Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)

[booyaka]

Big house or just living in a barn?

4 bedroom detached - work from home, 2 kids, and the usual electrical equipment that goes with a family of 4.

Also electric car etc.

Bill was not unexpected - but to see a 150% increase in costs whilst only a 10% increase in useage is a sign of how crazy these times are we currently live in. My mortgage is less than that a month!!

 

[fez]

4 bedroom detached - work from home, 2 kids, and the usual electrical equipment that goes with a family of 4.

Also electric car etc.

Bill was not unexpected - but to see a 150% increase in costs whilst only a 10% increase in useage is a sign of how crazy these times are we currently live in. My mortgage is less than that a month!!

Ahh OK, not that bad then. How old is the house?

I'm impressed that your mortgage is less than that though!

 

[Haggisman]

Good stuff. Find a wet rainy day and crack on and don’t do what my neighbours did.

When we moved in there was the standard 100mm that the builders did (in most places, some areas were actually bare…). They had boarded a small area by the hatch and placed enough to add another 100mm up there. I checked the date and it had been there for years and the layer of dust on the top of the packaging was very thick.

6 months later and finally managed to book a couple of days off to get it done!



All the boarded section has been raised now and insulation under it - still got a couple of rolls to lay out around the edges, but should be a lot quicker and easier since there's nothing in the way - just needs rolling out so can be done ad-hoc when I have an hour here and there

Would have been nice to have it done during that really cold spell last year, but hopefully will make something of a difference in the future.

Managed to fill my car to the roof (seats down) with stuff to take to the dump, and have another load to take later this week - amazing how much junk we end up hoarding!

Everything aches now though after spending all of the past 2 days on hands and knees sorting it out!

 

[booyaka]

Ahh OK, not that bad then. How old is the house?

I'm impressed that your mortgage is less than that though!

1980's build.... Been lucky with base rate tracker for last 10 years - overpaid a lot as my rate was 0.49% over base for nearly 10 years...

 

[Goodie]

yes - I was expecting it - But still crazy to think my gas/electric is more a month now than my mortgage payments! wild times

Crazy and depressing!

 

[SDK^]

yes - I was expecting it - But still crazy to think my gas/electric is more a month now than my mortgage payments! wild times

Yep - Winter '22 energy costs are up 3-4x on last year, for everyone, who aren't still fixed on a cheaper tariff.

Use more energy, pay more !

You have a low monthly Mortgage payment

 

[the shadow]

Introducing Cosy Octopus

We're on a mission to decarbonise UK homes, starting with one of the biggest carbon culprits: home heating.We think heat pumps are the answer. They’re a tried and tested technology, and almost 4 times more efficient than a gas boiler. Plus you can power them on 100% renewable electricity. What’s...

octopus.energy

 

[bigmike20vt]

Introducing Cosy Octopus

We're on a mission to decarbonise UK homes, starting with one of the biggest carbon culprits: home heating.We think heat pumps are the answer. They’re a tried and tested technology, and almost 4 times more efficient than a gas boiler. Plus you can power them on 100% renewable electricity. What’s...

octopus.energy

looking at that it could work very well for those with home batteries and a heat pump.
i would need easier access to control my system from my phone ideally however as i would not want to have to go up in the attic to over ride my home battery to make absolutely sure it did not run out between 4pm and 7pm

i think IF i needed a new boiler i would definitely look into an ASHP but given my gas combi boiler is only 4 years old with an 8 year warranty, i wont be changing it for at least another 5 years hopefully 10

 

[ltron]

looking at that it could work very well for those with home batteries and a heat pump.
i would need easier access to control my system from my phone ideally however as i would not want to have to go up in the attic to over ride my home battery to make absolutely sure it did not run out between 4pm and 7pm

i think IF i needed a new boiler i would definitely look into an ASHP but given my gas combi boiler is only 4 years old with an 8 year warranty, i wont be changing it for at least another 5 years hopefully 10

I'm certainly going to be looking into a heat pump when my boiler packs up (or perhaps before).

 

[SDK^]

looking at that it could work very well for those with home batteries and a heat pump.
i would need easier access to control my system from my phone ideally however as i would not want to have to go up in the attic to over ride my home battery to make absolutely sure it did not run out between 4pm and 7pm

i think IF i needed a new boiler i would definitely look into an ASHP but given my gas combi boiler is only 4 years old with an 8 year warranty, i wont be changing it for at least another 5 years hopefully 10

The ASHP cost savings are not there yet, even with tariff deals like this Octo one. Prices of the pumps need to reduce significantly to make it worth while.
Of course, if cost savings aren't the main driver and using no gas is a priority for environment reasons then tariffs like this help.

