Relocation services for British Columbia, Canada

Utility costs

When you move into your home in Canada you will probably want to set up connections with:

• Electricity e.g. BC Hydro
• Gas supply e.g. Terasen Gas
• Telephone e.g. Telus
• TV (cable or satellite)
• Internet (via cable or ADSL)
• Water

This is our experience of setting up these services.

Gas

We had to pay a deposit of $560. This was repaid after a year, including interest.

Gas is the only form of heating for the house - we have a gas furnace. Our bills arrive monthly and are on average $145 or so. However this varies quite a lot. In the summer months our bill is as low as $60, but in a cold winter month (and we had an unusually cold winter last year) it can be as much as $300.

Our gas supplier is Terasen Gas. Links for setting up your accounts, covering Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, are available online.

Hydro

We paid a deposit of $275. This was repaid to us, with interest after a year.

We use electricity for cooking, and all the usual appliances. Each hydro bill covers two months and ranges from $130 to $280. So our average monthly bill is about $85.

BC Hydro is your electricity supplier. You can apply for an account online.

Telephone

Telus says that a deposit may be payable and if so is a minimum of $200. For us there was no deposit payable, but there was a $45 connection fee. Our line rental is $25. For this you get free local calls. In addition you can pay for other services, such as voice mail, caller id, call waiting, etc.

If you are calling the UK or other long distance services, it is a good idea to get a phone card. These are widely available and work by you dialing a connection number, the pin number and finally your destination number. These generally work out a lot cheaper than using the standard service.

We have also had Skype’s internet telephony service recommended as a means of making low cost long distance calls.

Your home telephone service is supplied by Telus. You can apply for a new service online.

TV and Internet

We went with Shaw’s cable tv and internet package. We had to pay a connection fee of $40 and buy the cable modem ($60) and the digital cable terminal ($200). There were a number of promotional discounts that came with this for new subscribers. These were a mixture of refunds (i.e. for 6 months there is a discount on the tv service) and additional tv channels for a trial period.

The monthly costs will depend a great deal on the package of channels you select. Shaw has a number of bundles. Within the bundle we have the internet costs $10 a month. That price is available only if you have their tv package.

The Shaw web site has a sign up form for new service.

Note that there are alternatives to Shaw.

• Telus provide high speed internet services via ADSL.
• Bell ExpressVu has a satellite TV service

Water

We get a quarterly bill from the District of West Vancouver. This covers water, sewerage, waste and recycling. Our water and sewerage is metered, as is the case for all recently built houses in the district. The other services are for the weekly collection of garbage and recycling. The district has a blue box scheme, and recycles paper, cardboard, tins, most plastics and glass. Note that many items have a recycling levy on them and you can get a few cents back from returning your wine bottles, beer and pop cans, juice cartons, etc.

Our quarterly bill for water, sewerage, waste and recycling is between $120 and $150.