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Gas and Electricity Prices

I’ve done the numbers. Copying from my post #1646

I’ve just had a look at my numbers. SVR for gas and electric is now saying £130 a month based on projected annual usage. It looks like that will go up circa 70% in October to £220. However, the govt are dropping £66 a month into my account for 6 months, meaning I’ll need to cough up an extra £24 a month

I am going to do my numbers as well to compare, I am expecting an increase as we all our but my figures certainly don't run into £1000's a year either.
 
well that’s what they quoted are you calling me a liar?

Far from it, I am saying it beggars belief that those figures are being banded about in quotes from these companies, it is scaremongering to see that these figures seem to be the new norm & people are thinking that is the way forward in this crisis.
 
My combined usage for this month with BG is £140.
They are charging me £306 a month at present so I assume they are building me a buffer for when the cost meets the stratosphere.

Is this what is happening with these massive company quotes, trying to justify that they are buffering people ? Seems to me that they want to fill their own coffers for cash flow.

I have never paid by direct debit & never will, just save up monthly & pay on bill arrival has always been my way, maybe old fashioned but I control my outgoings not them.
 
@Joe P Spock is so cool he could rock an amazing technicolour dream cape.

In a fight Spock would easily defeat DV. Possibly using his compact Vulcan mirror - looking that good takes tools.
Spock would use his mirror like a shield causing the light sabre to bounce off, and cutting Darth Vader in half. Give or take.
 
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Vader has the mind trick, but Spock has the mind meld. The Mind trick works only on the feeble minded.

Vader 0
Spock 1

Joe
 
The costs I’ve seen to insulate are hopelessly inadequate, not remotely covering the whole job and using cowboys to do the work. This must and can be resolved. As for cavity wall insulation, many walls are not suitable, for example we have a north facing gable end into a slightly damp cellar…cavity wall insults would be a disaster, the rest of the house is solid wall. A lot of the victorian/Edwardian housing stock isn’t so different. We could rebuild but U.K. house building standards are so very poor.

There is PAS2035 which I have quoted before, I have no idea as to how this "standard" is being progressed but it offers some hope at least??

Regards

Richard
 
Maybe it is growing up with a Dad who made them sit in a freezing cold room wearing a jumper is why they put the heating on?

Funny how countries that have proper winters never sit around their house shivering in jumpers.

For context my old man worked for British Gas for 48 years and I grew up in a barn, he created his own settings on the gas fire because it wouldn't go low enough. Now when I go around to his it is like walking into a furnace, and yes he is a selfish prick.

I can’t really remember thinking I was freezing cold at the time. It’s what we were used to.
 
Good Morning All,

It's quite difficult working out what my costs will be from next January as I'm not clear what Octopus will be doing with Octopus Go.

We have circa 12kW of Solar PV, 3off 20tube Solar ET panels which give us circa 8.5MWh of electricity and 1.65MWh of hot water (although this goes to a heat store) so we import some 7.2MWh (not including the EV) per annum so we have been paying circa £100 a month. I'm looking to get another 3kW of Solar PV and a second PW2.

For some bizarre reason our contract was rolled over last January (I did query this) so we are still paying 5p off peak and 15p on peak + a SC of £0.25.

I know the off-peak Go rate has gone up from 5p to 7.5p for current users.

My contract is due to expire January 16th and I have absolutely no idea what it will change to. I'm expecting a considerable change!

Regards

Richard
 
Good Morning All,

It's quite difficult working out what my costs will be from next January as I'm not clear what Octopus will be doing with Octopus Go.

We have circa 12kW of Solar PV, 3off 20tube Solar ET panels which give us circa 8.5MWh of electricity and 1.65MWh of hot water (although this goes to a heat store) so we import some 7.2MWh (not including the EV) per annum so we have been paying circa £100 a month. I'm looking to get another 3kW of Solar PV and a second PW2.

For some bizarre reason our contract was rolled over last January (I did query this) so we are still paying 5p off peak and 15p on peak + a SC of £0.25.

I know the off-peak Go rate has gone up from 5p to 7.5p for current users.

My contract is due to expire January 16th and I have absolutely no idea what it will change to. I'm expecting a considerable change!

Regards

Richard

I’m on the same deal until October and after downloading 6 months of smartmeter data, some wrangling in Excel and guessing at the October increase I expect our bills to triple and maybe a little more.

There is an online service that will download your smartmeter data from Octopus and allow you to see actual and average usage with crazy accuracy. I’ll edit this post with the link when I’m at the computer.

Edit: Here's the link https://energy.guylipman.com/sm/home
 
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Electricity may go in cycles?

Cycles per second (a.k.a. Hertz ) Sometimes, my humour does get lost, but I do try, as others will attest.

Businesses can adjust the price of their product to ameliorate rising energy costs. So maybe not an appropriate comparison.

