Energy Suppliers

dLockers said:
Honestly, tumble drying towels? Just buy new towels. Probably cheaper :D
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Might well be the way we're going:p. We do use cooker/hobs every day, but I don't think an oven will use that much after it's initially started. My rad is a thermostat so I don't think it will be too bad and its only pulling about 500w and is on for 5 hours a day (in the utility to aid drying), it's not like it's a fan heater. I am going to try the plug on that too and see what it says, but the utility is an extendion so its not coonected to the central heating system. Did some more quick maths as my house baseline is about 200 Watts which builds up over time.
 
Currently with bulb on the standard variable. There are two of us in our house (2018 built 4 bed detached) and we are apparently using 6844.70 kWh of electric and 7310.00 kWh of gas a year. Electric seems really high. My partner works from our detached garage with her dog grooming business (5 dogs a day) so I guess that is where our costs are coming from :( We are paying £245 a month and Bulb are saying it's going up to £249 from April which seems incorrect?
 
MG42Maniac said:
My partner works from our detached garage with her dog grooming business (5 dogs a day) so I guess that is where our costs are coming from :(
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Surely if you are running a business from the house then those costs are being accounted for? I mean drying 5 dogs a day has to use a serious amount of electricity. My advice, 2 people living in a house that also has a business running from it during the day, GET SOME SOLAR!!!
 
Journey said:
Surely if you are running a business from the house then those costs are being accounted for? I mean drying 5 dogs a day has to use a serious amount of electricity. My advice, 2 people living in a house that also has a business running from it during the day, GET SOME SOLAR!!!
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Yeah, my partner charges a good amount so is making a very good living from it. The issue I'm having is trying to work out if our high electric costs are due to her business. The drying process uses a dryer that is 2kw and it takes her about 15 minutes per dog. 5 dogs is 75 minutes. That's about 55p a day. £2.75 a week or £11 a month. I just feel like that doesn't equate to our usage.
 
MG42Maniac said:
Yeah, my partner charges a good amount so is making a very good living from it. The issue I'm having is trying to work out if our high electric costs are due to her business. The drying process uses a dryer that is 2kw and it takes her about 15 minutes per dog. 5 dogs is 75 minutes. That's about 55p a day. £2.75 a week or £11 a month. I just feel like that doesn't equate to our usage.
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Get one of those treadmills like they used to use for horses to pump water, add it to a dynamo and stick the dogs in that
Win win, they get warm walking round and round and generate you some electricity ;)
 
theone8181 said:
Sorry should have mention I only tumble dry towels, as the mrs re kons they dry like cardboard otherwise (also being towels it ***** up washing for the week as they take so long to dry). Going to be sad and light a few things but so far ive got:

  • Washer uses 0.5kwh, probably used every other day. Rough yearly cost is about 30 quid.
  • Tumbler uses 1.5kwh per hour of use, probably used 4 hours a week.
  • Gaming on ps5 uses about 400w (TV, amp various other things on TV stand), that's used maybe 15 hours a week use.
  • Just wat hang the same TV with no ps5 on is about 300w and that can be 6 hours a day.
Going to check my electric rad, my pc and our dishwasher as I'm struggling to see how I'm averaging 10kwh a day. My Mrs helpfully suggested the led lights (which get switched off when not in a room), or phones being charged, she got annoyed when I said they were in the noise:cry:.
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Your fridge/freezer will likely be consuming around 1kWh of that. Maybe more depending on the sizes of them.
 
MG42Maniac said:
Yeah, my partner charges a good amount so is making a very good living from it. The issue I'm having is trying to work out if our high electric costs are due to her business. The drying process uses a dryer that is 2kw and it takes her about 15 minutes per dog. 5 dogs is 75 minutes. That's about 55p a day. £2.75 a week or £11 a month. I just feel like that doesn't equate to our usage.
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What about the hot water, is she using a thermally controlled electric shower tap, or gas heated water from your homes combi boiler? Perhaps get a meter installed to the garage to track the usage.
 
MG42Maniac said:
Yeah, my partner charges a good amount so is making a very good living from it. The issue I'm having is trying to work out if our high electric costs are due to her business. The drying process uses a dryer that is 2kw and it takes her about 15 minutes per dog. 5 dogs is 75 minutes. That's about 55p a day. £2.75 a week or £11 a month. I just feel like that doesn't equate to our usage.
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Sounds like you might need to get some energy monitoring plugs and plug them in to a few devices and see how much is being consumed.
 
