Bulb Energy in Special Administration

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Bulb Energy started in 2015 and was one of the first utility providers to offer renewable electricity and gas to consumers. Unfortunately Bulb has gone into special administration due to the spike in wholesale prices.
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With the administrators now appointed - Bulb can continue to trade until the time is right for the company to be sold under the terms of special administration.

So what should Bulb Customers do, as gas engineers and plumbers have you got any insider info that can help out members who may be in this situation, or other similar scenarios?
 
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The wife and I switched to Bulb some time ago and have always been happy with them, and their prices. Let's be honest, the gas and electric is all coming into our homes exactly the same way no matter which company we go with. So it then just comes down to price and customer service as to which one you go with.

I recently heard of a bloke who had been with British Gas for 15+ years. He would have been ripped off with "loyalty benefits" - Perhaps a Parker pen every couple of years.

Switching is the way to go, as we all now know. So the way we get got these days is by providing confusing contracts and fixed prices for periods of time. But we don't really know what price they'll be charged wholesale in the future so who knows whether the price we're being fixed into is a good one.

Which energy supplier are you with?
 
British Gas still, however I do switch regularly with newer green fixed tariffs to avoid extra cost.

Currently capped energy prices on gas/electricity till next summer.
 
I think it’s British Gas, my wife deals with it all. It was Sainsbury’s energy, but think they just transferred everything to BG as it was supplied by them anyway. I have no insider information about stuff like this.
 
Dan said:
The wife and I switched to Bulb some time ago and have always been happy with them, and their prices. Let's be honest, the gas and electric is all coming into our homes exactly the same way no matter which company we go with. So it then just comes down to price and customer service as to which one you go with.

I recently heard of a bloke who had been with British Gas for 15+ years. He would have been ripped off with "loyalty benefits" - Perhaps a Parker pen every couple of years.

Switching is the way to go, as we all now know. So the way we get got these days is by providing confusing contracts and fixed prices for periods of time. But we don't really know what price they'll be charged wholesale in the future so who knows whether the price we're being fixed into is a good one.

Which energy supplier are you with?
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I was with AVRO who went bust so I was switched to Octopus by the authority. I would like to hear from Octopus users how good & how competitive on price they are?
 
I'm with Octopus and have been for a few years now. It's an electricity only tariff as we have oil heating. We also have an EV so are on the "Octopus Go" tariff. This costs 14.19p/kWh most of the day with 5p/kWh (both inc VAT) between 00:30 and 04:30hrs which is plenty of time for us to charge our EV. This tariff is due to expire in April so I expect we will see a price rise after that due to the energy market chaos but it was nice while it lasted...

Customer service has been pretty good although we did have an ongoing situation where they were not billing me due to two or three missing half-hour smart meter readings. This seemed to break their billing system and I had to chase them up a bit as well as doing some proactive payments to avoid accruing a large billing deficit. Of course I could have just put the money aside in a savings account and waited for them to actually ask for the money (interest free) but I wanted to get it sorted. It's all been fine since this was fixed and was really just a smart meter issue which is not uncommon I think.

I'm hoping to get 6kW solar PV installed next year and possibly battery storage as well so might switch to the Agile Octopus tariff so that I can pull power when the price is low (or even negative) and then consume it back out of the batteries when I have demand. To me that would be the holy grail.
 
Dan said:
The wife and I switched to Bulb some time ago and have always been happy with them, and their prices. Let's be honest, the gas and electric is all coming into our homes exactly the same way no matter which company we go with. So it then just comes down to price and customer service as to which one you go with.

I recently heard of a bloke who had been with British Gas for 15+ years. He would have been ripped off with "loyalty benefits" - Perhaps a Parker pen every couple of years.

Switching is the way to go, as we all now know. So the way we get got these days is by providing confusing contracts and fixed prices for periods of time. But we don't really know what price they'll be charged wholesale in the future so who knows whether the price we're being fixed into is a good one.

Which energy supplier are you with?
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Octopus 2 year fixed for both. Smart meters, working well.
 
Dan said:
The wife and I switched to Bulb some time ago and have always been happy with them, and their prices. Let's be honest, the gas and electric is all coming into our homes exactly the same way no matter which company we go with. So it then just comes down to price and customer service as to which one you go with.

I recently heard of a bloke who had been with British Gas for 15+ years. He would have been ripped off with "loyalty benefits" - Perhaps a Parker pen every couple of years.

Switching is the way to go, as we all now know. So the way we get got these days is by providing confusing contracts and fixed prices for periods of time. But we don't really know what price they'll be charged wholesale in the future so who knows whether the price we're being fixed into is a good one.

