I must have a well Insulated house, I have my heating set to come on twice a day (6-7am and 6-7pm)for an hour each time to 21c, and in between the temperature has never dropped below 17.5c even over the last couple of nights when the temperature was -2c outside
Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
- Thread starter DXP55
- Start date
If you have nothing to hide then what is the problem
Ive seen many posts on social media of people bi-passing their energy meters and like that article mentioned - It’s the custimers picking up the bill from these people.
If a small percentage of engineer checks turn out to be legit then great, move on.
Man of Honour
How often do you guys ask for a refund from your supplier? I argued with them that the direct debit they've put me on is way too high. And even with winter gas usage and less solar we're well under the direct debit. At what point do you guys ask for a rebate?
Last edited:
Soldato
Urgh - had to finally relent and put daughter's storage heater on as there's a lot of black mould forming in her room. 3 x heaters = £10.41 usage so far today. Not sure how the hell I'm going to afford that. One heater on downstairs to heat all of downstairs, and one small one on the landing to heat two bedrooms and the bathroom, and one is daughter's room. This is obscene :/
Caporegime
£2.30 to keep our house above 14 degrees from 12am 8am this morning. Think it went don't to about -5 overnight outside. Poor house and poor wallet.
How some people are keeping their house warm for £5 when they haven't got a modern super insulated house is beyond me. Are those people on fixed deals?
How some people are keeping their house warm for £5 when they haven't got a modern super insulated house is beyond me. Are those people on fixed deals?
Considering the house size and only 2 people in then it isn't outrageous if they are there all day, this is the problem older people face, they feel the cold more acutely and they tend to need their homes heating all day. My own gas use increases a lot in winter compared to summer (as does most peoples) and if I took an annualised rate of my Dec/Jan/Feb usage my per annum bills would be a lot higher as well.
Bloody Nora, £7300 per annum if they kept that up!?!
That seems excessive, you going to check it out?
Last edited:
Caporegime
Its also complete BS because currently we are spending about £10+ a day on heating and electricity and its -2 outside. In the summer we will spend about £3/day if that. For probably 8 month a year we spend ~£3-4/day rather than £10+.
Calculating yearly energy costs based on one of the likely coldest spells of the year isn't a good or accurate measure.
Power cut?
Soldato
Currently averaging about £8-10 a day for gas use to keep 4 bed detached at 21c from 6.30am - 10.30pm then 18c over night. Thank goodness for the £500 WFP I get from my parents!
Associate
Down to-7C here last night, still -5.9C at 9AM.
Loaded up the stove to take us through the night, not to bad at 17C indoors this morning.
Going to be a battle this week as the cold just builds up in the stone walls of this old house.
Soldato
Had both storage heaters on 75% last night and we used £7.60 electricity, so likely to go over £10 total usage today.
It's 17.1c here in the living room where I work when WFH, and outside temps went down to -5c overnight.
A thermometer on the windowsill, inside the living room, is reading 6c! It's about an inch away from the glass, which is standard uPVC double glazing. Closing the curtains will probably retain some heat, but I like looking out of the window and getting some natural light in here.
It'll feel much warmer in here after a lunchtime winter walk!
It's 17.1c here in the living room where I work when WFH, and outside temps went down to -5c overnight.
A thermometer on the windowsill, inside the living room, is reading 6c! It's about an inch away from the glass, which is standard uPVC double glazing. Closing the curtains will probably retain some heat, but I like looking out of the window and getting some natural light in here.
It'll feel much warmer in here after a lunchtime winter walk!
Last edited:
I feel your pain. One part of my house has only got storage heaters and my daily electricity went up from about £4 a day to £15 once they were on. The difference in price in % terms has shrunk between economy seven and day prices as well as overall price increases. I'm experimenting if more controllable localised infrared electric heaters can do a job instead because a 500W one of those on day rates costs less per hour than each 2KW night time storage heater to recharge. They don't heat the air so in theory their only expending effort heating the objects - basically like being microwaved!
