We've had the Hive for about 6 years, we got it via the gas engineer for half price, think it was around £40.00. As CT mentioned brilliant if you're out at football and want to switch it on for when you're home. We never really touch the thermostat and do it all via the App, or should I say the wife does as she has a smart phone, I really should make an effort to see how it works. I'm not joking when I say that I don't even know how to put the washer on.

Spijed wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:16 am

Is it worth going with a company such as 'Lookaftermybills' who switch your account to the cheapest tariff each year rather than you having to do it?

Time will tell for us.

We switched with 'look after my bills' on 1st Jan this year after they said we'd save at least £250 on last year's dual fuel bill with British Gas.

Was hassle free and we have a fixed DD amount each month which if it remains unchanged will be a saving around about that sum.

However, circumstances have changed and I'm now working from home 25 hours a week so obviously using more gas/electric than previously so we'll see.

Our smart meter was installed by the previous provider. I remember speaking to the installer who said ours may not talk to another provider and the next generation of smart meters would work with different providers.

Our provider went bust, no issue we were moved to another.... But the meter doesn't work!

I am paying £64 a month with N Power for Dual G&E and Owe about £50 on the year . I change to EON on May 1st and my daily charge and unit go up, So i am changing to Octopus which is cheaper .But when i got a Quote and gave the Klw i had used to get a more accurant quote they gave me a price of £60 pm which will be way to low because their price is dearer than what i am paying now with NPower i expect to pay about £ 76 a month over the year

clarethomer wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 14, 2021 7:48 pm

I use Octopus energy but did go for a smart meter because its very beneficial to me as an EV driver.

They are which recommended too and have a very straightforward website to use and have always done a decent job with customer service whenever I have had queries. You don't need a smart meter for their fixed tariff.

A number of you have mentioned Octopus. I change suppliers regularly .Its an easy saving to make. I was with Octopus last year. Had no problems at first. Now changed to Avro because of price. For the last six months Octopus have been harrassing me for extra money. Weve now had over 30 thirty emails and no resolution. I thought the first communication by them was a scam by text.

My advice is AVOID Octopus. Very difficult to deal with. Plenty of others which are cheaper and better at resolving problems.

claret54 wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 12:31 pm

A number of you have mentioned Octopus. I change suppliers regularly .Its an easy saving to make. I was with Octopus last year. Had no problems at first. Now changed to Avro because of price. For the last six months Octopus have been harrassing me for extra money. Weve now had over 30 thirty emails and no resolution. I thought the first communication by them was a scam by text.

My advice is AVOID Octopus. Very difficult to deal with. Plenty of others which are cheaper and better at resolving problems.

It's interesting

I think you will probably find dis-satisfied customers with any provider so good for you to share your experience but there is also an overwhelming number of positive experiences too. They don't employ massive call centres and I know that calling them is best as their emails are a bit slower to respond to than they were 18 months ago but I think overall they do a fantastic job.

Personally, I have a 2nd gen smart meter (Smets 2 I think they are called) and I have a tariff because of this which gives me my electricity at 5.5p per kWh from 8:30 pm until 1:30 am. By shifting my consumption where I can into this timeframe, it allows me to make some decent saving.

Outside of this time period, I'm paying less than 14p per kWh which is lower than the industry average.

My last bill said I had an average 9p per kWh which will reduce further as I start to charge my car more often. But simple things like putting on the washer/dishwasher/dryer in the cheaper period means that I am able to get good value for money from my supplier.

clarethomer wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 12:40 pm

It's interesting

I think you will probably find dis-satisfied customers with any provider so good for you to share your experience but there is also an overwhelming number of positive experiences too. They don't employ massive call centres and I know that calling them is best as their emails are a bit slower to respond to than they were 18 months ago but I think overall they do a fantastic job.

Personally, I have a 2nd gen smart meter (Smets 2 I think they are called) and I have a tariff because of this which gives me my electricity at 5.5p per kWh from 8:30 pm until 1:30 am. By shifting my consumption where I can into this timeframe, it allows me to make some decent saving.

Outside of this time period, I'm paying less than 14p per kWh which is lower than the industry average.

My last bill said I had an average 9p per kWh which will reduce further as I start to charge my car more often. But simple things like putting on the washer/dishwasher/dryer in the cheaper period means that I am able to get good value for money from my supplier.

Those are excellent rates but must be historic. I’ve just checked Octopus as a result and best they currently offer is more than double that. Also most deals that offer cheap evening charging charge significantly more outside of those hours. Excellent if you have an EV with a big battery and do lots of miles but may not make sense for most people. I have a hybrid vehicle and it costs less than £1 to fully charge it at 13p per kWh.