Which energy supplier are you with?
Click to expand...
I was with GREEN but when they went into administration I have been moved to Shell Energy...have not had a bill from them as yet.
 
Based in Country Tyrone, Northern Ireland.

I use NIE as electricity supplier and oil heating.

House is on a keypad meter so I can top up a few hundred £ before the price uplift on 13th Dec. This way Im still on the cheaper rate until I top up after this date.

House is on economy 7 as this works best for my needs. Including hot water immersion being on a timer all year around.
 
Utility point eg now edf :D
 
When my deal with Outfoxthemarket came to an end I had a good look around as I don't use a lot of elec/gas. Signed a fixed term with Eon which still has about 5 months to go and was cheaper than the new OTF deal I was offered, and glad I did! We'll see what happens next year.
 
Was with people's energy till they went bust. Got transferred to BG and it appears to be pointless changing.
BG almost immediately after we joined them started sending emails for us to increase payments. Not just 30, 40, or even a 50 pounds a month increase. But a ridiculous monthly rate more than double that we were paying People's energy.
 
Renewables are a funny thing as far as energy tariffs go. Many firms have green tariffs and do produce or buy renewable energy. The snag is that they then sell the Renewable Obligation Certificates to firms lacking renewable capacity which means the nenewables they sell subsidise the fossil energy sold by other firms. Different firms have different ways of dealing with this problem and some are merely greenwashing.

Interestingly, when the price caps kicked in, there was an exception granted to ONLY THREE firms who managed to demonstrate to OFGEM that the product they supplied was genuinely a different product that justified charging more than the cap. These were Ecotricity, Green Energy UK, and Good Energy. That no other firms were exempted tells a story..
.
 
Currently with EON for both gas and electricity. Was on a 1 year fixed rate which ran out in September. Couldn't find anyone cheaper than their renewal at that time, so on another fixed rate with them for 1 year, but no penalty for either gas or electric if I bail out during the year if a miracle happens and some deals appear again.
 
We've been with Octopus Energy for a few years now and have had no issues. Unfortunately anyone coming off a fixed price tariff will experience a pretty sharp rise in prises, ours went up by 35% in Sept but are still lower than most according to the comparison sites I checked at the time.
Looking forward, heating and energy use will be a serious consideration for many households. We have had cheap energy for a long time and in some ways sat back and enjoyed it without considering what would happen if it rises. Most people spend more on their TV and Internet services than heating and hot water! I have lost count of the jobs people have complained about boiler repair costs while passing a 60in" TV in every room! Ha, rant over.
 
Was with Symbio (electricity) and Daligas (gas) until they went under and now am with E.ON (electricity) and Shell Energy (gas).

The new 'capped' variable tariffs are considerably more expensive than my previous 12-month fix from March (about 50% up overall) and, of course, the higher prices kicked in just in time for winter so they have the biggest possible impact.

It's another example of the "A warranty is worthless if the underwriter goes bust." rule.
 
I was the octopus and I asked if they could assure me that the electricy coming into my home was green and renewable and only produced by local windmills as I did not want any other kind of electricity contaminating my circuits. They actually promised this in an email, I Rubbish you now.
 
IND_Nick said:
We've been with Octopus Energy for a few years now and have had no issues. Unfortunately anyone coming off a fixed price tariff will experience a pretty sharp rise in prises, ours went up by 35% in Sept but are still lower than most according to the comparison sites I checked at the time.
Looking forward, heating and energy use will be a serious consideration for many households. We have had cheap energy for a long time and in some ways sat back and enjoyed it without considering what would happen if it rises. Most people spend more on their TV and Internet services than heating and hot water! I have lost count of the jobs people have complained about boiler repair costs while passing a 60in" TV in every room! Ha, rant over.
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Cheap energy. You must be joking! I was paying £160 month before this crisis which was much more than for TV or internet and the difference is that I need energy wheras I can do without TV out internet if I have to. Energy and fuel has always been hugely expensive in this country compared to the USA and has never been cheap. Now the prices are ridiculous!
 
Yeah. Cheap. Trouble is our generation hasn't seen expensive energy.

My (rural) grandparents' generation used to cut wood by hand and carry it down the hills on their backs or on huge sledges. Even today, with motor vehicles and chainsaws, a couple of cubic metres of stacked firewood would probably take me a couple of days (if I were any good at it), plus better housing and more efficient heating means you don't need so much fuel in the first place and yet we can have a whole house at 20 degrees if we want. Back in the day of axes and open fires, wood was the best part of the winter's work and most of the house would have been cold, except the kitchen. Even then I'm told they usually got up and started work a long time before anyone would stop to light a fire.

Before switching to a green tariff, I was with Ebico and could earn my fuel bills in less than 2 weeks in a minimum wage job. Around £500 a year. I call that pretty darn cheap.
 