Rest of the house is gas which has now kicked in big time with the temperature drops. I think my overall energy bill for December is going to be north of £800. I'm lucky enough I can afford it with cutbacks on spending elsewhere but I feel absolutely devastated for so, so many people for whom this is crippling. Folks I know were saying they weren't overly worried after seeing November bills and wouldn't listen when I explained how mild it was and they need to buckle up for a tough ride and now it is starting to really hit. Never thought I'd see the day when my energy bills were more than my mortgage payment
Although that might change when I come off my fixed rate next year! It's like a competition as to which can bankrupt me first.
Associate
- Joined
- 23 Dec 2008
- Posts
- 1,043
@danlightbulb checked this morning and it's finally registered all the readings since 11 June, hopefully yours may be fixed as well.
Edit: British Gas for people wondering what I'm on about
Last edited:
Associate
- Joined
- 23 Dec 2008
- Posts
- 1,043
Comparing 8th Dec gas costs since I moved into the house:
Dec 8th 2020 : £5.02 156kWh
Dec 8th 2021 : £3.78 83kWh
Dec 8th 2022 : £7.14 88kWh
2020 I was mid renovation and missing loft insulation in many places >.<
Dec 8th 2020 : £5.02 156kWh
Dec 8th 2021 : £3.78 83kWh
Dec 8th 2022 : £7.14 88kWh
2020 I was mid renovation and missing loft insulation in many places >.<
Had my highest day so far yesterday for gas usage, used 44.59kWh vs. 36.37kWh the day before, so about £5 with standing charge. The boiler has started making a slight whine/harmonic when it's running. I think it's the fan as it happens with both heating and hot water. Guess I'd better try and get an engineer out to replace it before it pops in this cold spell.
I tested it.
I put on the CH for 2 hours, it hit a peak room temp of 16.4C towards the end but most of the period was lower than 15C (ambient temp of 12C), really struggled to get the temp up, in those 2 hours it consumed an extra 31.2KwH according to smart meter. So a cost of around £3.10 rounded down a bit. (10.24p KwH)
I then put portable heater on and adjusted it to hit 16C, not only did it get it there very quickly, it was also blowing the heat at me so I felt it much more, it used up around 1.4 KwH extra for those 2 hours. At a estimated cost of 46 pence. (33p KwH)
You seem to have put more effort in to understanding this than others, so I hope you can understand the rationale here.
I am not wanting to use the heating for long periods of time (as you said GCH has a cost associated with starting up/warming up), and I dont care about heating areas where I am not there as I consider it a waste of money. On top of this my property has really bad heat retention so it needs something capable of blasting out heat in a targeted area to overcome it. The rest of the room away from the blast of the heat may not feel as warm, but it doesnt matter as I am not in those other areas.
Every single thing I have watched or read about GCH been cheap seems to be based on a ton of assumptions.
Typically the following.
Property has good heat retention (double glazed, insulation etc)
Modern boiler
Room thermostats
Good piping and radiators
Exposed radiators
Requirement to heat the whole house
Wanting to use it for long periods typically at least 6-8 hours. (cost per hour goes down the longer its used)
--
I am going to test cost of electric blanket wrapped around body. Probably will work out the cheapest of the three providing it can get warm enough.
There also seems to be no scientific measurement of the amount of KwH needed for gas to heat vs Electric, essentially they are assumed to be the same efficiency and they quote lower gas unit prices as meaning its cheaper.
Last edited:
Soldato
I'm just on the standard variable rate with Octopus.
Here's my gas usage over the last week. Not sure how to convert it to £, I'm just going off the readout on my smart meter.
1m3 of gas is approx 10.9 kwh of gas, I say approx as it's not perfect but it would be fairly close for almost everyone.
so 4m3 per day, would be around 43.6 kwh, approx pricing of £0.10 per kwh would mean £4.36 per day not including SC.
These numbers aren't perfect but close enough.
Thanks, good example of how variable GCH is from property to property, not all properties are equal, and not all heating systems are equal.I'm just on the standard variable rate with Octopus.
Here's my gas usage over the last week. Not sure how to convert it to £, I'm just going off the readout on my smart meter.
You are using less gas per day there, than I need to use to heat water for an hour.