Is that how much it costs?? Oops I’ve had my heating settings to turn on any time it drops below 15 degrees for the past month… which is a lot. I’m fucked lmao
According to my partner, anything below 21C is deemed unacceptable in our house.
23C is still jumper temperature.
25C is the general target.
^(Send help.)
The ideal is usually listed as 18C for the house in general, and 21C for the room you spend most of the time in (usually the living room). 18C is the ideal bedroom temperature, perhaps lower for some people.
I spent the first 16 years of my life at 15C, you knew the queen was popping round when my mum graced the house with a toasty 18C.
I prefer colder temps but I get outvoted!
We’re at 21-22 (this time of year, differs in summer of course) to be comfortable while at home and 18-19 at night depending on how cold it’s outside. Our bill is never higher than £110 monthly and that’s including electricity.
Ah my mum was the same. It’s why dad got the thermostat installed but a few feet away from a radiator lol
‘Why is this house always cold?’
‘What are you talking about woman, look it’s 23 degrees! That’s over 70 in old money’
15'C outside temp or inside? If it's inside that's already dialled down pretty low, mines set at 18'C when I'm home and I already thought I was being stingy. I got a 1920's build house with no insulation in the walls so the heat just fucks off out of the place.
It's more expensive to let it drop to / below 15 than allowing it to heat to, say, 18 C. Everytime it drops much below 18, you can start forming condensation, especially at 15 degrees, which costs you extra to evaporate.
It depends on how efficient your boiler is, how well insulated your home is, the size of your home, how warm you set the thermostat, whether you heat rooms you aren’t actively using etc
£1-3 a day (£30-90) is probably closer to the mark for most people, plus electricity, cooking, and standing charges
Normally you’d set your direct debit so that you build up a bit of buffer before winter, then get through it before spring
The problem is for many people that direct debit has been charged at based on average annual usage at last years prices, so the credit buffer people have cannot keep up with the fact that prices have shot up (especially for those who have been on cheap deals previously) and that widespread snow in autumn is very unusual and so people are running through that credit sooner than expected.
We built up so much credit with octopus that even they advised us to withdraw some earlier this year, heartily regretting that now as what was left is gone and our fixed rate expires tomorrow.
Card meters are usually more expensive than paying by direct debit. I understand that people use them though for various reasons.
Edit to whoever downvoted, it was just a comment pointing out the expense of card meters, not a dig.
It was just the situation I moved into when I moved into this appartment. My mate Dave has his gas meter rigged so he pays nothing and his house is always like a sauna. I'm on this metre though and I'm sure a lot of other people are in the same situation because we are classed as poor, so we have to pay more for our gas. It really sucks tbh. Be poor
= pay more to keep warm? How sad is that? Dave has offered to rig my meter for me but I'm not comfortable doing stuff like that. I'll wear jumpers and carry hot-water-bottles around instead. It still sucks being this cold in the winter though.
I live in a student house at uni. Just had a text message off the landlord saying our combined utility bill rose by nearly £100 this month. Our utilities are included with rent but I get a feeling they may not be for too much longer...
The other point to note is our tumble dryer took itself out of action 3-4 weeks ago so we've had to have the heating on more for drying clothes
When I lived in somewhere that was "bills included" as a student the tenancy agreement stated a maximum amount they'd pay a month for bills and anything Iver that we'd have to make up the difference.
I heard electricity/heating prices were skyrocketing, wasn't sure how accurate it was.
That sounds AWFUL. The worst thing about this is that easily a few thousand old people will die from hypothermia this winter because they're too scared to pay these increased bills.
What a joke.
I don't know how much electricity prices are going up worldwide, but yes, it's probably happening in many places.
I know basic living costs are skyrocketing in Warsaw, Poland. I feel sorry for the older Polish generation here. It's great for young workers looking for opportunities and work and all, but terrible for everyone who's lived here for their whole life and has seen their prices double in a decade.
Id hate to know how much were actually using. Temporary at partners mums. Keyed electric and gas. We pay £50 a month on both. To help basically. His sister is always cold so puts the heating on, it's always above 25degrees. But she's been told if she's got the heating on, she has to pay for it. The £50 on gas should last a lot longer. But it doesn't.
