I think they are right to do so
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Mother In Law 80+
just rang to ask if she's been ripped off by heating oil supplier of 50 years.
500 litres £ 425
we explained that that was the 'new' price given whats going on right now and actually its reasonable at 0.85 ppl
she then said 'why whats going on' ?
anyway we have had Smart meters fitted with in-house readout after resisting for years , I have unplugged the tumble drier and will be having many barbecues using driftwood and lukewarm baths once a fortnight.
This £200 'loan' was schemed-up before the turn in world events and was based purely on the post-pandemic supply driven price rise. None of the reactions to Russia were priced into peoples thoughts a month ago. It'll be a drop in the ocean when October comes around. I really don't know what some people are going to do come next winter.
Heating oil at £1.25 litre! I filled six weeks ago at 56p litre, this is going to hit non-mains gas people hard… hopefully it’s a blip but i don’t think so.
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Just been quoted £1.50p a litre for heating oil, crazy pricing.
Time to break out the electric radiators…
Just had an e-mailed letter from Octopus, from 2 April my Electricity cost for the next 12 months is estimated to increase by close to £500 and Gas by £450. They will be in touch soon with the revised direct debit details, but if I want to start increasing my payments now or make additional one off payments that would be helpful.
Comforting when a single e-mail instantly adds £80 a month to the bills :sorrow:
How accurate are these smart meters?
Can anyone help here to see if Im way out on my bills…. Which seem large
Edwardian 4 bed detached
2 skin bricks for most of the properly
Insulated to the latest modern standards in extension and loft room
Underfloor insulation for both reception rooms
Newly fitted A rated boiler
We have the house comfortable but not hot…. Two of the bedrooms I isolate and turn off a lot of the time as the eldest two are at uni
With Bulb energy
Approx 150m2 of living space
Bills are averaging ~ £340 a month over the last four months…. This seems to be ‘a lot’…. As in £100 more than I might have expected
Can this be right???
Very accurate.
You haven't said what rates you are paying? Are you on a contract? If you have signed anything recently then you may be paying over the odds.
For anyone to asses your usage, first you need to tell us how many units and at what rate you are being billed for
You can easily work out the cost per cycle/hour of any appliance using its wattage. I found I helpful to do that as it made me realise how much my wife's little electric office heater cost.
I’ve never really thought about this till today, eon just put mine up from £50 a month to £96.27 even at £50 I’m always in credit.
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My circumstances are very similar, however our house has 6 bedrooms and was built in 2000 - from previous posts around energy costs it seems the age of the property makes a huge difference. I’m on a fixed rate until the end of the year and am paying £180 a month although at current useage and price rises etc. won’t be surprised if I’m paying double in 2023
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My mums house that we sold last year was a very large 1920s semi with non cavity walls but had mostly double glazing and insulated roof it scored G on the epc rating which is the lowest another reason we sold it apart from not having the massive amount of money it would take to modernise it which corroborates your idea about age v energy costs
Rolex enter smart watch market.
https://i.postimg.cc/zDxhwG8n/FNjwv-WLWUAEi-Det.jpg
Regarding the gas, it equates to having a 36kw boiler running 6.5 hours of the day. If you also cook on gas then deduct a bit for that. As a comparison I have a brand new 3/4bed and we use the boiler for maybe 2 hours a day over this winter.
Are you running lots of baths or using a hot water feed to the dishwash/washing machine?
Those gas ££ rates are likely double by next winter if not more.
Do you have led bulbs throughout?
Dishwashers and washing machines can be surprisingly inneficient. I am slightly aghast at the amount of energy my new neff oven uses, with its stupid fan that blows cool air over the handles for 30 mins every time you finish cooking.
Ken we are with Eon, we moved into a new house last year so had a 12 month deal. Last year £1080 dual fuel, new contract from16/4/22 £2180. So £92 , not far off your £80 at a stroke.
Furthermore thats on Eon V12 which Martin Lewis said the V11 was so good it sold out. I did venture onto U switch and compare the meerkat. U switch refused to quotes as April 16th beyond price cap and Meerkat was full of warnings about switch at your peril.