Semple said:
Sounds like you might need to get some energy monitoring plugs and plug them in to a few devices and see how much is being consumed.
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Also the lighting needed to be considered, if it is a converted garage is it using florescent tubes or something else? A single 60 watt tube will use almost 0.5kWh per day, so over the year that is ~180kWh.
 
theone8181 said:
Might well be the way we're going:p. We do use cooker/hobs every day, but I don't think an oven will use that much after it's initially started. My rad is a thermostat so I don't think it will be too bad and its only pulling about 500w and is on for 5 hours a day (in the utility to aid drying), it's not like it's a fan heater. I am going to try the plug on that too and see what it says, but the utility is an extendion so its not coonected to the central heating system. Did some more quick maths as my house baseline is about 200 Watts which builds up over time.
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If you are serious about reducing - stop with the tumble drying; ditch the electric rad - get a dehumidifier and it'll literally suck the clothes/towels dry.
 
theone8181 said:
Might well be the way we're going:p. We do use cooker/hobs every day, but I don't think an oven will use that much after it's initially started. My rad is a thermostat so I don't think it will be too bad and its only pulling about 500w and is on for 5 hours a day (in the utility to aid drying), it's not like it's a fan heater. I am going to try the plug on that too and see what it says, but the utility is an extendion so its not coonected to the central heating system. Did some more quick maths as my house baseline is about 200 Watts which builds up over time.
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500W for 5 hours a day is still 2.5kWh / day, with current rates that's ~ 60p/day or £18 / month on its own.
 
MG42Maniac said:
Yeah, my partner charges a good amount so is making a very good living from it. The issue I'm having is trying to work out if our high electric costs are due to her business. The drying process uses a dryer that is 2kw and it takes her about 15 minutes per dog. 5 dogs is 75 minutes. That's about 55p a day. £2.75 a week or £11 a month. I just feel like that doesn't equate to our usage.
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As its business its tax deductable? And it just happens to heat your house as well I assume...
 
My Octopus new rates just came through too and slightly higher than some quotes above?

Electricity:
Standing charge 24.86ppd to 49.38ppd so doubling.
Unit rate 19.81ppu to 27.84ppu

Gas:
Standing Charge 23.85ppd to 27.22ppd
Unit Rate 3.78ppu to 7.33ppu.

Overall they reckon an extra £350 per year.
 
MissChief said:
My Octopus new rates just came through too and slightly higher than some quotes above?

Electricity:
Standing charge 24.86ppd to 49.38ppd so doubling.
Unit rate 19.81ppu to 27.84ppu

Gas:
Standing Charge 23.85ppd to 27.22ppd
Unit Rate 3.78ppu to 7.33ppu.

Overall they reckon an extra £350 per year.
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Just had the same but with obviously slightly different rates.
What confuses me is the Loyal Customer thing advertised to be £50 a year below the cap yet when I look at the figures it's more expensive than the variable tarrif?
 
MG42Maniac said:
My partner works from our detached garage with her dog grooming business (5 dogs a day) so I guess that is where our costs are coming from :( We are paying £245 a month and Bulb are saying it's going up to £249 from April which seems incorrect?
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I think you can do something with tax on the business for energy use, have a look into that or speak to your accountant about it.
 
Not sure what to do, fix or stay on flexible tariff?


Tariff details
Name: Loyal Octopus 12M Fixed..........VS.........Flexible Octopus


Electricity charges
Unit rate 37.17 p per kWh...................VS............28.46 p per kWh
Standing charge 24.11 p per day.........VS..........43.12 p per day

Gas charges
Unit rate 11.16 p per kWh....................VS.........7.48 p per kWh
Standing charge 26.10 p per day..........VS..........27.22 p per day

Costs
Estimated annual cost £1933.56 .........VS.......£1495.03
 
£1.9k Vs £1.4k and you can't figure it out for yourself. Have you added both gas and electric annual costs together.
Mines £1,111/ year electric and £599/year gas for the variable and £1,466 and £935 for the fixed and it's only for 10 months for me. We're low usage as well.
 
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No, I haven't, guess I should work that out and see what it is...

I can see that £1,495 is cheaper... I guess what I'm getting at, is do you think it's worth paying the extra £438 a year to protect from more increases in October?
 
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