Hipper wrote: ↑

Thu Apr 15, 2021 3:49 pm

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ld-wanless

Nice article in the guardian:

Sea levels are going to rise by at least 20ft. We can do something about it

Quote: "If seas rise 20 feet over the next 2,000 years, our children and their descendants may find ways to adapt. But if seas rise 20 feet or more over the next 100 to 200 years — which is our current trajectory – the outlook is grim. In that scenario, there could be two feet of sea level rise by 2040, three feet by 2050, and much more to come."

So, we'd better do something about it.

Eddiebfc wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:47 pm

Those are excellent rates but must be historic. I’ve just checked Octopus as a result and best they currently offer is more than double that. Also most deals that offer cheap evening charging charge significantly more outside of those hours. Excellent if you have an EV with a big battery and do lots of miles but may not make sense for most people. I have a hybrid vehicle and it costs less than £1 to fully charge it at 13p per kWh.

Nope not historic rates at all.

Yesterday I charged so this includes an increased consumption. I used 29.31kWh at a cost of £2.48 which works out a little over 8p per kWh for my full days use of electric including running my house as usual.

My consumption for the week is at 9.8p per kWh. I don't charge every day - in fact twice a week and that is usually not full charges - just top ups to keep my battery between 45-80%.

My rates are as follows 5.5p per kWh for 5hrs - 20:30 to 01:30am and a little under 14p all other times with a 23p daily standing charge.

For the same 7kW of charge you pay £1 with, I will pay less than 40p for.

You need to access the Go Faster tariff which isn't what they offer on the home page. You need to opt into Octopus Go and then request it.

clarethomer wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 4:10 pm

Nope not historic rates at all.

Yesterday I charged so this includes an increased consumption. I used 29.31kWh at a cost of £2.48 which works out a little over 8p per kWh for my full days use of electric including running my house as usual.

My consumption for the week is at 9.8p per kWh. I don't charge every day - in fact twice a week and that is usually not full charges - just top ups to keep my battery between 45-80%.

My rates are as follows 5.5p per kWh for 5hrs - 20:30 to 01:30am and a little under 14p all other times with a 23p daily standing charge.

For the same 7kW of charge you pay £1 with, I will pay less than 40p for.

You need to access the Go Faster tariff which isn't what they offer on the home page. You need to opt into Octopus Go and then request it.

Thanks I’ve now found the Go tariff. The times offered seem different ie 00.30 until 4.30 for the 5p rate. For me this won’t help as most of my consumption is done outside these hours. I’ve started charging my car using the BP pulse network which is free for the first 3 months. Fortunately for me I have four charge points 5 mins from my work. The gas tariffs also look expensive. Looks like a great tariff for you though.

clarethomer wrote: ↑

Fri Apr 16, 2021 12:40 pm

It's interesting

I think you will probably find dis-satisfied customers with any provider so good for you to share your experience but there is also an overwhelming number of positive experiences too. They don't employ massive call centres and I know that calling them is best as their emails are a bit slower to respond to than they were 18 months ago but I think overall they do a fantastic job.

.............

I agree with you about finding dissatisfied customers with any provider.

But why i recommend avoiding Octopus is because the way they have gone about dealing with the problem. They have been unnecessarily aggressive which has in itself become an issue in addition to the original problem.
Lets face it Its not a complicated business. So there should be few problems. So most times you should be pretty satisfied with any energy suppliers service.
I had a problem with Octopus, If they had dealt with it in a reasonable way I would not be writing on this website saying 'avoid Octopus'. I can accept that mistakes are made. What makes me say avoid Octopus is the way they have attempted to resolve the problem.

Plenty of other providers to choose from.

It's good to get opinions, as I mentioned earlier we'll be looking shortly. I've been put off Octupus now after what's been experienced by claret54. That's why this board is so useful, let's keep it going with good, helpful and civilised topics.

Need to sort ours out BG just pumped our leccy up to 122pm almost trebled in price...

Have just come to end of contract with EDF. Paid them £58pm. At end of contract they credited me £87 for unused energy so I effectively paid £51pm and then told me in the same correspondence that from May my monthly payment was going up to £84pm!!! Dear Mr EDF it begins and ends in 'F'!

Thank you, all.

Hi all, just brought this back up as we’re coming to the end of our contract shortly for both gas and electricity. All the recommendations have been helpful but I just wondered if anyone’s recently found a much better deal. Compared to our current deal (2years) there's little about. We’ve used the search engines but can’t find anything that’s near matching what we had.

My current deal ends at the end of the month and I’ve got the same problem. As indicated above it’s pointless someone saying they pay £X amount per month as it all depends on how much you use. When doing comparisons every tariff is showing significant increase for me with Electricity up by at least 10% and Gas up by up to 50%! My current rates are 13.27p for electric and 2.489p fir Gas. I have an Hybrid plug in so am looking at the EDF Go Electric tariff that is good for electric but will see my Gas increase to increasing to 3.315p which is a whopping 33% increase. Seems I am the victim of being on a very good tariff to start off with.

