What Utilities?

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mrsflibble
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What Utilities?

Post: # 123407Post mrsflibble »

what utilities companies are you with for Gas and Electric? we want to change companies but are unsure of how to go about it. don't tell me to go to moneysupermarket.com cos they suck!!! (we're with british gas)

thanks!!!
oh how I love my tea, tea in the afternoon. I can't do without it, and I think I'll have another cup very
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Thurston Garden
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123560Post Thurston Garden »

There's some good info here Mrs F.

I got £15 back the last time I used one of the recommended comparison sites. Bonus!
Thurston Garden.

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mrsflibble
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123582Post mrsflibble »

yeah, we've been burned by npower before lol!!
oh how I love my tea, tea in the afternoon. I can't do without it, and I think I'll have another cup very
ve-he-he-he-heryyyyyyy soooooooooooon!!!!

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citizentwiglet
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123587Post citizentwiglet »

We've only got electric in this house, no gas at all. We're with Scottish Power. They've just put their prices up - I think it was 9% on electric and something like 30% on gas. Am quite thankful we don't have gas! But we're happy to stick with them, they do usually wait until everyone else has put up their prices and then undercut them. We've got that white-meter heating too, which charges up during the night when it is cheaper.
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Rosendula
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123608Post Rosendula »

Thurston Garden wrote:There's some good info here Mrs F.

I got £15 back the last time I used one of the recommended comparison sites. Bonus!
I was also going to recommend the Martin Lewis site. Sign up for the emails so you can be kept up to date. You don't get junk, just easy to understand advice.

Personally, we're with British Gas for gas and electric, but we signed up to the price cap thing (what's it called? Oh, fiddly flowerpetals, I've forgotten! :flower: ). We signed up a few years ago, and get the price as it was then until 2010. It's going to floor us when the deal ends :shock:
Rosey xx

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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123622Post Big Al »

It depends on where you are and how much power you use. When the government deregulated the utillities they said that the generation company for your area had to be more expensive than the rest of the providers so you need ot find out who your generation company is first of all.

Secondly it is generally cheaper to get gas off a leccy company and leccy off a gas company. Duel fuel IS NOT the best option in many cases. Do a cost comparison for gas only, leccy only and then duel fuel...

I've just moved from Eon to http://www.ebico.co.uk and their prices are capped on a yearly basis at around february / march time. Ebico buy their power from scottish and southern so if you are currently with scottish and southern then it is a simple matter of an internal transfer which takes about 6 days rather than the 4 to 6 weeks if you are going to a new supplier.

BG online tarrif is coming out quite good of late as you pay a higher rate for the first 500 units of leccy then a low rate for the rest so if you are a high user then this could be worth looking at. If you are a low user then you want a low tarrif all the time.

Also on the ebico site you can see how much your last bill would have cost you had you been with ebico. My winter (October - March) gas bill is approaching £130 a month with eon where as with ebico it will be around £62 a month.

HTH

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mrsflibble
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123766Post mrsflibble »

wow, thanks Alan, that did help muchly!!!
oh how I love my tea, tea in the afternoon. I can't do without it, and I think I'll have another cup very
ve-he-he-he-heryyyyyyy soooooooooooon!!!!

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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123785Post Flo »

I've found that to do dual fuel on-line with payment by direct debit gives you a discount with any company because you do all the communication by email. This system usually means that you can enter your own meter readings before the bill is actually calculated by the company (mine sends an email asking for readings just prior to the bill). Ergo you have a correct bill when you open it up. This saves a lot of hassle for both sides. Think about it - no telephone calls to customer services on an 0845/0870 number and less chance of errors.

All companies have put up their prices recently - any tariff that is capped over the winter will be a good one.

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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123802Post ellie12022 »

Martin Lewis' site is very helpful, as others have said, he indicates when is a good time to look.

I am with Ebico/Equipower too, last time i checked they were still good for me. What I like is that you pay the same whatever your payment method (although Southern still try to sell me direct debit!). They did seem to put their prices up a while after other companies. You may need to tick a box to include social tariffs, it doesn't always come up.

If anybody has any problems with gas/leccie I used to work for a big utility company, so I will help out if I can.

NB, I am not sure on this but it seems whenever I have had a sales rep call round from an energy company the prices go up shortly after!

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mrsflibble
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123808Post mrsflibble »

I keep getting the npower bloke who stands in the town centre trying to flog me theirs. recently he tried to get me to leave british gas because "tehy're run by germans"...they could be run by three eyed green men for all I care lol!!!
oh how I love my tea, tea in the afternoon. I can't do without it, and I think I'll have another cup very
ve-he-he-he-heryyyyyyy soooooooooooon!!!!

