I had someone from Summit Energy come to my house the other day saying they were checking the hot water tanks in the neighbourhood and replacing old inefficient ones with new Energy Star ones for free. I'm a skeptical guy but this seemed like a legitimate reason to let him in. He checked the tank and saw that it was 10 years old and said that they would replace it. That seemed like a good thing so I made the appointment to have someone come and do that. A new, energy efficient tank installed for free, you can't go wrong I thought. He said it would cost $16.45 (including tax) a month, which was just under a dollar cheaper then what I currently pay.
To do this he said he needed to see an Enbridge bill, which I provided. He saw that I was paying $0.499000 per m3 for my gas and said he could get it lowered to $0.299000 which also seemed like a good deal. We called Enbridge and locked that price in for 5 years. I didn't sign anything though, I was just given a confirmation number, the agent's name and the agent's ID number.
I realized after he left that I'd signed a "Summit Energy Evergreen Program" registration form, which is to pay $14.99 a month. With that $14.99 Summit purchases carbon credits to offset my household's electricity emissions.
I also realized while doing the math that the new tank would indeed be slightly more expensive, not less. Also, while reading the fine print of the contract I noticed it says "This tank is not currently available in ENERGY STAR qualified version". Figures.
These guys use tactics and know what to say so that you don't think to ask too many questions, read the fine print and question everything. I asked tons of questions and still missed all of this stuff.
I went online and read tons of bad stuff about Summit Energy so I decided, as per the Government's Ontario Energy Board's "10 day cooling-off period", I would contact the company and cancel everything I signed with them.
After doing that I also called Direct Energy (we were in a locked-price contract with them for 5 years, and from there they tell Enbridge what to charge us) and found out that our contract with them ended in February 2009. We were at $0.37 when the contract expired, they then put us at $0.49 for a year because we didn't contact them to renew. That ended in February 2010. I canceled outright with them. Endbridge will price us directly for the gas now and they are currently at $0.12. What a difference from $0.49 to $0.12 m3!
So, to sum up, we would've paid $16.45 a month for the hot water tank, plus $14.99 a month for the "Summit Energy Evergreen Program" and our gas would've been at $0.49. After the calls I made and the cancellations, we are now paying $13.45 a month for the hot water tank and only $0.12 for our gas. A huge monthly savings.
So, all of this to say, do not sign anything from people who come to the door, no matter who they are or for what. At least, I never will again.