I had a great deal with EDF that was due to finish end of May. I got an email from them in March saying if I signed up for another 2 yrs, they'd give me a one-off £100 credit to my account and keep the same tariff rates.
I signed up there and then & avoided the hefty April price increases.
(Sorry, not much help to you, I know)

Has anyone ever used a company called Switchd?

You pay a monthly fee and then they do it all for you, finding the cheapest deal and moving you when they find one cheaper.

https://switchd.co.uk/

Octopus. Very good.

Very competitive, flexible tariffs and England based call centre who simply pick up the phone when you ring rather than press 1 if you this, want press 2 if you want that etc., garbage.

ClaretTony wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 12, 2021 8:46 pm

Has anyone ever used a company called Switchd?

You pay a monthly fee and then they do it all for you, finding the cheapest deal and moving you when they find one cheaper.

https://switchd.co.uk/

Never heard of them before.

https://lookaftermybills.com do something similar for free because they get a commission.

Can't tell you if they're any good either as no experience but if you are thinking about something that does auto-switching, I thought its worth sharing

clarethomer wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 12, 2021 9:49 pm

Never heard of them before.

https://lookaftermybills.com do something similar for free because they get a commission.

Can't tell you if they're any good either as no experience but if you are thinking about something that does auto-switching, I thought its worth sharing

I only know about this one because I got an email from Nationwide BS saying I was entitled to a free six months.

RingoMcCartney wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 12, 2021 9:33 pm

Octopus. Very good.

Very competitive, flexible tariffs and England based call centre who simply pick up the phone when you ring rather than press 1 if you this, want press 2 if you want that etc., garbage.

My direct debut just gone up about £7 a month with them and I could switch and save - honestly would rather pay the extra just for the service and ease/simplicity of being with them and their customer services.

As a side note - whoever you decide to go with .... look up the deals etc, and the. Get on a cashback site and search for the company you’ve decided on.

With it being a competitive market you’ll get a decent bit of cash back for choosing the exact same deal, with the same company just for clicking through the cashback site to get to their site.

We got about £120 back for signing up for Talk Talk when our internet was up, and there are lots of energy suppliers on there too (also loads of cash back on sites you’d use loads anyway - eBay, just eat etc..) - between topcashback and Quidco we’ve easily had over a grand cashback for buying/shopping at the same places we would have anyway and buying the same products we would off those sites we would have without cashback.

*selfless little plug too if you do decide to go down this route - if you sign up through my link for then we both get a bonus too https://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/member1181278662844

bfccrazy wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 12, 2021 10:13 pm

My direct debut just gone up about £7 a month with them and I could switch and save - honestly would rather pay the extra just for the service and ease/simplicity of being with them and their customer services.

Too royal!

I love the idea of you ring them up , they simply pick the phone up and they speak English. " Hello , how can I help you?"

It's a great business idea that could be really successful.



Call me old fashioned.......

RingoMcCartney wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 13, 2021 11:14 pm

Too royal!

I love the idea of you ring them up , they simply pick the phone up and they speak English. " Hello , how can I help you?"

It's a great business idea that could be really successful.



Call me old fashioned.......

I hate having to call companies to resolve things too tbh.

Pretty much anything needed to be done with Octopus for me is done on their app and it’s easy to use. The call centre staff are brilliant the couple of times I’ve had to call them though too. As you say it might seem old fashioned but it works.

There was a thread on here about switching suppliers and experiences of different suppliers but I cant find it. Looking to switch both Gas and Electric and like a human being to speak to when things go wrong. Any recommendations welcome. Scot Power have billed me £500 last month and £1000 this month and there is clearly something wrong with the meter. I live in a house not an industrial unit.

I switched to Peoples Energy from EON. Much better tariffs but impossible to speak with a human being or get an e mail response . I could only resolve initial questions through an on line chat. The service was good but I had to wait 60 mins to start the chat

Type in “ utility “in the search box for the thread about changing gas & electric tariffs.

I use Octopus they are Fantastic in my opinion and if you sign up via this link http://share.octopus.energy/clean-newt-241 we both get 50 quid

I'll be reading this with interest. I know energy suppliers have put their bills up but even taking that into account. We have somehow used more electric the past 3 months than the previous three according to their readings. Despite knowing we have used less electric and far less compared with the same period last summer when we had a lawn mower and were using heat guns, drills, sanders, jigsaws etc and a treadmill. Still we manage to have used more this past 3 months despite not using any of those.
It doesn't add up.

Use Octopus, they are class.

Free £50 in it for you (and me) if you sign up with this link: share.octopus.energy/aglow-hyena-545

Boss Hogg wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 2:58 pm

There was a thread on here about switching suppliers and experiences of different suppliers but I cant find it. Looking to switch both Gas and Electric and like a human being to speak to when things go wrong. Any recommendations welcome. Scot Power have billed me £500 last month and £1000 this month and there is clearly something wrong with the meter. I live in a house not an industrial unit.