Strange times, I think Ill go and cheer myself by filling the car up with petrol…………
Steve
Thank you for coming back…
6.5 hours a day? Blimey…
Yes…. I think we are all LED bulbs now…. And lots of them
That could be right as we keep the house warm 0530-0730 and then 1600-2200
The back of the house, kitchen with underfloor heating and my study I keep at around 20c as I’m working from home
We all shower (3 showers a day) although my youngest daughter can be in there for half an hour! I’m guessing this might hammer the gas a bit?
And we do have a gas hob used regularly
No hot water feed to dishwasher or washing machine
My underfloor heating does seem to be on a lot…. They are buried under quite a thick stone floor, so, I wonder if that is less efficient than I thought it might be? The advice I was given was to simply set it at a constant heat as opposed to on/off all the time
Yep…. £700 a month bills is like a bloomin’ mortgage payment…. I can’t believe how much a bill I never really thought about can creep up on you like that…
Yep we have electric under floor heating in our 3 bathrooms and have switched 2 of them off now as we realised that it was costing a lot to run and we weren’t using the bathrooms enough to justify keeping the floor warm just in case. I think the heating elements are 400w each so you can see if they are on for a few hours it will quickly add up.
We have air conditioning in a few rooms and I have been wondering whether it would be more efficient to use those in heating mode sometimes rather than having the gas central heating warm the whole house.
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These costs don't surprise me. 90% is your central heating if it's 6 hours a day. The only way to properly cut this down is wear more clothes and turn the heating down...I'm extreme, but my house is 12 to 14C. To maintain this over the last mild winter, I need 60 minutes of central heating a day. For the last week (with highs of 13 and lows of about 8) my heating hasn't had to come on at all.
I think people are in denial a bit. Being cold is just the sad reality of today's high-energy cost, eco-living. It's not all bad though...at about 4pm, I've been sat still all afternoon working from home and start to feel very cold at this point. It's good motivation to get outside and go for a 10km run to warm up a bit.
Having spent years swapping energy suppliers, I have come to the conclusion it is just a game, year on year. The savings feel good but usually end up eroded and the game begins again.
I have always thought that my time was worth more than I would ever gain.
Underfloor heating is bad to turn it off-off. Takes so long to heat up through the tiles as you correctly say.
We never turn ours fully off, but have it at 19 for a couple of hours before we get up and also in the evening. Outside of those times we push it down to 16 so never fully off when you want to boost the heat. Seems to work well for us so far.
Yep…. I’m coming to that conclusion…. Nobody would accept lower temps, so, I guess I’m stuck with big bills…. Will try and drop it a bit by stealth!
12c-14c is extreme! That is cold…. I think even I would struggle to adjust to that…. My sweet spot would be around 17c-18c
Right…. Good advice, I shall flex it slightly lower at night and whilst it is just me from home…. I also have the hot water tank on permanently as it’s super insulated and quick recovery as part of a pressurised system, but, I will try just sticking to a tank at a time
I’m also considering a pellet stove and keeping downstairs doors open
Our underfloor is set to look for 21 between the hours of 7am-10pm then 17 overnight, obviously there will be a certain amount of time ramping up to that temp in the morning, but it seems to only come on once a day.
The rad system is just used for a couple of hours in the evening to warm the upstairs up, we also have a log burner in the lounge that is normally alight from 4 onwards.
i would have to leave my flat uninhabited and unheated for a few days to even get close to that and it would have to be freezing outside.Quote:
12c-14c is extreme! That is cold
if i don’t have any heat set on the timer for during the day apart from the small amount given off by the storage heaters (modern fan/computer controlled/better insulated core ones) i still only see a low of 17-18° and thats with a half dormer roof with minimal insulation but 270mm in the roof space and triple glazed.
must be pretty poor construction to get temps that low?!
^ Pointless comparison - stone detached house vs. (I assume non-tenement) flat; plus so many other variables. Our detached house easily gets to 12-14c in winter with the heating off.
^ This is TZ.
its not pointless, it’s helped me realise i will never buy a stone built detached house!
Long term i wonder if this will have an impact on property values or the rules will have to change regarding listed buildings and conservation areas and what’s allowed to be done to improve insulation.