Also - having an EV enabling EV tariffs is the current leader for energy cost savings.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Talking of heat pumps, this could be a game changer in regards asthetics

Roof-mounted heat pumps on trial - Cooling Post

UK: Bellway, one of the UK’s largest housebuilders, is trialling a roof-mounted air-source heat pump, developed in the Netherlands, at an experimental...Read More...

www.coolingpost.com

 

[Sinbad2000]

I don't see how heat pumps are a widely applicable solution here.
Firstly, their efficiency is somewhere around 300% if I'm not mistaken? My electricity costs more than 3x my gas per unit, so immediately there's no saving there. Also, we top off our generation with gas anyway - putting more load on the grid = burning more gas - how is this so much more environmentally friendly, especially if you have a new highly efficient condensing boiler?
Secondly, what if your house does not have a hot water tank, but your hot water is produced on demand by your boiler - will a heat pump be able to produce the over 20-30kw needed to get a decent flow of decently hot water? 30kw @ 240V = 125 amps - double the size of the main breaker in my house... Would need to upgrade to 3 phase.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I don't see how heat pumps are a widely applicable solution here.
Firstly, their efficiency is somewhere around 300% if I'm not mistaken? My electricity costs more than 3x my gas per unit, so immediately there's no saving there. Also, we top off our generation with gas anyway - putting more load on the grid = burning more gas - how is this so much more environmentally friendly, especially if you have a new highly efficient condensing boiler?
Secondly, what if your house does not have a hot water tank, but your hot water is produced on demand by your boiler - will a heat pump be able to produce the over 20-30kw needed to get a decent flow of decently hot water? 30kw @ 240V = 125 amps - double the size of the main breaker in my house... Would need to upgrade to 3 phase.

They are a good choice in some circumstances. Yep right now elec is 3x gas, but that can easily change. Part of the issue (they say they will address) is the tie of elec prices to gas prices which overinflates the price of elec.
Right now and since around xmas the wind has been doing the heavy lifting, gas far less, thats only going to get more and more significant as we get more and more wind generation and more and more solar. The issue is really how we deal with the troughs, hence the talks of storage.

You are going to have your boiler for a while yet.
There are other techs as well. Eg the hot sand storage for use for hot water, so you can use solar and top up from the grid for that. TBH my hot water tank (megaflow) loses around 2kwh of heat a day. The latest will be even better plus its mains pressure, its far superior to any combi I have ever seen

There is of course the ability to have elec showers, so 12kwh for example.
I don't think most boilers use 30kw for water either, I thought it was lower, the higher rating being for the closed loop for the heating in effect.

Its coming, its just a matter of when. Various techs will evolve so picking the best will be key.

 

[Haggisman]

I don't see how heat pumps are a widely applicable solution here.
Firstly, their efficiency is somewhere around 300% if I'm not mistaken? My electricity costs more than 3x my gas per unit, so immediately there's no saving there. Also, we top off our generation with gas anyway - putting more load on the grid = burning more gas - how is this so much more environmentally friendly, especially if you have a new highly efficient condensing boiler?
Secondly, what if your house does not have a hot water tank, but your hot water is produced on demand by your boiler - will a heat pump be able to produce the over 20-30kw needed to get a decent flow of decently hot water? 30kw @ 240V = 125 amps - double the size of the main breaker in my house... Would need to upgrade to 3 phase.

There's a constant push to move to renewables, such as wind, tidal, solar etc. An electric heat pump can use the electricity generated by these, a gas boiler can't.
Electricity prices are currently tied to gas prices, but I believe there are plans to end this, particularly as more renewables are brought online, this should hopefully push electricity prices down relative to gas prices.
For hot water, you'd have a tank which would be heated, rather than heating on demand.

They aren't perfect, and certainly IMO there's a good way to go before they are viable for the majority of people - I won't be changing the boiler in this house as it's only 3 years old with a 10 year warranty, and we will almost certainly be out of here before then, but would definitely look into it in the next place (coupled with solar & battery storage)

 

[silversurfer]

So its 16p per unit of gas from Jan onwards, ignoring the gov fix. 2.3p added from December, we are changing prices faster. I suppose that could be a positive (if we adjust down faster), from April we slip a bit upwards on the gov fix and then april 2024 we are on our own. Better have a plan by then, a year before it could get much worse then now

573.8 kWh @ 16.32p/kWh Jan 1665.0 kWh @ 14.12p/kWh Dec

I don't see how heat pumps are a widely applicable solution here.

