Perhaps you are looking to save on your bills and something you should look at is whether or not it is worth changing the electricity and gas rate . It is possible that you are thinking of changing companies and in this article we are going to explain what you should take into account. The objective, logically, is to switch to a rate that is cheaper for you and meets what you really expect. It is useless to change you to worsen the conditions.
What to look at before changing the electricity or gas rate
Keep in mind that you could change your rate without changing your electricity company. But basically it is the same thing that you should take into account when choosing both electricity and gas. Do not make mistakes and take a good look at all these aspects to avoid surprises in the future and end up paying more.
If you have permanence or not
This is key. Many electric and gas rates have a permanence . That means that you will have to maintain that rate until a certain date or pay a penalty for breaking the contract. Be careful with this because it can sometimes seem like a very tempting offer, but you actually lock yourself in for a while.
Does this mean that it is always better without permanence? No, since sometimes it might interest you. Everything will depend on what you are looking for, if the offer compensates you or not, etc. But take a good look at this point before tying yourself to a rate for a while.
Analyze your previous consumption
You should also analyze how much you have consumed so far. There are rates that can be very interesting, but not for all customers. That is to say, perhaps for people who spend a lot of electricity they are interested in contracting a certain rate, but for other people who spend less, no. Same with gas.
Therefore, analyze your previous consumption well and for this you can pull bills from previous months. Ideally, you should take a good look at spending for a whole year and not focus only on a few months, since consumption in January is not the same as in July. Especially in gas consumption you can see very important differences and it is best to take an annual average.
Time discrimination or not, in the case of electricity
This point can be key to savings and will also depend on each case. We are talking about hourly discrimination in the electricity rate, the fact of paying more or less depending on the time of day. If, for example, you work outside all day and are only home at night and on weekends, it is certainly worth paying less for those hours when you are going to use electricity.
On the other hand, a family in which there is always someone at home and there are usually no differences in consumption in terms of hours, it is normal that a rate with hourly discrimination does not compensate them. But as we say, it will depend on each case; another factor to take into account before contracting a new rate. You can analyze the consumption of specific household appliances and that will help you choose on occasions, although you will have to connect them to the network and avoid problems with repeaters.
Joint offer of electricity and gas?
Sometimes you can find specific offers if you contract both electricity and gas with the same company. If you are going to change both rates, check this as you may be interested in having everything with the same and not each thing separately.
However, it is a subject to analyze and it will not always be the same. It will depend, once again, on each case. But yes, it is another point that you should check before deciding to hire a new rate.
Does it include maintenance?
If you are interested in having maintenance , for example an annual inspection of the gas boiler, check whether or not that fee includes it. You will always have to pay more for it, but it is not the same to contract it later than to do it at the same time that you contract that rate, since it can be included and it will be cheaper.
If this does not interest you, simply avoid contracting a rate that has maintenance. You will save money every month. In many cases it even pays more to notify someone to do punctual maintenance.