Business or domestic

Tricorn

Recently widowed I have the task of taking on the electricity. We did run a business but no longer but my late husband has never changed our tariff from a business one. There are three meters, one in the house, and two in the barn. The house obviously uses the most electric but the others have some costs from farmyard lights etc. So, as my contract is up for renewal could someone guide me what I should do. Stay on a  business tariff for all, change all to domestic or split them. Seems my supplier does both and some others I have looked at so any guidance would be amazing, thank you as I dont understand it at all

ArbitraryRandom

I'm sorry for your loss. 

I think @dunstonh lives in a similar situation (a large property with a split commercial/residential use), but broadly speaking residential tariffs are subject to the quarterly price cap and have more protection when things go wrong, so you'd need to crunch the actual numbers but if you're not running a business I can see good reasons to switch. 

As for how you do that - assuming you don't have a high capacity supply/non-standard metering arrangement - the first question would be if your current supplier offers residential supply. If they do, then you can call their business team, explain the problem, and get a quote to either fix or stay on their variable rate (I'd recommend staying variable for now, then you can wait to see what the cap from April will be and get some quotes from other suppliers).

If they don't, then you'd need to move the business account to someone else - then contact them and ask to be changed to residential.

Either way, you'll need to answer some questions about why you want to change (because they need to make sure you're not running a business looking to get cheaper rates).  

 As a complete aside - if the outbuildings have completely separate meters and they're now only going to be using minimal power, it might be worth investing a little cash in having them removed/switched for sub-meters with the supply being run from the main building (obviously I have no idea of the logistics). This is because each meter on the property makes you liable for a separate standing charge (so could save you maybe £300 a year) and the work might pay for itself in a couple of years. 

Hope that's helpful  

dunstonh

I think @dunstonh lives in a similar situation (a large property with a split commercial/residential use), but broadly speaking residential tariffs are subject to the quarterly price cap and have more protection when things go wrong, so you'd need to crunch the actual numbers but if you're not running a business I can see good reasons to switch. 

Despite some commercial use, the whole farm falls under the residential supply with daisy chaining of multiple circuit boards for each barn etc but only one meter.      

 So, as my contract is up for renewal could someone guide me what I should do. 

If there are three meters, do you have three contracts or are all three meters under the same contract?