Energy switching newbie, advice

Neil_Jones

PeteShaw said:

I wouldn't bother about Topcashback.  Referred to them by Martin's site I made a purchase last November from Curry's in order to get an opening offer cashback of £15.  I'm still waiting and have been told it will be another couple of months.  I very much doubt I will ever get the money.  I can't help wondering if the whole operation is a con.

Topcashback does work but it can be hit and miss.  Last time I used it for a Currys purchase (or PC World or whatever it was) it never did track so I gave up using it for that purpose, but a lot of other online providers it tracked without an issue.  However I primarily use it for eBay purchases now which have always tracked.   It's only pennies here and there but it all adds up

doubleshot said:

We're standard users here, British gas. Direct debit & use 6000 kwh each of gas and electric but when I've done a comparison I get less savings than I see in the standard example with less use than is. 

Am I doing it wrong? 

Those figures don't sound right, the usual ratio is around four times more gas than electricity.  Medium usage is 12,000 units of gas and 2900 units of electricity a year.  I suspect what you've done is your gas meter has gone up by 6000 units and you believe that's what you've used.  Doesn't work like that for gas.  As a rough and ready calculation for a modern m3 meter one gas unit on the meter is 11 gas units, so that would be 66,000 gas units, which still sounds far too high?  Even high usage for electricity is about 4500 on a "normal" non Eco 7 setup.

Robin9

@doubleshot For a comparison site you need details of your annual consumption.- using number of rooms, people or the DD you have been paying is not good enough.

Have you meter readings from about 12 months ago -  ones that have A, C or S against them - do not use anything with E (that's for estimated which means guess);   read your meters today. Some modern meters have a decimal point which is easy to miss.

With a gas meter - you need a screen with m3 on it - if you use the one with kWh then disaster will follow.

macman

Much easier just to look at your last annual statement, which will show your kWh usage for both fuels.

Forget about whatever savings it show you, it's irrelevant. Just look at the total annual cost. You already know your total annual spend on your current expensive BG tariff.

I agree with Neil Jones: 6k kWh pa on each fuel is not feasible unless you have an odd heating system: how is the property heated and hot watered? How big, how many bedrooms? Typical 3 b/r semi average might be 3K leccy and 12.5k gas.