Following this with interest whilst thanking my lucky stars we get 300 plus sunny days a year and can get by with AC just in the bedrooms for July and August...For a quick but effective burst of heat at bedtime we find the heating function on the AC to be better than the heating oil powered CH for what it's worth...
- - - Updated - - -
Following this with interest whilst thanking my lucky stars we get 300 plus sunny days a year and can get by with AC just in the bedrooms for July and August...For a quick but effective burst of heat at bedtime we find the heating function on the AC to be better than the heating oil powered CH for what it's worth...
Apologies for repeating what I have written in another thread but as my fixed term runs out tomorrow, Octopus have just informed me my estimated energy costs are about to go from £1500 to £4500 a year. To say that I am in shock is an understatement.
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Still waiting for AVRO's administrators to reconcile and close my account and pass on the meter readings and £balance to Octopus ... Octopus will not /cannot start charging me until they have AVRO's figures; Octopus advise they cannot chase up same . I have made an 'on account payment' to my new Octopus account by 'guestimating' the ££ owed to AVRO and the ££ appears on my Octopus account ... But Octopus is ignoring the meter readings I send them ... I'll make another 'on account payment' to Octopus ... to 'lessen the blow' when my accounts are eventually sorted. Utilities accounting is not rocket science ... not impressed with Octopus, or AVRO's administrators ... do not want to enquire elsewhere as could result in an even bigger cock-up to sort out
dunk
^^^Same here, have heard nothing - from anyone - since Arvo went bust.
Mine was done first week of December so you guys are being really messed around.
You should have received an email from Octopus advising that your AVRO a/c is being transferred to Octopus ... I have received 2 emails from Octopus ... but still await the ££figures message
You should consider contacting Octopus to establish if your AVRO a/c is being transferred
Did you submit meter readings to AVRO after they announced they'd ceased trading? Do you have a smart meter?
If ever there was a time to investigate getting PV panels for the roof, this is it. Our system generated 22kw todays, of which we used 13Kw. The rest went into my Tesla Powerwall, then the hot water tank and the grid.
We lived for 30+ years in a stone built detached house in a conservation area! Our energy bills 5 years ago were £1800 ish and the house was never really warm. 2/3 foot solid stone walls , no cavity so no cavity wall insulation.
Contrast that to living in a 2020 new build where it never seems to get cold and “ old energy costs were c £950”
Got an e-mail from Octopus today, direct debit going up by £105.00 a month from April which was expected. I was with AVRO and got moved across after they went bust, but I must admit the Octopus communication is superb.
I had a water meter fitted the other week and my direct debit on that has dropped from £98 a month down to £23 a month, which helps balance the above.
Clearly we are in fluid times (pardon the pun) so I will also up what I’m throwing into a slush fund in case of any unexpected increases. If they don’t happen by next spring any surplus in that can be moved across to the watch fund - win, win.
Same here Ken
I went from Octopus to Avro then when they went pop I got adopted by Octopus should never have left as they have managed the whole thing brilliantly moved over my credit and communicated every step of the way DD going up £90 April but we generally turn heating off completely April - September so hopefully build up a fighting fund for Q4.
Anybody had an update from Bulb?
I am with EDF. My deal ended in December so am now on their variable tariff.
I have a 4 bed detatched ECO house using Ground Source Heat Pump and solar water heating.
Only electric, no gas or oil. EDF emailed yesterday suggesting I increase my payments as my bill will increase in April from £2120 pa to £3280.
Over a GRAND at a stroke, then more come the next cap review.
I saw a promoted Facebook post the other day from Martin Lewis and had a read of the comments - always interesting because you see a cross section of society and not just the people you immediately know.
Quite an eye opener that there are a lot of people really going to be hit hard and the pain is immediate as they don't have any leeway to see them through a tough patch cash-flow wise.
Most are saying things like - "I'm just going to cancel my direct debit so that the energy company can't take my money." I foresee a lot of default payments happening.
Quite a few don't seem to understand the concept of wholesale gas prices and world factors on all of this...they just blame what they see as greedy energy companies.
I think we are really going to enter an uncomfortable period of time for the next 12-months with people having to live without basic things like warmth that we have previously taken for granted.