Ric2013 said:
Yeah. Cheap. Trouble is our generation hasn't seen expensive energy.

My (rural) grandparents' generation used to cut wood by hand and carry it down the hills on their backs or on huge sledges. Even today, with motor vehicles and chainsaws, a couple of cubic metres of stacked firewood would probably take me a couple of days (if I were any good at it), plus better housing and more efficient heating means you don't need so much fuel in the first place and yet we can have a whole house at 20 degrees if we want. Back in the day of axes and open fires, wood was the best part of the winter's work and most of the house would have been cold, except the kitchen. Even then I'm told they usually got up and started work a long time before anyone would stop to light a fire.

Before switching to a green tariff, I was with Ebico and could earn my fuel bills in less than 2 weeks in a minimum wage job. Around £500 a year. I call that pretty darn cheap.
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Maybe you think we should go back to living in caves! My parents first house was a small terrace with an outside toilet. Not something I would want to go back to on freezing evenings in the north! No problem for you as a plumber as you can just stick another £10 on your charges to cover any increase. Not quite the same for people already struggling to make ends meet.
 
The cost of everything is unfortunately constantly increasing, more so at the moment and the foreseeable future. My point was simply that as an overall household cost energy has been relatively competitive for years, especially in comparison to the rest of Europe. It will now be something that has to be properly budgeted for and considered when renovating homes to make them more efficient.
I really feel for anyone struggling financially at the moment as there isn't much light at the end of the tunnel. I have been in the position where the decision between food or energy had to be made and it is pretty miserable.
 
thomasar said:
Maybe you think we should go back to living in caves! My parents first house was a small terrace with an outside toilet. Not something I would want to go back to on freezing evenings in the north! No problem for you as a plumber as you can just stick another £10 on your charges to cover any increase. Not quite the same for people already struggling to make ends meet.
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To be honest, what I earn as a plumber (and it isn't a lot actually - yet to make plumbing a profitable business) is none of your business, but I have a very good idea what struggling to make ends meet means, and I am still very frugal (currently in a room heated to 15.2°C if the room thermostat in here is to be believed). People don't forget their backgrounds easily.

My point was that had we not had cheap energy, we wouldn't have developed a society (out of caves, if you like :) ) that allows us to have fully-heated homes and our generation has been very lucky to live in such times thus far. I think most people can afford £10 a week to heat and light a house (I shared the costs with a housemate anyway). For those that can't, there is obviously a lot wrong with our society, but my point is that the issue is not the price of gas and electricity as such.
 
Ric2013 said:
To be honest, what I earn as a plumber (and it isn't a lot actually - yet to make plumbing a profitable business) is none of your business, but I have a very good idea what struggling to make ends meet means, and I am still very frugal (currently in a room heated to 15.2°C if the room thermostat in here is to be believed). People don't forget their backgrounds easily.

My point was that had we not had cheap energy, we wouldn't have developed a society (out of caves, if you like :) ) that allows us to have fully-heated homes and our generation has been very lucky to live in such times thus far. I think most people can afford £10 a week to heat and light a house (I shared the costs with a housemate anyway). For those that can't, there is obviously a lot wrong with our society, but my point is that the issue is not the price of gas and electricity as such.
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Well my gas and electricty costs before the latest increases were around £1700 a year and I don't think that is cheap so we'll agree to disagree. Also it's a good few years since any plumber charged me less than £40 an hour labour (maybe I'm unlucky!) which even on a standard 35 hour week equates to £70,000 a year which is about double the amount of my pensions and my pensions are final salary and relatively good.
 
thomasar said:
Well my gas and electricty costs before the latest increases were around £1700 a year and I don't think that is cheap so we'll agree to disagree. Also it's a good few years since any plumber charged me less than £40 an hour labour (maybe I'm unlucky!) which even on a standard 35 hour week equates to £70,000 a year which is about double the amount of my pensions and my pensions are final salary and relatively good.
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If your plumber gets paid for each and every hour of his 35-hour week, he's very lucky indeed. Have you considered that out of that £40 there are overheads and lots of time spent working that isn't actually chargeable? Your pension is roughly double what I've ever earned in any job, it's well above what most 'normal' people have to live off and and I suppose it's what I'd aspire to earn if I can get the business truly thriving. I have had a family member who earnt roughly that much (though he was a workaholic didn't know how to spend it), so it still seems rather a lot to me. £70000 as a plumber is pie-in-the-sky unless you want to work nights and very long weeks and even then is probably only possible in specific areas.

