Be Excellent To Each Other

I am moving back to my house on the 22nd, so looking at sorting my bills and insurance out.

Done the go compare the meerkat thing, and green star energy has popped up as the cheapest. Any one had dealings with them, there is limited info on the net?

Cheers

To be honest I have never known any difference between any energy supplier. They all do exactly the same thing but some are sometimes cheaper. The whole energy market thing is just a colossal waste of time and effort.

When power companies are in the game of making as much profit as they can for their shareholders rather than providing an essential service at reasonable prices, this is what happens.

I'm reasonably pleased with First Utility so far, who are one of the smaller and slightly cheaper suppliers. They were nice and efficient getting my meter swapped out for a smart one after the old one was found to be going backwards, and I can now see my electricity usage on their portal instead of waiting for a bill.

There's a whole industry around it now too of middle men making money from everyone. The local shady multi-millionaire who has propelled the local football team through six promotions in ten years just as a pet project makes all his money in it. They do literally nothing of any real use to society. One of my friends is in the same line of business and that's precisely his view as well.

They are an option too, I will look into them.

Yeah, I have no problem with capitalism when it benefits society as a whole, but the inherent greed of energy shareholders is disgusting when so many people are living in energy poverty.

Errr, sadly there's a wealth of difference. Npower, for example, have three times as many complaints as the second-most complained about energy company.

They have absolutely shit IT systems that consistently send out wrong bills. A friend of mine was recently sent a bill being told their direct debit was going to increase to £700/month because of a perceived shortfall in their meter readings. I also had to battle against npower a few years ago when the useless shits tried to bill me for energy usage for a period before I moved in. It got to debt collectors and threats of legal action before they backed down.

So, the major message there being, fuck npower with a shitty stick.

Meanwhile I find SSE to be infinitely better - nice online systems and no problems so far - they get very few complaints.

I guess when things go wrong you might see a difference, but we've changed energy suppliers every year or two for the last 13 years and I have yet to give a single solitary fuck who I'm paying the money to. In fact without checking I wouldn't even know who we're with now.

Well I do things like check my bills and usage to make sure they're correct. Also minor factors like whether they give you nectar or tesco points might swing it. You churn a lot of cash on energy bills so you might as well get max value!

Yeah, it's a massive pain in the arse and a completely pointless thing to have to be bothered with, though. I think what annoys me most is when you do change and then the last one phones you up. I normally just tell them that they should have offered me that deal before I left instead of attempting to rip off loyal customers.

I'll be moving back into my flat in a few weeks so this is something I'll need to look into as well. Recommendation for SSE noted!

I am also in a similar position.

One thing I certainly won't do is make such a massive cunt of setting up the online account as to lock myself out of it completely and then never bother submitting meter readings over the phone no matter how much my boyfriend nags me about it so that I get hit with a surprise £900 gass/leccy bill after someone comes round to read the meter.

<stick figure of weeping man holding up hand for depressing high five>

I am doubtlessly a data-obsessed freak, but I keep a careful note of meter readings, and have even plotted them on a graph to see what my usage variance is like. If I can see I've blown through a load of electric for some reason, I'll make a point of trying to save power wherever possible.

It's also handy in the event the energy company does fuck up with its figures, as you've got your own record. Submitting proper meter readings should get your direct debit to just the right level (and I always push to get my payments as low as possible), so you're not spunking cash needlessly on building up an account credit.

I'd avoid First Utility.

I was with them at my last house and although they were the cheapest at the time (not sure if they are now) their customer service is appalling. By the time I moved back into my flat I was £352 in credit and it took THREE MONTHS of repeated calls and chasing to get it back into my account.

Cheers Gaz, they were the cheapest. Might have another look

After having one of those energy meters for a bit I stopped even thinking about it. I concluded that there's nothing we can do to use significantly less electricity, turning things off standby is not even worth the hassle. Energy saving light bulbs use fuck all anyway. The big usage comes from stuff that's going to happen regardless such as washing clothes, running the dishwasher and using the cooker, kettle etc.

Feel free to pop in for a cuppa

(I assume you'll be joining the joggers group now then? )

Between Rugby, Swimming Biking and running I might not have time to join the Joggers...

Well, I can't help you with that. Obviously everything makes a small difference, which over a long enough period of time (i.e. your entire life), that's probably quite a lot of money.

I'm not saying I'm a power-saving freak, but if there are small things you can do for only minimal effort, you might as well.

Although it occurs to me getting a plug-timer for my broadband router is probably smart. There's no point keeping it on 24x7 if I'm hardly ever there.

some Internet providers will negotiate at a lower speed if they see your router is not online, so be careful with that.