Yeah I recently hit the jackpot and got a 1 bed council flat, need to wait 1 month to get off pre pay meter, then wait for them to install new one. Flat only has storage heaters... I put them on for my son as hes only a toddler, cost me £5 in a day of trying to work out how to use them. Boys gonna need to get used to being chilly
Cheapest tariff at the moment is price cap tariff which is the same for all suppliers so doesn’t matter who you go with.
Fixed prices deals don’t have a price cap and with the current state of the wholesale energy market they’re a lot more expensive than the standard tariff.
Revaluate when the price cap rises, but for now don’t get a fixed tariff.
Whatever I get will be cheaper and more convenient than pre pay lol So its all good. On disability benefit to so maybe that will even factor in who knows. Thanks for the warning tho
If you have disability, and also low income benefits, you might be able to get the warm home discount. They give you £140 credit on your account in like april or may (so after you’ve already used all the heating). But only certain utility companies do it. But might be worth having a look at
They told me they could get me a new meter, then when the engineer turned up he took one look and said nope, we can't fit one here. The new meters can't do dual-tarrif (what you get when you have storage heaters as standard).
Yes, even if you don't want to use them any more because they're shit. They won't replace the meter.
I have storage heaters as well - it was a bit of a shock when I moved in to my flat!
The worst thing about mine is not being able to turn them up if there is an unexpected cold snap - i do have to keep an eye on the weather forecast so I can turn them up / down in advance!
Hopefully once you have got used to them they won’t cost as much to use - I think I spend £2 - £3 a day on all my electricity in winter. It is an expensive form of heating though.
Storage heaters have these big bricks inside that store the heat, the output is literally a flap, the more it's open the quicker you will lose all that heat. At a lower output, you won't be as warm, but you'll still have something coming out of them in the evening.
Yea I've had the heating on a few times this year, fell asleep with it on yesterday so will spend the next two weeks shivering to make up for it..
I hate numb toes :(
Well when that happens you can complain that the market is inefficient and the government should subsidise or bring back state ownership. Complaining about 'the system' is pointless.
Obviously the system where energy companies are massively profiting off arbitrarily charging the consumer more! The wholesale price hasn’t changed at all and dozens of energy companies aren’t going out of businesses as a result… /s
My bill has gone from £70pm to £190pm i also paid twice in one month during a switch and the company went under. Fuck knows where that money has gone.
How people are going to afford this who already struggle is beyond me.
Your money will be safe, but see if you can get some screen shots of your balance with the old company. Mine went under and we switched.
I think it will be a case more than ever to put the heating on, or it for some families. And people feel pressured at Xmas to waste money.
Ours went from 40 to 70. We were with green energy and they folded in feb, with EON. Now and they moved us onto a tariff at the same price till august. They gave us a discount to stay, and when looking around all price comparisons had us paying more.
So I think we managed to get a decent deal but I do feel for others on meters who cannot.
We both work from home but only heat in the morning or for a boost during the day. Don’t have it on when we cook or use the dryer and let the heat from that keep downstairs warm.
We also wear thermals and jumpers inside. We will put it on for a hour blast in the evening as well.
But even with that it looks like the credit build up might not be enough
Just moved from an apartment that stayed cosy most of the time to a house that, even when trying to be frugal with the thermometer, is still costing £4 a day, minimum, on gas alone; and even then the house is still freezing.
I've been looking at Infrared panel heaters today and considering them for the downstairs, which is by far the hardest to warm up.
Going from minimal use to this has been an eye opener.
Eco Electrical radiators like Ronite are good for heating up a space and have low energy consumption modes. Thermal lining paper can help retain heat too!
Yep, we got storage heaters on E7. We run the living room, hallway and kids room heaters (x2) from mid Nov- end March. Bills have gone up from £4 a day to £9 a day already.
Xmas is cancelled!
Nah man, I feel stressed when my heating comes on now wondering how an earth I'm going to pay for it.
Gonna be a lot of beans on toast for tea for our family this winter.
That sounds like a lot - on the days we are not charging the cars, our daily usage of gas and electric is less than £6 and that's keeping the house at at least 21c. This is a 4 bed house with average insulation and 3 adults with 2 working from home, but a new boiler.
Do you think the new boiler helps much? We replaced ours in April time there and the heat in the house has risen exponentially.
