To be terrified of energy costs as FTB?

[user740214]

Partner and I are buying our first home, currently living with my parents as we have been saving so no energy/gas bills in our name etc, we just pay rent to my DM. Have obviously been seeing the news about energy price rices and it has terrified me!

We will be joining as new customers - how bad is it going to be? Are we only going to get the worst deals because we'll be new customers?

I've done some online estimates and they are all in the hundreds per month. British Gas has just quoted £163 as the cheapest per month for gas and electric, it's a 2 bed flat for 2 people.

How much has everyone else been quoted? What should I be expecting!?

You won't get worse deals because you are new customers but you will get the same shit deals that everyone else is getting at the moment.

It depends on your usage how much your bill is. £163 is probably the typical for a 2 bed flat (in BG's opinion) but it's an average, if you are careful you will be lower. My quote was £120 recently but that's based on my usage, I am careful not to have the heating on unless I really need it.

The only problem you may find is if they insist you take a prepayment meter, which are more expensive. If your credit score is OK you'll be fine (it doesn't matter you haven't paid energy bills as long as you're seen as generally responsible).

I am in a 2 bed flat, paying direct debt of £160 for gas and electricity. It increased from £80!

Don't take a fixed term deal with a long date if you can help it - if you take a fixed rate deal now, then in 6 / 12 months or whenever the market stabilises you'll end up on a higher rate than you should be.

Energy costs are high! Does the property have a good energy rating? Is it gas and electric? Is the central heating gas?

Lots of factors will impact costs - I'm with British Gas, we pay £110 a month for a 4 bed detached house (gas central heating and hob, electric oven and the rest obvs). With the new rates we'd be paying about £170 a month (we're fixed for another few months). £160 does seem high for a flat, but our old flat had electric radiators which were horrendously expensive.

Expect what you've been quoted and budget for a bit more until you're sure of your usage.

You'll probably be better off than renters. Many rental flats are all electric, difficult to keep warm and more expensive than gas.
You can choose to stay with the seller's existing fuel company or change. Many companies allow you to track consumption so you can see where and when you are using a lot of gas or electricity.

@GermioneHranger I have double glazed windows and normal gas radiators. EPC D, 1930s block (top floor/second floor). It's £160, used to be £80.

[quote onlychildhamster]@GermioneHranger I have double glazed windows and normal gas radiators. EPC D, 1930s block (top floor/second floor). It's £160, used to be £80.[/quote]
EPC definitely makes a huge difference! We're ECP B and it's the reason I think we're paying less now. Our old flat was a ECP D and we paid £100pm and it was only a 2 bed.

Prices have gone wild!

I would definitely shop around British Gas don’t have the best reputation for service or price

In your case I wouldn’t fix just yet and hope to ride out the short term price hike and then fix later when rates are more reasonable

We fix normally for about 2 years, we’re currently 1 year in with OVO and my monthly bill for reference yesterday was £76 for both fuels in a 3 bed detached, averaged out over the year we pay approximately £90 a month

Octopus OVO and EDF are some of the better companies who tend to buy fuel in advance and so therefore are more insulated against the situation currently

You could take a look at some of the utility warehouses for better deals though most referral codes are currently suspended by the big firms

This is all really helpful, thank you very much everyone! I've got lots of research to do but feeling a bit better now, so thank you

@GermioneHranger

Don't take a fixed term deal with a long date if you can help it - if you take a fixed rate deal now, then in 6 / 12 months or whenever the market stabilises you'll end up on a higher rate than you should be.

Energy costs are high! Does the property have a good energy rating? Is it gas and electric? Is the central heating gas?

Lots of factors will impact costs - I'm with British Gas, we pay £110 a month for a 4 bed detached house (gas central heating and hob, electric oven and the rest obvs). With the new rates we'd be paying about £170 a month (we're fixed for another few months). £160 does seem high for a flat, but our old flat had electric radiators which were horrendously expensive.

Expect what you've been quoted and budget for a bit more until you're sure of your usage.

The energy rating is C and it's gas and electric with central gas heating but there is a wood burner in the living room so hoping we can utilise that a lot in the winter!

Don’t just join somewhere because of cashback or affiliate links…

As a PP said, you won’t get a worse deal because you’re new, but there aren’t many good deals around at the moment. It’ll get better, but if you’ve not being paying any energy bills, it’ll likely feel like a bit of a jump!

You can keep it as low as possible by being really mindful of when you use energy, turning things off when you’re not using them, not running the heating too much, maybe turning off or down the heating in the second bedroom if you won’t be sleeping in it… that type of thing.

Try and avoid fixing yourself in for a long time, because you’ll be stuck on a higher tariff then. Martin Lewis issues good advice, the last update I saw was to stay on variable, but it can be a good idea to see what his advice is.

I used to work for a utilities company, I am with Octopus energy, cannot fault them. Easy to increase/decrease direct debit, easy to get money back if overpaid. You can provide a meter reading and they provide the bill, no waiting 3 months or working it out yourself. Just log on, provide reading and they bill you. You can easily keep an eye on it all.

There are ways to improve the energy efficiency of your home unlike renters. We have thermal blackout blinds (white) from Blinds2go at all the bedroom windows, blackout curtains too so the room is super dark and retains the heat. That all prevents heat loss. Our electricity bill hardly changes throughout the year, just the gas for heating. All our bulbs are LED low energy ones.

I currently pay £160pm for a 4 bed detached house.

My current rates with BG are: Daily SC for each fuel = 17.394p, Gas 2.891 p per kw hr and elec 16.719p per Kw hr which goes to March. I used a switching service and the rates weren't available direct with BG. I pay one dd for both fuels, have SMETS 2 which works. I can log online to see my usage to date in both kw hrs and costs against my payments to date. Any overpayment is refunded annually. Current rates are much higher with all suppliers. See what usage BG are basing your charge on.

Check through your solicitors the vendors annual usage, their supplier, and that they are not paying on estimated readings. Ask through your solicitor for a meter reading when the vendors leave. Check it physically against the readings when you take possession and take photo of the meters as verification. (My friend, whose normally on the ball discovered a year later that the meters hadn't been read and the previous occupiers had been in arrears. The company have her a discount but she still thought she'd paid several hundred more that first year.)

Good luck and let's hope the rates are cheaper in the spring but I suspect the SC will increase to fund the levy charges we all fund for the companies that go bust

Hello. Just popping by to say that we're doing a Q&A with fuel poverty charity National Energy Action about energy price rises and ways to cope on Wednesday at 12 noon. The thread is open for questions here.