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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123873Post Big Al »

Flo wrote:I've found that to do dual fuel on-line with payment by direct debit gives you a discount with any company because you do all the communication by email. This system usually means that you can enter your own meter readings before the bill is actually calculated by the company (mine sends an email asking for readings just prior to the bill). Ergo you have a correct bill when you open it up. This saves a lot of hassle for both sides. Think about it - no telephone calls to customer services on an 0845/0870 number and less chance of errors.

All companies have put up their prices recently - any tariff that is capped over the winter will be a good one.
Utillity companies lose money from the minute they sign you up and it can take up to 14 months before they make any money off you depending on the type of meter you are on etc. As soon as they take you on the companies have to pay £36 into a carbon reduction fund which pays for the cavity wall insulation and loft insulation etc.

They also have set up costs for billing and administering the meter etc. Poor bairns of course but to have both supplies from one company means they only pay one £36, British Gas will not allow their reps to sign you up for single gas.... The biggest gas provider in the world and they don't want your custom....

Discounts only make you feel you are getting something for nothing. Infact you are doing their work for them with online tarrifs and saving them around £370 a year for the likes of reading meters, sending out bills, waiting for payment quarterly etc. Also by paying by DD you are paying before you use it for many months of the year and so they are gaining profit from the interest on your money. about 20 onths ago the regulators investigated one company who were over estimating the monthly DD figures and in the balance sheet of this company there was a figure of £21m which was explained as interest on overpayments of DD's. This company had to re issue accurate figures to the customers but the same customers were not given back any of the "profit".
We had a field day with that one on the doors and signed many a customer because we could give an acurate to the penny DD cost based on the infomation provided by the customer.
With ebico you get no extra discounts for doing online in fact you get no discounts at all. The way ebico works is that it has one flat rate for gas which is a uniform across the country tarrif and a seperate electricity rate depending on where you are in the country which is the same industry wide. However where Ebico wins over the rest of the industry is that these tarrifs work out lower than the rest of the industry because they don't have any standing charges and no "premium " rates for the first 500 or 900 units in a quarter. So if you are consiensious like we are then you want to reduce your power useage you are not penalised. Take me for example. I try to keep my electric to below 6 units a day or 558 units a quarter. On Eon i never break out of the 900 premium units per quarter so I pay 25p per unit. On ebico I get charged a flat rate of 11p a unit. Simple maths means I pay £139.50 on Eon or £61.38 on Ebico.....It's a no brainer really. Gas isn't that much cheaper for me at the moment, about £22 a quarter but better in my pocket than Eon's.
Ebico is a charity and thus has no shareholders to pay out to. It also makes no diferentiation on how you pay or what meter you use so if you are a payg card and key meter user, or a cash cheque quarterly ( pay bill on arrival every three months) or a direct debit monthly user you still get the same tarrif. This is great if you are a key and card user as it enables you to get the same tarrif as the DD customer. Also if you know students at uni who are on key and card then they will save an arm and a leg for their power.
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Re: What Utilities?

Post: # 123880Post Big Al »

mrsflibble wrote:I keep getting the npower bloke who stands in the town centre trying to flog me theirs. recently he tried to get me to leave british gas because "tehy're run by germans"...they could be run by three eyed green men for all I care lol!!!
They are not still doing that are they..... same old tact, still it makes for easy picking for the rest of the industry.

EDF are french, When challenged about the nationallity of the company the reps used to say EDF stood for extra discounts forever. Npower are spanish owned, British gas are owned by centrica which are american. Eon are german, Scottish gas are the same as BG, Scottish and southern are, I THINK, spanish owned as well.

As for being "run by the GERMANS " in a stan bordman liverpool accent you reply.... Hmm just like my BMW, mercedes, audi ( take your pick) then......
Also for Npower reps who try to sell you their GREEN TARRIF as being on the same as their standard price is that the electric is the same stuff. At the last count Npower did not have any means to supply you with totally green energy simply because all energy made whether by wind, pv, neuclear, coal, gas, hydro etc all goes into the national grid and then redistributed so the "green energy" really is a mucky brown energy. Eon's tack on this is to garuntee to make an equal amount of green energy to match what you use if you buy their green tarrif. So for instance if you use say 1000 kwh of electricity you will still be using electricity made by all of the above but eon will garuntee to put into the grid 1000kwh to replace what you use. In essence if everyone used eons green tarrif then everyone would be using green energy. This will never happen of course as no company can make enough energy from renewables to satisfy the whole countries needs....

HTH
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