Gas and Electricity Prices

[Cav]

It doesn’t help that utility companies are sending out messages that they are reducing the DD because of the £66 sub off the govt.
That’s fine and dandy until tomorrow when the new rates come in and our prices will go up on average by 27%. Why didn’t they say keep paying your DD as before and the £66 will help reduce the inevitable increase?

EDF have told me that the refund will be paid into my bank account in 6 monthly instalments so the DD will remain as is.

 

[Bob McC]

Octopus have a tool on their web site that allows customers to see the predicted trajectory of your account balance. They have a new "Crystal Ball" button that recalculates to include tomorrow's rise. I thought I was looking peachy until I hit the "Crystal Ball" button (2nd pic).

Quite.
My DD serviced the old rates.
The rate has gone up.
So I am keeping my DD as it was and using the £66 bung to ameliorate the increase in cost from today.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I've cut down it's hours of "daylight" by means of a timer switch. But it will shortly need to join us downstairs and take it's chances with the Scottish winter. I did look into how to hibernate them, but it seems very complicated. When I was a kid they were just shoved into a shoe-box and put in the shed until spring. Health & Safety gone mad nowadays.

Maybe it should be put to earning its keep? If it’s fairly large, maybe it can be a door stop, or if it’s small, try it out as a record clamp, perhaps?

 

[Mike Reed]

EDF have told me that the refund will be paid into my bank account in 6 monthly instalments so the DD will remain as is.

Strange that they should differ in delivery, as it were. Octopus will be adjusting the dd as far as I know, which seems the more logical step. Oh well, whichever way as long as the refund arrives at roughly the same time as (and pref. before) your dd goes out.

 

[matt j]

Mines up in the air now because even though I am on a fixed tariff until end of Nov (so in theory my DD should go down) all being well I should have moved by then and the new place is nowhere near as insulated/efficient as this place so I've no idea what I'll be using until I've been there a few months.

 

[TheManWhoBuiltTheMoon]

This will be the first day I am actually measuring what I use. My pre pay meter displays cash rather than units. So far I’ve measured from 10am to 5pm. I had a pc running all that time. I also had a 10min shower and used an air fryer for 10 mins. The kettle was boiled twice. All that cost me 78pence. I’m starting a new one now as I switch on the hifi and light. This will be running for a few hours.

 

[Mike Reed]

All that cost me 78pence.

Even assuming your hifi and lighting adds another 72p, that's pretty good going. However, you don't mention fridge/freezer, microwave, telly and heating etc. so maybe you live a very frugal way of life. However that 10 min. shower on (presumably) a 9.5 kW unit surprises me to be included.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Don't worry James, you aren't the only one. Martin Lewis has been all over twitter these past couple of days fighting the same fires from people who were in the same boat. They should have never mentioned this bloody £2500.

TBH I suspect that this initial use of a vacuous "average bill" figure was ideal for those who wanted to camo the real impact. Particularly on those who are stuck with pre-pay meters. However I've heard since claims that it was people are too dim to work out their own pre-rata bills given the amount per kWh + per day. The vague "energy bills" may also have mislead some to assume that meant the *combined" gas + electric bills.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

FWIW We have now finally got around to upgrading our house insulation. Had been as per 40 years ago. Now somewhat better. In the fairly long run that should help. But of course means a big up-front payment which will likely take years to recover in terms of impact on high energy bills.

FWIW I cheer myself up most days by looking at
https://grid.iamkate.com/
and seeing how often the 'green' sources contribution match or exceed the fossil ones.

Sums it up, perhaps: Tory = fossils : Others = Green.

Quite please with Stare-more's committment to green and a national company. But I wish he'd dump including no-clear as it is a boondoggle with a seriously bad refuse disposal problem, and any new nuclear gen won't come anything like as soon as 2030. Whereas we could easily ramp up green massively by then.

 

[matt j]

TBH I suspect that this initial use of a vacuous "average bill" figure was ideal for those who wanted to camo the real impact. Particularly on those who are stuck with pre-pay meters. However I've heard since claims that it was people are too dim to work out their own pre-rata bills given the amount per kWh + per day. The vague "energy bills" may also have mislead some to assume that meant the *combined" gas + electric bills.

I don't think that it's people are too dim, it's that energy has been so cheap for the past umpteen years that nobody (normal people at least) really paid any attention to how many kWh they were using, either monthly or annually, they just sent off the meter reads and paid the direct debits. Now all of a sudden they're expected to be energy experts to work out tariff swaps, variable rates, kWh consumption etc.