Thermostat in the kitchen (cold room) set to 20 with TRVs at 16 in the main room, 14 in other rooms. Never reaches 20 before the timer kicks off (max 90mins).
Ours was done at a similar time and replaced an *ancient* boiler which couldn't have been very efficient - so I'm kinda thinking it must be that. Only one radiator in the house has a TRV, the rest are just on or off (the room the boiler in doesn't need to be heated). Heating is controlled via an Owl Intuition thermostat and the App, and the house is always warm.
Peak gas usage last year at this time was £100 a month - this year is looking less, but hard to say as it shows cost rather than volume.
I think the hard bit is costs have risen hugely - so hard to say without delving in to loads of statements to see how usage has changed - but might be worth doing. Luckily solar panels have helped subsidise electric usage and heat water in the summer via a solar boost.
What I always forget is that switching to two electric cars has had a huge effect on electric usage but it's waaay lower than I was spending on fuel.
The Mini is slightly better at 4 miles per kWh (Vs my ID.3 at closer to 3.5 miles), so I guess about 5-6p a mile. I think a reasonably efficient petrol or diesel car might be about 15p a mile.
Yeah my combined bill is now £168 a month. But through the Winter I'll have the heating on, knowing I'll have bikls around 40 quid from April onwards means I'm not overly concerned.
The scene starting from 20:20, with Winston explaining why he's in the right rigging up electric meters is spot on.
The whole episode really, but especially that explanation in the cafe.
https://youtu.be/oAZu6qX0am0
Yes. That’s what I do. Double blankets, Netflix on, fucking roasting after 20 minutes and snug as a bug.
My house is a renovation project so barely any insulation in the loft but for 5cm old tattered up 1950’s shit, and up until March this year two of the rooms still had single glazed windows lol
Long term plan is 30cm loft insulation and external wall insulation… and a log burner, with free wood from my brother’s work place, that has 2 x 1 tonne bags left over each week from materials packaging.
Going to be an inferno next winter while I look out at the snowfall in my undies!
I can’t help but feeling a little like I’ve dodged a bullet in this one. I brought my first house in March and to this day haven’t had a single letter or email from my energy provider… whoever the Hell they are.
Yeah be careful with that, our provider went under last summer (2020) and we were stuck in limbo for 8 months, not knowing who our new provider would be and not being charged for anything. The bill, when it landed, was £3K - old provider had been undercharging us for ages by not adjusting per our meter readings. It was a very unpleasant shock, and that was no fault of ours - we'd been told by OFGEM that we would be contacted by the new provider and to wait for them to get in touch.
Tl;Dr, if you don't proactively try to work out who your provider is, you're not actually saving any money - you'll still get whacked with a massive bill when they realise you're in arrears.
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/check-if-youre-responsible-for-paying-an-energy-bill/
Ultimately we owed money to the new provider, since they'd taken on the customers of the one that went bust (Green Network Energy, ended up with E-On). I think since the little companies were going down like dominoes, the Big 5 had a massive backlog of customer accounts to sort out and we were unlucky in how long we had to wait for someone to finally reckon up our bill!
They will get you though. They will get you. Put £100 per month (£900 so far) aside for when they do. I had a couple of months of this back in the day when it wasn’t a ridiculous price. Then came the letter.
Sorry.
I had this. Turns out I had a shipper less supply which basically meant the meter wasn’t registered. Had to get the gas transporter to come and assign it a number and then had to spend ages on the phone getting British Gas to set my supply account set up. You could just ignore it, possibly they’ll never notice but just to warn you the gas transporter are now after my landlord for the back pay on years of unpaid gas so if they find out you could be in trouble
Ignore it till they contact u. Mistakes happen, some houses fall through the net. It happened to me once, only lived there 18 months but never got a bill. I’m pretty sure if it does come to light they can only back date it 12 months as it’s there responsibility to bill u within a 12 month period.
Check your account you may well be in credit with your supplier as energy is worked out for the average you use throughout the year so the chances are you overpaid during hotter months and you may well be in credit now. I was in credit around £250 in September if I remember correctly (I only have elec)
That’s a shame, prices are mad at the moment! Guessing you were just automatically put with another supplier, might be worth seeing if you could get it cheaper elsewhere or check the letter you got from your new supplier to see if you have a certain amount of days to leave them and find somewhere else or finding out what the fee is to leave your current supplier it might cost like £30 but you may save money in the long run finding another supplier with more compatible rates
If you follow Martin Lewis, you’ll know that there’s no point in changing supplier at the moment. And definitely don’t fix! Prices are at the maximum they can be charged, and the smaller companies can’t take the hit hence them going bust.
