Well, you're on the worst possible tariff with a company that is poorly regarded for customer service and pricing. By all means stay there just because you can't be arsed to spend 10 minutes on a comparison site and
5 minutes switching.
Looks quite competitive especially for gas, who's that with if you don't mind my asking?
Why? Why would you (the Mrs) want to provide an energy company with an interest free loan? Pay the minimum.
Five minutes on
Ovo (who I have just left) pay, I think, 3% interest on the amoount you're in credit, that's a pretty good rate actually.
What interest would we currently earn with it in the bank?
What 'value' do you decide us being in credit is worth to us?
Thanks, at least *they* understand it's not always about the financial 'cost'.
"Select the top tariffs for you based on your priorities"
Cheers, T i m
Just ran through it, I worked out we are paying roughly £1150 pa and Igloo quoted me "£1,181/yr " from their guesstimated numbers on my usage.
I'll see if it mate any actual positive difference if I give it some numbers.
Cheers, T i m
I'm, more-or-less, in the same position as you - been on EDF Standard Variable dual fuel for years. Having read the posts in this thread I thought it worthwhile to do a real-life comparison at several sites. They are the ones listed at the Ofgem site
The first hurdle was my address. It seems there are those sites which need my post code and then exact address, and will not continue without it. Those were rejected immediately (including monesupermarket.com). Others made it less easy to continue without the complete address, but often had a less visible "skip" button for the complete address. Others continued with the post code alone. Why do some insist on the full address when it is quite apparent they do not need it?
The second hurdle was that one or two would not continue without an email address, whereas most did continue. Those that insisted were rejected.
One would not accept it was possible for me to pay by quarterly bill under EDF's Standard Variable tariff. Strangely, it would accept a monthly bill for the same tariff, but it was rejected as it was not accurate.
One said it could not find anything for me. That was odd considering many others could. So guessing the reason, I changed my payment from "quarterly bill" to quarterly Direct Debit. Suddenly several tariffs became available. Why have a quarterly bill payment option when it is obvious only DDs tariffs are going to be offered?
In a similar vein, several sites gave quite unrealistic amounts which I could save. Checking back, they had changed my "quarterly bill" selection to "pay by Direct Debits". Every time I changed a parameter (such as going from dual fuel to gas only), "quarterly bill" was also changed to "pay by Direct Debit". Very misleading.
So far I haven't gone any further. A couple of sites came up with very similar tariffs as the best (with British Gas!), but most seemed to have only one good offer - more than £150 to be saved annually. After that they rapidly fell off so the second or third represented only between £30 and £50 saving annually.
One more question which doesn't relate to the comparison sites, but to the suppliers. Why does the Standing Charge vary, not only between suppliers, but also in a single supplier's various tariffs? Surely the infrastructure to bring electricity or gas to my house is the same for all suppliers. It will need to vary in different areas of the country, depending on the expense of running cables or piping to more rural areas, but surely not within a local area. It just seems to me a way to complicate efforts at comparison for no good reason.
Quite, as you suggested, welcome to my world. ;-)
(oooerr)
Assuming they are still here in 12 months (unless there is some ring fencing etc).
Yup, and whilst it seems some are wiling to chase down every penny, it's not impossible that next year it jumps up to above what you were previously paying and so the whole frustrating time vampire starts again?
Because they can and it helps obfuscate the actual cost making direct comparisons more difficult?
Physically, yes (assuming it's already there and doesn't need upgrading), you would have thought so eh?
Quite.
Well, there is a 'good reason' but only for them and their profits. ;-(
In theory and for a given area and typical usage pattern, *everyone* would be on what is *the* best plan.
Surely it can't be that the only way to get such business is to offer something that isn't sustainable (at a loss), go broke, then force N thousand people to have to start searching again?
Fly-by-night?
Or is it they start small and so can be cheap. They start to attract more people (the rate tarts) so their customer service becomes overwhelmed, so they employ more people to service the same (or now shrinking) userbase and so become un-profitable and fold?
Cheers, T i m
So the 30 quid (pa, off what they save you if more than £50) comes out of the £262 pa Flipper think they can save me this time, saving me £232 etc?
So, if I'm on a particularly bad tariff now, they get their 30 notes but presumably it's likely to be the law of diminishing returns so they may not save me much next time?
And at what point do they claim their 30 quid, when they are proven to save me money, tricky unless they monitor my consumption and find they have beaten my current cost for my 'typical' / 'previous' years consumption?
Ok.
So, would I want to gamble that I'll save £213 for doing little? Probably, but it is a stable compared with one of the bigger / established suppliers, re C/S and reliable switchover / billing etc.?
"All Suppliers & Tariffs Offers maximum saving All Ofgem approved suppliers May request monthly meter readings May take an initial advanced payment Cheapest deal Save £262/year"
Versus
"Only Larger Suppliers Offers smaller saving Well known brands (same Ofgem rules) Less frequent meter readings No initial advanced payment Big 8 suppliers Save £175/year"
If I go for the latter where it might be less of a gamble and less 'up-front' cost I *might(?)* save £145 pa?
Cheers, T i m
Indeed. You rule out most of the smaller companies who have the best deals. You're stuck on the legacy tariffs of the Big Six (mostly).
They use the address for two reasons:
If you don't want to disclose your address, put in any address nearby. For example, I went to Uswitch and put in SW1A 1AA. It told me Buckingham Palace isn't a residential address - of course it is! But there was an option 'my address isn't listed' which let me continue anyway. That would give me prices for the London region.
If you put in a postcode of a neighbour you might end up selecting the wrong kind of meter, so keep trying neighbours until you get the right one.