Scot Power should test and if necessary change the meter. If there is something wrong with the meter it won't go away by changing suppliers.

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consu ... is-faulty/

Thanks for the replies so far which have been really helpful.

Slightly on/off topic...I couldn't belive how much electricity we were using as a family. So started turning everything off at the socket on a night, my god I can't believe the difference in a month.

Bulb are very good too.

ewanrob wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 4:45 pm

Slightly on/off topic...I couldn't belive how much electricity we were using as a family. So started turning everything off at the socket on a night, my god I can't believe the difference in a month.

After having our new kitchen put in in December with the Fohen Boiling water tap (no kettle needed now) our electricity usage has plummeted. I have also replaced all the lightbulbs with LED units, 5 bulbs in the front room light unit now all @ 4 watts rating instead of 5 @ 40 watts rating. So spread that around the house, and the lighting is using around 80% less power, but the LED bulbs give out the same light as the old style bulbs... the difference in our power usage is amazing ... we couldn't believe it at 1st either....

BenWickes wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 3:59 pm

I'll be reading this with interest. I know energy suppliers have put their bills up but even taking that into account. We have somehow used more electric the past 3 months than the previous three according to their readings. Despite knowing we have used less electric and far less compared with the same period last summer when we had a lawn mower and were using heat guns, drills, sanders, jigsaws etc and a treadmill. Still we manage to have used more this past 3 months despite not using any of those.
It doesn't add up.

Sounds like the neighbor's have wired up to your meter for growing cannabis.

Turn all your Electronics off and see if the meter still spins.

Quickenthetempo wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 5:38 pm

Sounds like the neighbor's have wired up to your meter for growing cannabis.

Turn all your Electronics off and see if the meter still spins.

Hmm! Coincidentally. We had an electrician doing a check in March. He was here for a long time ...

I’m with Igloo. Pretty good I think, but which recommend Octopus almost every year. If I decide to switch that would be my next supplier.

Octopus will be my next supplier.

I’ve merged the threads so that more info can be available: hope that’s helpful.

Just signed up with octopus and it's looking good so far.

My referral link for splitting £100..

share.octopus.energy/pear-eagle-359

Funkydrummer wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 28, 2021 3:28 pm

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utili ... ectricity/

Seconded

Used the link and found Avro to be the cheapest compared to what we now pay, know nothing about them, anyone had any experience of dealing with them, including customer service. Thanks.

Just bumping this. Bulb has once again emailed me to say prices are going up - they seem to be doing it often now and have become a bit of a joke...

"We're increasing our electricity unit rate from 17.714p to 19.720p per kWh and electricity standing charge from 30.756p to 31.170p per day.

We're increasing our gas unit rate from 3.234p to 3.982p per kWh and standing charge from 25.683p to 26.112p per day."


I've just checked Octopus and it seems cheaper on all 4 of the above... so makes sense to at least move to Octopus, right? Octopus doesn't have exit fees, although can't find if there's a minimum 12 month contract.

Anybody recently made the same move?

It's not all about money.

https://www.ecotricity.co.uk

Been with these for about 15 years.

Peter Loo wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:44 pm

It's not all about money.

https://www.ecotricity.co.uk

Been with these for about 15 years.

If they didn't keep putting the prices up as much as some do, then there'd be more room to take into account things like how Green the company is. But as they keep raising them, it's simply forcing people to care less about it.

kazza wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:11 pm

Just bumping this. Bulb has once again emailed me to say prices are going up - they seem to be doing it often now and have become a bit of a joke...

"We're increasing our electricity unit rate from 17.714p to 19.720p per kWh and electricity standing charge from 30.756p to 31.170p per day.

We're increasing our gas unit rate from 3.234p to 3.982p per kWh and standing charge from 25.683p to 26.112p per day."


I've just checked Octopus and it seems cheaper on all 4 of the above... so makes sense to at least move to Octopus, right? Octopus doesn't have exit fees, although can't find if there's a minimum 12 month contract.

Anybody recently made the same move?

I have been with Octopus for about 18 months now and not needed to change. I drive an EV and my current average unit price is less than 10p with a 22p standing charge. My unit price is low because i have a SMETS2 smart meter and it allows me to access their tariffs where I get electricity at 5.5p kWh from 8:30pm to 1:30am.

I don't believe there are any exit fees on the tariffs.

If you are considering moving to them and you haven't already got someone to refer you:

There is a link on about the 3rd/4th post of this thread which if you click on it, there is the ability for £100 to be shared by you and me - so you get £50 free credit on your account. If you do use the referral link and would like me to donate that to the foodbank or something I am happy to do that too.