Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

Octopus can send out a thermal camera on loan. Might be a queue for it but its one of their services available to customers, plugs into a smart phone via usb

 
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Mekrel said:
Will prices ever go down? Surely those make profit from the supply of gas won't want to drop price as it's in-elastic? As in, consumption won't go up to offset the price going back down to prior levels?
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The only way it will go down again is a price war between suppliers. Thats what happened last time 5 years back. It will take someone to blink first but I don't see that happening for at least 2-3 years at the earliest. And I suspect Octopus will be the first to blink
 
Surveyor said:
Surprised you're having to cut back to pay the gas bill.


As far as I know only in newly build homes from 2025 (in the UK).
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They have already started rolling this out on new builds even ones that were already foundation laid for a lot of new build housing schemes but they are rubbish in that they place them directly under your kitchen window or similar on the patio to the back of the house and they are not small. This isn't the answer. Ground source could be but the costs are higher and not always viable but a much better solution than air source heat pump tbh. Half measures as always and the absolute minimum.
 
IHD was showing 70kWh gas used when I went to bed last night :eek:

Had to wash & dry the kids' school uniform yesterday as well, so electric usage was higher than usual @ 11kWh, so ~£11 in total for the day. Nice. :(
 
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LiE said:
Just got the business rates through, wow...

I will wait until they figure out the business relief before I take another look.

Spoke to a broker and these rates are better than what they can offer.

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So these rates have kicked in for us, painful. No sign of the relief for businesses yet, just "waiting for legislation to go through" on Scottish Power website since September.

Edit:
Looks like they have started the scheme from 1st December.
 
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delta0 said:
That boiler is around 65% efficient max if it’s running at its most optimum. A new boiler that is over 90% efficient will make a difference but as you say a poorly insulated house is not going to help things.
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Oh wow, 65% efficiency max explains things, and this boiler is no way at its optimum. So new boiler + rads that have fins on them would mean a lot more heat in the rooms for the same spend on gas.

I've made big strides on the insulation but...
This house has suspended floors and a vented underfloor cavity, and from what I've exposed the heating pipes have no insulation when they're under the floors. The ******* who lived here before laid laminate/enginered wood floors everywhere so it's impossible to get under and sort.
 
I've just moved house and with OVO apparently I can't just do a house move with them and have to close my account and re-sign up with either them or a new provider.

With the current caps in place I guess everyone's tarriffs are the same at the moment? We don't have any EV's or solar so am I right in thinking to just sign up with a provider we like the look of? Think the past tenants used British Gas as they have a BG readout screen plugged in in the office.
 
I think its always possible but seems quite unlikely for domestic

I can see a blend being introduced at some point if enough hydrogen becomes available before we switch more fully to battery tech, but thats far less likely to me than we simple move to electric only houses.

Watched a few clips on the Tesla semi and it seems way more range than I was actually expecting. Seems the way to go in that regard, where as some were thinking hydrogen for that type of vehicle would be needed.
 
Mekrel said:
Will prices ever go down? Surely those make profit from the supply of gas won't want to drop price as it's in-elastic? As in, consumption won't go up to offset the price going back down to prior levels?
Click to expand...

Maybe prices will go down later next year can't see factories will wind down production many businesses will fold and a deep recession we will all be on the dole

Cheers tory voters
 
Curlyriff said:
They have already started rolling this out on new builds even ones that were already foundation laid for a lot of new build housing schemes but they are rubbish in that they place them directly under your kitchen window or similar on the patio to the back of the house and they are not small. This isn't the answer. Ground source could be but the costs are higher and not always viable but a much better solution than air source heat pump tbh. Half measures as always and the absolute minimum.
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Thats just business though, why would you expect a home building company to pay £20k more for bore holing and a GSHP when they can install air source? All it means is your energy bills are several hundred more a year probably. You can extend that to anything in a house for that matter, why don't they build all houses with better insulation than regs, the best triple glazing, UFH everywhere, solar heating, PV, with everything required to make it a passive home? Theres no point as they don't reap benefits from energy savings and are then stuck with a house they have to sell for an inflated price to keep the same margins compared to if they didn’t. You will never get ground source over air source in new builds when the burden of cost is on a home building company.
 
Oh lol, so, I'm talking to BG now about closing my account as I've been out of the country and it turns out that the missus isn't on the account so couldn't close it, even though I'm on chat doing it now...

I manually gave meter readings on the 9th of November when we moved out of the old house.
However the BG system has gas/lekky reading from the 19th, from a smart meter apparently..

The bloody smart meter wasn't even plugged in, or in the property on the 19th...
 
Gammawolf said:
Thats just business though, why would you expect a home building company to pay £20k more for bore holing and a GSHP when they can install air source? All it means is your energy bills are several hundred more a year probably. You can extend that to anything in a house for that matter, why don't they build all houses with better insulation than regs, the best triple glazing, UFH everywhere, solar heating, PV, with everything required to make it a passive home? Theres no point as they don't reap benefits from energy savings and are then stuck with a house they have to sell for an inflated price to keep the same margins compared to if they didn’t. You will never get ground source over air source in new builds when the burden of cost is on a home building company.
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The point being it is £20k more for a home install after the fact. It is about £4k for them to be installed by the builder. And further to that the point being the regs are the issue, pushing for regs that are half assed is the problem. Not the builders directly. Also we have worked with 2 or 3 smaller developers that have already gone ground source so it isn't completely impossible but regs need to be better written and more stringent.

To that end a coupe of other developers are looking at alternatives because air source are not suitable for the level of clientel and they are likely to swallow cost and indeed increase the sales price to cover.

And yes better regs are needed for insulation/cavity increase, triple glazing, UFH, solar and PV etc. But the starting point should be at least considering the minimal footprint homes have with gardens and such ground source heat pumps rather than air source.
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Anyone else with Octopus missing Saturday (3rd) usage data?
I noticed it was missing this morning and the 4th is now there for me so 3rd seems to have gone walkies
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They have had missed data a couple of times randomly for me over the last couple years but the total still calcs up fine and ends up all correct so I haven't worried about it.
 
This week will be fun.

We have an air source heat pump as we're electric supply only. Weather has been colder so we've been averaging around £5-6 per day. That's with the heating coming on for for an average of 4.5 hours per day. Some days cost is lower as wife isn't using the washing machine and/or using the heat pump tumble dryer.

I worked out its costing around 40-50p for every hour the air source heat pump is on for heating the home. So we could stick the heating on a couple more times if needed but we've definitely changed habits from previous years. I was forever playing thermostat wars with my wife as she changed her attitude towards home energy use.

Best investment was a 15 tog duvet. Never realised its been missing from my life all these years!:p
 
Curlyriff said:
They have had missed data a couple of times randomly for me over the last couple years but the total still calcs up fine and ends up all correct so I haven't worried about it.
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Thx

Seems they updated the gas which was the one I was really after. I've been gradually increasing the temp and uptime of the heating and been trying to see how that affects the bill.
 
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