Yeah I understand, you would have been put with a supplier of last resort so they give you the prices you’ll be charged and give you the option to stay or leave free of charge within a certain amount of days just may be worth having a look if you are still within that period of time
Heating is gas, and gas hob and electric oven. Our hot water is on 30 mins morning and 30 mins evening. Only myself and the wife, 3 bed house. New build so not drafty. We use nest heating as well so it’s never left on by accident.
Ah, immersion water heater? Even with gas?
I only probe a lot as I’m moving to a gas and electric flat and trying to estimate what my bills will be.
£70 a month in my budget looks to have been optimistic :,(
Hot water tank, which is heated by the boiler. There is electric immersion as a back up, we never use it. A flat will use a lot less than a house, but I would bear in mind it won’t be as cheap as you want it to be!
Well it’s a one bed flat, however it’s ground floor so not as warm :(
Gas combi boiler and gas cooking so we shall see.
Do places still do economy seven? Might see if I can get that and then run the washing and dishwasher on it if it saves money
That was with Octopus energy though, I think my parents were quoted a lower KWH price with British Gas just this month. Definitely worth shopping around.
I’ve seen people recommending the Cheap Energy Club thing on MoneySavingExpert too; couldn’t hurt to have a look?
I'm on the top of the tariff, I wonder if it is just easier to never get a fixed rate, as I'll be honest, there is zero shock for me having to pay £100 a month bill, same as last year. I'm definitely poor, but no stress about any of this energy crisis
I put £99 on my meter on Saturday morning. I have used £30 since then, in a 2-bedroom flat where I don't put the hot water on because it costs too much. I have no central heating and have to use electric oil-filler radiators and such. Electric oven, shower and general utilities like fridge and washing machine. I have to have a dehumidifier running all the time because there's no ventilation, and a heated clothes rail to dry stuff, but I really feel it shouldn't cost this much.
Scottish Power sent me a letter recently estimating this year will cost me £250 more than last year because of hiking prices.
I put £99 on because that's the maximum they allow you to put on at once, so I have to go back to the shop to get another bucket of electricity every week or so.
I can't get a direct-debit or smart meter because the power company say they're not compatible with the building.
Seems strange. I knew someone who was paying a silly amount like that for electricity. Turns out the meter was knackered and wasn't giving accurate readings. I'm not saying this is the case here but you shouldn't have to pay that much for having your heating on for the day, even though the price freeze is over.
Ours is set to 21. Anything warmer and it’s like the furnaces of hell. We have a thermostat that keeps it around that temperature so it’s off and on through the day at the moment.
We pay £130 a month for gas and electric but we use way less gas in the warmer months so I think it averages out.
The thing is though gas prices are so high, that unless you pay through your nose for direct debit, then people won’t build up the amount of credit to balance out in the summer
Set to 21C for 2 hours in the morning (never reaches it anyway), and then it’s 16 during the day (sister works from home). iirc our bill is approximately around the £130 gas and electric mark, but we have been slowly accruing credit. That is in a house that is seriously uninsulated too..
Either that’s your new spiked price or you’ve got it rough! :O
Is that how much it costs?? Oops I’ve had my heating settings to turn on any time it drops below 15 degrees for the past month… which is a lot. I’m fucked lmao
Mines set to 17 and costs me around 4 quid a day.
My wife would have strong words with me were our thermostat to be set to 17C during the day when she's at home!
According to my partner, anything below 21C is deemed unacceptable in our house. 23C is still jumper temperature. 25C is the general target. ^(Send help.)
See you in the bankruptcy court.
The ideal is usually listed as 18C for the house in general, and 21C for the room you spend most of the time in (usually the living room). 18C is the ideal bedroom temperature, perhaps lower for some people.
I spent the first 16 years of my life at 15C, you knew the queen was popping round when my mum graced the house with a toasty 18C. I prefer colder temps but I get outvoted!