For things that insist on them, I just make up an email address <anything>@mailinator.com. You can go to
Not perfect, but enough to get some basic data and double check later.
Because there are no tariffs that meet your (stringent) criteria? Quarterly bill means pay-by-cheque or pay-by-BACS/giro. Quarterly DD is a different billing method, which is cheaper for the utility (fewer debts to chase up). Monthly DD is much more popular with suppliers.
There is one wrinkle here: there's usually a button that says 'show me tariffs you can switch me to today'. If you untick that button you see the whole-of-market, including many smaller players who have better deals. The smaller players don't pay a kickback to the comparison site and you have to signup direct. So use the comparison site to find out who is cheapest, and then sign up on the supplier's website (often cashback that way too).
Sounds like a website bug.
Probably because most of the best tariffs are monthly DD only.
It should be pointed out that Big Six suppliers have a range of tariffs - Standard / 'legacy' tariffs, where they charge the most they are legally allowed to get away with, and 'offer' tariffs where you get a decent rate for a year or two. You might be able to switch to an 'offer' tariff with your existing supplier without actually doing any switching - just need to ask. But most of those are monthly DD.
It's just the pricing model, it doesn't really relate to what it costs.
Don't think of 'unit cost' and 'standing charge' think 'flat price' + 'usage cost'. Plenty of other pricing models work like this. For phones it's 'line rental' monthly fee and 'pence per minute' - some people pay loads of 'line rental' so that their 'pence per minute' is zero up to some threshold. Similarly 'application fee' and 'interest rate' for mortgages - you get a low fixed interest rate for 2/3/4/5 years if you pay a big application fee, or a pay higher rate if there's no application fee.
They get their money any which way, it doesn't matter what they call it. However you can select on option that suits your usage (eg a line rental with no inclusive minutes is good if you make few calls). This is why the provider offers several plans with different pricing models.
Theo
Your choice but the best deals are to be found with DD. Other methods of payment either cost them more to handle and/or have a risk that you'll not pay and they have to spend money chasing you.
Probably to look up the supply type from the MPAN database. I noticed the other week that some sites knew the supply in question was E7 without me having to tell them. Not all front ends work the same...
Your choice.
Must be a right nightmare trying to keep up with all the companies, all the tariffs (current and historic) and all the variations and implications of billing/payment methods.
Some tariffs are only available on DD. Not all comparison sites have all the suppliers listed. Some suppliers might be hidden from the default list, say if that supplier hasn't negociated a kick back to the site for a switch or doesn't accepts switches from that site (or anywhere else).
Becasue they can.
Physically yes.
For electricity the 16(15?) old electricity boards still effectively exist as the Distribution Network Operators. The various DNO's charge different amounts to the suppliers for delivering electricity to the suppliers customers. I wouldn't be surprised if a given DNO charges different suppliers different amounts either/or based on number of customers or consumption or supply type (E7, single, 3 phase, etc).
Then there are numerous levies on the suppliers from central government that pay for, amongst other things, the FIT payments. Or suppliers have to provide energy saving advice and help in the form of Green Home/Warm Home schemes, these probably only apply to the big suppliers not the little ones.
Agreed but that's what spreadsheets are for. Fortunately you really only need to know your annual consumption, the daily standing charge and unit rate (or rates for E7...)(*). To work out what a given tariff is going to cost and thus be able make direct and accuarte comparisons.
(*) For electricity, gas is a bit more complicated as the calorific value of the gas varies so a given volume at the standard pressure gives a variable amount of energy. Not having gas I don't know if this variation is significant in the context "saving" of a few tens of pounds by switching tariff.
Two pages per supply.
One records tracks actual use and indicates if the DD is on target over a rolling year.
The other is for comparisons.
Very difficult to confuse the two. B-)
Igloo usually come near the top of the not-risky companies, pay 3% on any credit balance and their customer service is very responsive.
If you decide to sign up with them then you might want to use https://refer.igloo.energy/frankj280 and get both of us a £50 credit?
He'll expect you to supply a 10,000 page analysis of all the pros and cons, though, just like he wanted for brexit.
What's your problem with DD?
A postcode should suffice. That tells them which part of the country you are in. The cost of the infrastructure (to them) will vary depending where you are. That will impact the SC. It'll vary because the supply lines to some customers are longer than others. How much a town customer's SC has to subsidise a country-dweller's one, because the former is near a substaion whereas the latter is at the end of 10 miles of a rural line, I know not.
Perhaps because you'd applied so many constraints already.
Calorific value can be ignored when making comparisons* as gas tariffs are in terms of pence per kWh. (Calorific value matters only for checking the bill against the meter reading. And doing that shows that some smaller suppliers are too idle/incompetent to change the calorific value shown on their bills.)
*assuming the gas is used for heating. It might matter if it's used for other purposes
Funny you should say that Goblin, it (re my view of this) is very much like my view on Brexit in that I would like 'a good reason' to warrant making the change. Didn't need to be 10,000 pages, just one 'good reason' would have been enough.
I'm most other worlds (and certainly on Vegan) that viewpoint would be considered fairly sensible.
Left brainers on the other hand, once triggered with the challenge will change their electrical supplier to *just* save £5pa but (of course) wouldn't be interested in the bigger picture. ;-(
Cheers, T i m
This "pain of switching suppliers" of which you speak. I do it every 18 months, or however long my contract was.
So far, no JCBs have dug up my front lawn for new pipes and cables, and the effort I invest in making a few clicks on uswitch.com is a lot less than you made with your newsgroup post.
I know it's counter-intuitive, but loyalty counts for nothing.
you have to convert gas units into kWh to use on a comparison site
except mine say
your saving will be £6.37
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.