Malc

Get solar panels, then you can spend your time looking out the window and trying to work out if it's likely to brighten up or get worse before turning any of the big appliances on. So far this month I've used just 34 units that didn't come "free" from the sky.

The problem with solar panels (and living in a flat) is that I think the government subsidies for them have now ended?

With that being the case, the savings vs. cost is quite a long-term proposition, is that not right?

I do really like the idea though, being practically self-sustaining for power would be great.

Nope, you still get FIT payments, though it's now only for 20 years instead of 25, and the amount has reduced a fair bit. On the up side, the cost to get a typical 4KW system installed has dropped markedly from close to £20k down to about £6k.

At one point it was paying about 45p per unit generated but I'm on 17.5p - rates are fixed at the point you get the system commissioned and then increase with inflation each year.

It was always a long term investment, and I should break even between 6 and 7 years, and assuming I'm here for the full 20 then I should have had about £30k in a mixture of payments and savings. It's obviously only worth it if you are in a house with a decent roof that you have no plans to move from, though it will add value if you sell up.

At this time of year I'm generating far more than I'll use but in winter it's the opposite - on a really dull day you get almost nothing, but it keeps the broadband router powered up. Over the full year it won't end up costing me much at all for gas and electricity once I've offset the payments against bills.

I've heard about some peole having issues selling their house when they have solar panels on the roof. If memory serves, it's something to do with having leased the space on your roof to a company for a set period or something like that, which may cause issues down the line. We considered getting them, but I decided if tehre was going to be hassle selling the house, the savings probably wouldn't merit the cost of arguing over it. Had we moved to the farmhouse, however, I think I would have given them the nod.

I heard that too Malia. It was on you and yours on Radio 4.

I cannot wait, personally.

I might go with EDF as they don't have a cancellation fee.

There's companies that will install the panels free of charge - you get the benefit of all the electric you use, but they get the payments. Those can cause huge issues with mortgages and house sales, but if you just buy the system yourself there's no problem selling it along with the house.

Just had a letter from the council saying they have had 1.8 million from the government for a "Green Deal"

I can get £7,000 cash back if I sign up for work done by overpriced greedy suppliers like British Gas.

Every job will cost twice as much but thats not at issue as the government are chucking money around

Taxpayers money well spent there. BG's prices are ludicrous for new boilers and the like.

Giphy "necromancy":
https://media2.giphy.com/media/9SJbhLC8COozFuhkpN/giphy-loop.mp4
So I have an email from British Gas saying my energy prices are going up, which I'm not overly bothered by.
However, I'm paying £711 a year for electricity and £833 for gas. That feels like a lot to me. Is that a lot?

I pay £1128 a year for both gas and electric.

I think that's a lot but it's the cheapest I can get it.

My 'projected yearly cost' is £477.43 for gas and electricity combined. Pro-tip: don't have kids and live in a tiny flat.

It seems quite a bit to me, but I’m paying about £600 combined.how large and energy efficient is your house?

I'm at about £1200 a year combined, most of that is leccy for the big telly and pc and shit.

Pretty large, not very

We pay £88 a month for both (£1056 to save you mathing) and given how much we are in credit that'll probably come down at the next review. I am good at turning stuff off and not using heating until there's 12 inches of snow outside, though. We're with https://www.so.energy/

Sign up for Look After My Bills and they'll automatically switch you to the best provider and tariff once your deal runs out.

https://lookaftermybills.com

Cheers. I just signed up - you should have provided a referral link then we'd both have got £20!

Sounds about what I’d expect then.
Mines a 4 bed 3 storey town house with decent insulation and solar panels.
The FIT payments I get from the panels cover the gas and electric bills.

Sal was the one who signed up so maybe she'll out it here. You might be able to add it after.

This is my code: https://lookaftermybills.com/?source=ma ... ferral=SYF

When we moved we switched to Ovo and so far were paying a fair bit less than we did with British Gas (dual fuel) on a much bigger house. Well worth shopping around even though it’s a pain. All utilities and insurance companies rely on the laziness of customers to maximise their profits.

I was with Iresa, they've just gone bust, so I've been moved to octopus energy. I'm allowed to move to someone else after the transition is finalised. So I'm looking around at the moment. Looking at some green energy options, if they are too much more than the cheapest though, I may just go with the cheapest.

I saw Richard Herring plugging Bulb the other day and they looked pretty good. Their online switcher didn't seem to like the fact that my electricity is pre-pay though, so I give up trying to switch for now.

Just signed up

This is as good a place as any. I’ve put my name down to buy shares in a wind farm that’ll be built next year. The idea is you get a portion of the profits to offset against your bills, and with prices at current rates the payback could be only a handful of years. Should anyone else fancy reading up and joining, my referral link is below.
https://rippleenergy.com/?ogu=10123