorry mate, not exactly sure what you meant by this.

kazwookie

Get the maint guy to take photos of the meter readings and send then to you or get a key to the meter cupboard and take the readings yourself

kabaly90

kazwookie said:

Get the maint guy to take photos of the meter readings and send then to you or get a key to the meter cupboard and take the readings yourself

Yeah he has sent photos through and they have a tag with our unit number so we know they're correct.

comeandgo

Your day time use is very high.  Can you do things like use washing machine and do batch cooking in the evenings after the low rate kicks in?

MWT

kabaly90 said:

Gerry1 said:

 Ofgem's rules are crazy.  Just work on annual cost.  At only 9.2% night usage, E7 is unlikely to be cost effective.

Sorry mate, not exactly sure what you meant by this.

Gerry is saying the same thing I was, the rules that govern how the switching sites present their 'savings' will always tend to overstate the saving you will achieve, so it is better to do your own sums and compare the annual costs.

Also you are on an E7 tariff which charges you a higher day rate than you'd otherwise pay, but in exchange gives you a lower night rate...

Problem is you are barely using the lower night rate so you are increasing your day time costs for no good reason...

Gerry1

MWT said:

Gerry is saying the same thing I was

Exactly !  This silly new forum format meant that I didn't see your post that appeared a couple of minutes before I posted mine.

Ofgem's daft rules mean that you could be told that switching to a more expensive tariff will be cheaper.

Imagine you're halfway through a fixed 1yr tariff that costs £1000 per year but will jump to £5000 per year after it ends.  If you do nothing, in the next 12 months you'll pay £500 (old tariff) plus £2500 (new tariff), total £3000.

However, if you now switch to a competitor's fixed tariff costing £2900 per year, in the next 12 months you'll pay £2900.  But you'll be told you're saving £100 even though you're switching to a tariff that's four times as expensive as your present rate !  Ofgem's methodology is fatally flawed; in reality, you wouldn't allow yourself to be rolled over to such an expensive tariff so the so-called 'saving' is totally misleading.

ywlgy

Your day usage is much higher than night usage. If you cannot shift most of consumption to night, I suggest you ask your supplier if you can change your tariff from dual-rate to single rate. Usually single rate tariff is cheaper than the day rate of dual rate tariff.