There will always be those people who have counted exactly how many ticks of the gas meter they've used and can provide you with paper records dating back to 1964 and who will roll their eyes at us clueless normies, but lets be honest nobody really cared until now.

 

[TheManWhoBuiltTheMoon]

Even assuming your hifi and lighting adds another 72p, that's pretty good going. However, you don't mention fridge/freezer, microwave, telly and heating etc. so maybe you live a very frugal way of life. However that 10 min. shower on (presumably) a 9.5 kW unit surprises me to be included.

Forgot about the fridge as that’s always on. Tv was not used at all nor a microwave. Hifi and Wi-Fi with the light running until 2am cost another 50p. The heating was also not used and the boiler is set to eco mode which o it heats the water when used and not randomly through the day.

 

[dweezil]

Nobody seemed to care in Braintree yesterday, shops were packed, car parks full and we saw queues of dozens at the checkouts.

 

[Mike Reed]

Nobody seemed to care in Braintree yesterday, shops were packed, car parks full and we saw queues of dozens at the checkouts.

Day one only! Wait until the minimum period of monthly bills start coming in. Check your Braintree survey again in early November or after the cold snaps appear.

It was whilst surveying Braintree (annual retail directory) one early morning that I chatted to a shopkeeper vacuuming his immediate area with a Numatic Henry. Bought one as a consequence and never looked back; bloody awkward but efficient. That was in the good old days of 1200/1400 + watt motors before EU interference.

 

[Seeker_UK]

That was in the good old days of 1200/1400 + watt motors before EU interference.

I hope this is tongue in cheek, Mike, because the one consequence of this "EU interference", has been to force manufacturers to make their products more efficient; my current Vax has an 850W motor and that picks up a load more than the one with the 1200W motor it replaced. A Henry is not very efficient at all, it's only saving grace is it's virtually bombproof (fewer moving parts) and easy to fix.

 

[Minio]

Nobody seemed to care in Braintree yesterday, shops were packed, car parks full and we saw queues of dozens at the checkouts.

Holidaying on the North Norfolk coast recently and visiting towns like Holt, Sheringham and Cromer, the numbers crowding out the pavements, shops and cafés was overwhelming.

Mind you, I don't get out a lot.

But the EPG and £1200 for the poorest should maintain a similar economic buoyancy I would think.

 

[matt j]

Breaking news: people unaffected by dodgy government and huge energy bills seen out spending money.

 

[Mike Reed]

I hope this is tongue in cheek, Mike, because the one consequence of this "EU interference", has been to force manufacturers to make their products more efficient; my current Vax has an 850W motor and that picks up a load more than the one with the 1200W motor it replaced. A Henry is not very efficient at all, it's only saving grace is it's virtually bombproof (fewer moving parts) and easy to fix.

Ha ha! We've just replaced an old 1200 watt Henry and 1400 wattGoblin with an 800 watt Hoover and agree that things have moved on; it's pretty good though how a lower wattage can equal greater suction power is, I'm afraid, a bit beyond me.

The Henry WAS a p.i.t.a., always getting in the way, but (almost) bombproof, as you say. Surprised that the E.U. had such an effect of the technological progress of vacuum cleaners. The new Henrys are also low wattage now, and smaller with it, but hopefully still with the 5 litre bag. B.t.w., even a Henry gets to the state of being unfixable, at least here, it seems.

 

[Minio]

Breaking news: people unaffected by dodgy government and huge energy bills seen out spending money.

I don't think I've ever seen that in the news.

Pound tanking, markets spooking etc, is all I ever see and hear in the (Tory?) media.

Times Radio this morning referring to Kwarteng as an idiot and Truss having no communication skills.
Then counting the letters of no confidence, already, to the 1922.

That's the only breaking news I'm getting.

 

[Bob McC]

Ha ha! We've just replaced an old 1200 watt Henry and 1400 wattGoblin with an 800 watt Hoover and agree that things have moved on; it's pretty good though how a lower wattage can equal greater suction power is, I'm afraid, a bit beyond me.

The Henry WAS a p.i.t.a., always getting in the way, but (almost) bombproof, as you say. Surprised that the E.U. had such an effect of the technological progress of vacuum cleaners. The new Henrys are also low wattage now, and smaller with it, but hopefully still with the 5 litre bag. B.t.w., even a Henry gets to the state of being unfixable, at least here, it seems.

How many Watts a vacuum cleaner has have nothing to with suction or airflow, despite what the rabid anti EU press would have had you believe.

 

[Mike Reed]

How many Watts a vacuum cleaner has have nothing to with suction or airflow, despite what the rabid anti EU press would have had you believe.

So I'm coming to believe, though obv. there has to be a limit or the wattage would be even lower.