But you're still using three times as much energy in your home as I am. My house takes about 4500kWh of gas and 500kWh of electric for one or two people. If you have a massive household with an extended family, then I do get it, but the cost/usage per person will at least be relatively low. If not, then the fact that you presumably choose to live in a relatively large or relatively thermally inefficient house suggests that whether or not you think energy is cheap, your action of choosing to use such a large quantity shows it hasn't been expensive enough to make you reduce your energy usage due to cost. Hope you see where I'm coming from: it's not about agreeing to disagree - it's about different perspectives (which I suppose is the same thing, now I think about it😉). In any case, it's all relative to other times in history (past, and probably future).
 
thomasar said:
my pensions are final salary and relatively good.
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Lucky you.

I infer from that you have not had to run your own small business and therefore won't be aware that the overheads will take 50% of the £40 you pay for a job before the plumber who does the work sees anything. And they'll need to put about £5 of the £20 that remains in a pension scheme in order to have enough pension to support a 'modest and prudent' lifestyle when their knees pack up and they have to retire.
 
Chuck said:
Lucky you.

I infer from that you have not had to run your own small business and therefore won't be aware that the overheads will take 50% of the £40 you pay for a job before the plumber who does the work sees anything. And they'll need to put about £5 of the £20 that remains in a pension scheme in order to have enough pension to support a 'modest and prudent' lifestyle when their knees pack up and they have to retire.
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50% overheads? Take it that's for a gas fitter who pays into trade association/competent person schemes and not just a general plumber? It feels like a high estimate, though it's entirely possible the only reason I can keep costs down is my turnover is quite limited in the first place and once that increases time becomes money. Oh dear, we're going rather OT - almost like the good old days :)
 
Ric2013 said:
If your plumber gets paid for each and every hour of his 35-hour week, he's very lucky indeed. Have you considered that out of that £40 there are overheads and lots of time spent working that isn't actually chargeable? Your pension is roughly double what I've ever earned in any job, it's well above what most 'normal' people have to live off and and I suppose it's what I'd aspire to earn if I can get the business truly thriving. I have had a family member who earnt roughly that much (though he was a workaholic didn't know how to spend it), so it still seems rather a lot to me. £70000 as a plumber is pie-in-the-sky unless you want to work nights and very long weeks and even then is probably only possible in specific areas.

But you're still using three times as much energy in your home as I am. My house takes about 4500kWh of gas and 500kWh of electric for one or two people. If you have a massive household with an extended family, then I do get it, but the cost/usage per person will at least be relatively low. If not, then the fact that you presumably choose to live in a relatively large or relatively thermally inefficient house suggests that whether or not you think energy is cheap, your action of choosing to use such a large quantity shows it hasn't been expensive enough to make you reduce your energy usage due to cost. Hope you see where I'm coming from: it's not about agreeing to disagree - it's about different perspectives (which I suppose is the same thing, now I think about it😉). In any case, it's all relative to other times in history (past, and probably future).
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I do see where you're coming from and obviously I appreciate your point re hours are not all workable.
I'm pretty careful about getting the best prices I can for things like car and house insurance but the one thing my wife and I won't skimp on at our ages is being warm so you are correct in that we could turn the heating down in winter. We also do have a reasonably large house and my son still lives at home so we have 3 adults using the shower regularly. We do have double glazing, cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and use LED bulbs but we still used 4063 Kwh of Gas and 615 Kwh of Electricity for the 2 months of October and November!
 
Chuck said:
Lucky you.

I infer from that you have not had to run your own small business and therefore won't be aware that the overheads will take 50% of the £40 you pay for a job before the plumber who does the work sees anything. And they'll need to put about £5 of the £20 that remains in a pension scheme in order to have enough pension to support a 'modest and prudent' lifestyle when their knees pack up and they have to retire.
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I did run my own one man company for several years but in a totally different area which was IT in which there were negligable overheads and lots of tax and travel benefits although I believe the rules have changed considerably since I was working. I also didn't add to my pension when I ran my own company because I already had a good final salary pension from a previous long employment which was a bad mistake as it is a hugely tax advantageous thing to do. I didn't realise a plumbing business had such high overheads so I apologise for that mistake and that obviously makes a considerable difference. I agree with you that I was very lucky in having a final salary pension and you make valid points.
 
We are with EDF. Used to be with Bulb, but moved to a new home with GEC Nightstor heating so needed a really cheap Economy 7 rate. Fixed for 2 years back in June so got in just before all was going to mad.
 
Octopus for gas and electric. Their app is relatively poor (relative to good software not relative to other energy providers), but generally like the company.

This thread has been useful - I didn't know Ovo (based in Bristol - which is my nearest town) did 3 to 5% on credit balances - that's actually quite appealing for the inevitable credit balance in summer. Saves having to adjust direct debit... Tempted to switch just for that.

Due in January 2022.
 
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