Up to a point, and if/when demand drops off, it's akin to a rock and a hard place, to quote that American saying. Surprised you can't see thge relevance, because unlike the energy consuming public in general, business energy costs are not subject to gov't handouts. The consequences, in extremis, are bankruptcies, lay-offs and rising unemployment, not to mention reduced GDP and reduced tax revenues.
 
2 bed 2 bath flat, top floor. It has actually gone up, I was paying £60. No doubt it will go up in Nov when my deal ends but even if it 4x it won't be the end of the world.

Ours isn't a lot more - 2 bed 1950s ground floor flat with sod all insulation (i.e. in winter we're heating the flat above!). Predicted by Bulb to go up to ~£130/month over the winter.

I think size of home makes a difference but so does whether or not you're out the house working most days. If you're working from home or retired you're going to be spending a lot more on heating (unless people leave the heating on when they're out?)
 
I’m on the same deal until October and after downloading 6 months of smartmeter data, some wrangling in Excel and guessing at the October increase I expect our bills to triple and maybe a little more.

There is an online service that will download your smartmeter data from Octopus and allow you to see actual usage with crazy accuracy. I’ll edit this post with the link when I’m at the computer.

Octopus have a forecaster thing on their website now I was playing about with it this morning.

I also got other quotes from them and they’re saying I’ll be using about £6589 of fuel next year this is their ‘loyal Octopus 12 month fix’ @ £594 per month.

I’ll post up screenshots later on.

https://octopus.energy/dashboard/new/accounts/A-1D7206A4/balance-forecast
 
(unless people leave the heating on when they're out?)

A common practice I hear of is to leave the heating on 24/7 and just to let the stat control it, theory being that it only has to kick in on small bursts to top up the temperature compared with roaring away for a couple of hours or more to heat up a stone cold house.

Mine is such that because it's so well insulated even with the heating off all day in winter the base temperature never gets super cold so it doesn't come on for long.

I get that people who work from home or old people are going to have a tough time of it, there won't be any sort of real solution in place by winter as the government are so feckless.
 
Is this what is happening with these massive company quotes, trying to justify that they are buffering people ? Seems to me that they want to fill their own coffers for cash flow.

I have never paid by direct debit & never will, just save up monthly & pay on bill arrival has always been my way, maybe old fashioned but I control my outgoings not them.
I’m with Octopus.
I control my outgoings.
I set up the direct debit and I decide how much to pay monthly.
You are, of course, paying more than necessary if you are missing out on the discount offered for paying by direct debit by many companies.
 
A common practice I hear of is to leave the heating on 24/7 and just to let the stat control it, theory being that it only has to kick in on small bursts to top up the temperature compared with roaring away for a couple of hours or more to heat up a stone cold house.

My sister/bro.-in-law use this system. theirs is a fairly new boiler and 20 y.o. detached house. I turn heating on as required, but have a very old boiler and inefficient c/h system, but the house is rarely unoccupied. Whether to keep on 24/7 or on demand has long been controversial inasmuch as to which is the more economical. I did read a research article quite some time ago which came down squarely in favour of the 'on demand' method. However, I guess this does very much depend upon the premises, occupation periods, tolerance to cold and the c/h system.

We both have cav. wall insulated houses, though mine is older and 1 bed smaller and they go out frequently and on holiday; we don't. Their gas usage is quite a bit higher than ours. Walls retain heat whether heated internally or externally and I do remember periods of absence during winter when the house has taken 2 days (but not of 24/7 heating) to stabilise.

I consider my loft to be pretty well insulated, though it only has about 4" of Rockwool under the 18mm chipboard flooring. 3 layers of old carpeting is on that and the whole loft is chock-a block with stuff right into the eaves. The EPC inspector would probably slate it as there's no tick-box for my circumstances. To add more loft insulation, I'd need to lift boards, raise joists, add further insulation, replace boards and suffer even less headroom (tricky as is). Clearing the loft sufficiently to do this is tantamount to impossible, so that's how it'll be. Don't believe in under-roof spraying and stuff.

Am I out of touch and that there are more efficient (and easier) ways to insulate nowadays? Apart from replacing Rockwool with Celotex, that is.
 
Leaving heating on is a proven false economy.

This is a rather sweeping all encompassing statement and, along with other oft quoted "truisms" so often touted that everybody believes it to be true simply because everybody "knows" it to be true.

There isn't a one size fits all solution - I can assure you that here the heating NEEDS to be on 24/7 in the heating season. We are still working on completing insulating this property but the heat pump would have too much to do if we tried cycling the heating. We have tried the night time setback thing (like we did with the LPG boiler that preceded the heat pump) but it simply proves a "bridge too far" on colder days.

It's somewhat akin to the statement that the water going out of a radiator should be 20°C cooler than that going in - I challenge anybody to achieve that in a properly set-up heat pump based system. It might have been true 30yrs ago in a traditional water based system...........

There are other "given's" that I challenge every time I see them quoted.

Regards

Richard
 
My heating is left on at the boiler. It's on right now.
It's set at 17.5°C at the thermostat.

While the house temperature is 23°C the radiators won't come on until winter.
 


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