Setting up utilities when buying a new home is one of the most important things that need to happen to make your move as easy as possible.
You want to make sure that you have electricity, water, gas, and internet hooked up and ready to go within the first few days of you moving into your house. You should start this process 3-4 weeks before your moving is scheduled.
How To Set Up Utilities When Moving Into a New Home
There are multiple steps that you need to take in order to set up utilities as you are moving into your new home. By following the steps below, you should be able to remove a lot of the stress that comes within the first week of being in your new home.
Find Out Which Providers Are Available in Your Area
If you are moving to a different county or state you may realize that the utility providers that you currently use are no longer available. There are usually 1-3 providers for each type of utility and they are going to vary depending on the location of your new home. You are going to want to get this mapped out early so that you can plan out when each one is going to need to finish their set up so that you are ready to go while moving in.
You can use InMyArea’s utility checker to see which utilities are available at the address of your new home, which will make your life much easier. Just enter your new zip code into their search bar and click ‘Search’. The full list of available utilities will show up and you will be able to cross-check them with your current providers and keep the ones that you are happy about!
Creating Your Accounts
This step is one that should not take a ton of time, but will be extremely useful if/when the chaos of the move is upon you. You are going to want to set up your accounts with the utility providers that you prefer and contact them with your move-in date and have the service scheduled for one day before move-in day. This will allow the companies to get everything set up before the boxes are moved in and unpacking begins.
Make sure that you have a firm move-in date before scheduling any of these set-ups because most utility companies will require it. As you are on the phone with them, you should definitely ask them about any new homeowner discounts or monthly specials that they are running. This can help cut some of your initial costs and those funds can be spent on other necessities.
You should also create any online profiles for these utility companies and keep all of the usernames and passwords in an excel sheet or a password manager (We love 1Password and use it for personal and word-related credentials). We have had to reset our passwords to the TV provider at least 5 times because it was not saved in a shared password manager.
Communication With Utility Providers
The communication with each provider is going to be different depending on what you are doing with the provider. Below are all of the scenarios that you can face:
Canceling Utilities
If you are going to be moving to a different provider from the one that you are currently using you will need to reach out and terminate the agreement that you have with them. You are going to want to reach out 2-3 weeks before your move-out date to give the companies time to close out the account and schedule time with a technician to shut off the utilities in the home 1-2 days after you move out. This will allow you to have a little bit of a cushion in case you need to stay for an extra night or need to stop back in to grab any small stuff that did not make it on moving day.
Transferring Utilities
If you are able to keep your same provider you will need to give them a call and let them know that you are moving into a new house and need to edit your current information with the updated address. You will need to let the company know exactly when you are leaving your old house and moving into your new one so that they can do everything on their end to shut off and turn on the utility for you.
Adding a New Service
If your new home requires you to set up a new service that you did not have in your old house you can start off by visiting the website of the provider to see if they have any online forms to let them know that you are a new customer. If they do not have any online forms, you are going to need to give the company a call, let them know that it is your first time using the utility that they offer, and have them explain everything that you need to do in order to get it set up properly.
You will most likely need to give the company payment and personal information at this time, so you should have all of it readily available to make the process easier.
Make Sure You Are Set Up & Shut Off Properly
On moving day one of the first things that you should do when you get to your new home is check all of the utilities to make sure that they are all running properly. Catching any mistakes on the first day will allow you to contact the company and let them know that you need someone to come to your home as quickly as possible because there is an issue.
You also want to make sure that all of the utilities are shut off in your old house so that you do not get charged for services that you are not using. This is something that can cause a lot of problems at the end of the month when your account gets charged a lot more than you are budgeting for.
Steps You Can Take To Test Your Utilities
- Hook up your TV to the cable box and turn everything on
- Flip all light switches on and off
- Flush all of the toilets in the house
- Turn on all of the showers in the house
- Turn on all of the faucets in the house
- Run the garden hose if you have one on the exterior of your house
- Connect to the internet on your phone and laptop/computer
- Check all of your old accounts to make sure that everything was shut off on the date that you scheduled. Make sure you keep all confirmations from the utility companies so that you can use them if they cause issues.
There are a lot of steps that go into setting up utilities when you are buying a new house, but doing the work in advance will save you a lot of trouble during the week of your move. You can always utilize the company’s help centers if you have any specific questions and check out their websites to learn about what steps you need to take when move.
We hope this is removes some of the stress that comes with moving and can’t wait for you to enjoy your new home!