If they arent something near to providing the majority of a bill then its not a solution. Seems like no one thing is a perfect fix at present, have more then one viable route. The ideal to me is perfect insulation, whatever the top quality possible is as you just wont need as much energy supply.

 

[Sinbad2000]

They are a good choice in some circumstances. Yep right now elec is 3x gas, but that can easily change. Part of the issue (they say they will address) is the tie of elec prices to gas prices which overinflates the price of elec.
Right now and since around xmas the wind has been doing the heavy lifting, gas far less, thats only going to get more and more significant as we get more and more wind generation and more and more solar. The issue is really how we deal with the troughs, hence the talks of storage.

You are going to have your boiler for a while yet.
There are other techs as well. Eg the hot sand storage for use for hot water, so you can use solar and top up from the grid for that. TBH my hot water tank (megaflow) loses around 2kwh of heat a day. The latest will be even better plus its mains pressure, its far superior to any combi I have ever seen

There is of course the ability to have elec showers, so 12kwh for example.
I don't think most boilers use 30kw for water either, I thought it was lower, the higher rating being for the closed loop for the heating in effect.

Its coming, its just a matter of when. Various techs will evolve so picking the best will be key.

The high rating is for the on demand water heating - keeping the heating loop warm needs a lot less power.
To heat 10l of water per minute from 10 degrees C to 50 degrees C needs 28KW of power.
Your 12kw electric shower could maybe do 5lpm from 10 to 50, which won't be much fun if you want to run a bath for whatever reason. It'll be cold by the time it's filled up!

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

The high rating is for the on demand water heating - keeping the heating loop warm needs a lot less power.
To heat 10l of water per minute from 10 degrees C to 50 degrees C needs 28KW of power.
Your 12kw electric shower could maybe do 5lpm from 10 to 50, which won't be much fun if you want to run a bath for whatever reason. It'll be cold by the time it's filled up!

yeah your right the water is higher rating. But most aren't in that range. Typically a 30kw would be a 4 bed house type size. At that size they recommend system anyway.
Eg https://www.boilerguide.co.uk/articles/best-boiler-4-bedroom-house "Most likely, a 4-bedroom house will also have more than 1 bathroom. The best boiler for such a house will probably be a system one."

Its been one of the travesties of combis, they havent been as good for many people as made out but the install cost of a combi is lower than refreshing a new system boiler and modern tank. Even though a modern system boiler itself is cheaper than a combi.
Also many people with old systems may have issues moving to a system boiler due to pressure, the old tanked systems were typically low pressure.
Most of the savings were from combis not storing hot water in an old ultra inefficient tank and their high efficiency rating. A modern system will have the same level of efficiency and very low water tank losses.

As I said, go system and never go back imo

 

[413x]

6 months later and finally managed to book a couple of days off to get it done!



All the boarded section has been raised now and insulation under it - still got a couple of rolls to lay out around the edges, but should be a lot quicker and easier since there's nothing in the way - just needs rolling out so can be done ad-hoc when I have an hour here and there

Would have been nice to have it done during that really cold spell last year, but hopefully will make something of a difference in the future.

Managed to fill my car to the roof (seats down) with stuff to take to the dump, and have another load to take later this week - amazing how much junk we end up hoarding!

Everything aches now though after spending all of the past 2 days on hands and knees sorting it out!

Sounds brutal. Not sure if I'm up to this with historic knee issues. Worked in loft for an hour before and noticed the effect of being hunched.

Would be great if could post if this has been effective

 

[413x]

looking at that it could work very well for those with home batteries and a heat pump.
i would need easier access to control my system from my phone ideally however as i would not want to have to go up in the attic to over ride my home battery to make absolutely sure it did not run out between 4pm and 7pm

i think IF i needed a new boiler i would definitely look into an ASHP but given my gas combi boiler is only 4 years old with an 8 year warranty, i wont be changing it for at least another 5 years hopefully 10

I'd still very much go for a gas if had to change now. This isn't some prejudice. It's the cost of upgrading not just boiler but pipes and radiators and insulation

 

[HungryHippos]

If my gas boiler died today I'd also do a gas one, ASHP just isn't ready to directly replace my combi boiler and costs a boat load more to get.