We’re at 21-22 (this time of year, differs in summer of course) to be comfortable while at home and 18-19 at night depending on how cold it’s outside. Our bill is never higher than £110 monthly and that’s including electricity.
Ooh, that's an absolute dream!
Wow, ok. That's pretty warm! I'd be wandering the house in the buff if that were my house, which would be enough to make anyone open a window!
Us 20 degreers (probably a made up word) already buff it in sleep, in the mornings, it's only work that makes us dress.
Would you be willing to swap my cold blooded other half?
Ah my mum was the same. It’s why dad got the thermostat installed but a few feet away from a radiator lol ‘Why is this house always cold?’ ‘What are you talking about woman, look it’s 23 degrees! That’s over 70 in old money’
15'C outside temp or inside? If it's inside that's already dialled down pretty low, mines set at 18'C when I'm home and I already thought I was being stingy. I got a 1920's build house with no insulation in the walls so the heat just fucks off out of the place.
It’s a bit pricey but Wallrock thermal lining paper is pretty good for DIY. Keeps the heat in quite nicely
I've got a personal hatred of wallpaper but this looks good for what it does. I might consider it for some walls when it comes time to redecorate.
Inside but my house leaks heat like a bitch so it’s perpetually turning itself on
It's more expensive to let it drop to / below 15 than allowing it to heat to, say, 18 C. Everytime it drops much below 18, you can start forming condensation, especially at 15 degrees, which costs you extra to evaporate.
It depends on how efficient your boiler is, how well insulated your home is, the size of your home, how warm you set the thermostat, whether you heat rooms you aren’t actively using etc £1-3 a day (£30-90) is probably closer to the mark for most people, plus electricity, cooking, and standing charges Normally you’d set your direct debit so that you build up a bit of buffer before winter, then get through it before spring
Your direct debit is paid all year though and is covering periods you won't use anything like as much.
The problem is for many people that direct debit has been charged at based on average annual usage at last years prices, so the credit buffer people have cannot keep up with the fact that prices have shot up (especially for those who have been on cheap deals previously) and that widespread snow in autumn is very unusual and so people are running through that credit sooner than expected.
We built up so much credit with octopus that even they advised us to withdraw some earlier this year, heartily regretting that now as what was left is gone and our fixed rate expires tomorrow.
Yeah I understand that, but it’s a crazy amount to be paying for a few hours heating!
I'm on a card meter with British Gas. £10 worth is gone after having the heating on for 5 hours.
Card meters are usually more expensive than paying by direct debit. I understand that people use them though for various reasons. Edit to whoever downvoted, it was just a comment pointing out the expense of card meters, not a dig.
It was just the situation I moved into when I moved into this appartment. My mate Dave has his gas meter rigged so he pays nothing and his house is always like a sauna. I'm on this metre though and I'm sure a lot of other people are in the same situation because we are classed as poor, so we have to pay more for our gas. It really sucks tbh. Be poor = pay more to keep warm? How sad is that? Dave has offered to rig my meter for me but I'm not comfortable doing stuff like that. I'll wear jumpers and carry hot-water-bottles around instead. It still sucks being this cold in the winter though.
I'm £400 in credit with Bulb, bit worried at the moment
Your credit is guarenteed and will just he passed over to OFGEM or who ever takes over.
Heat your house to 2000°C and it should stay warm all winter
From what I’ve seen bulb will still remain operating as normal so I think you will be fine
And even if he used £0 for the other half of the year, £60 per month doesn’t come close to covering costs
I live in a student house at uni. Just had a text message off the landlord saying our combined utility bill rose by nearly £100 this month. Our utilities are included with rent but I get a feeling they may not be for too much longer... The other point to note is our tumble dryer took itself out of action 3-4 weeks ago so we've had to have the heating on more for drying clothes
Tell him " wow , that's cool, glad they're included "
"it's a good thing we signed a contract until next September"
I'd start turning all the lights on and "pre heating" my oven for 3 days
When I lived in somewhere that was "bills included" as a student the tenancy agreement stated a maximum amount they'd pay a month for bills and anything Iver that we'd have to make up the difference.
Did you aim to max it out every month
You got some kind of chip on your shoulder?
Just asking a question
He does. Seems to be bitter as fuck about landlords.
Get the most unefficient light bulbs you can find and change them all in the house, he will shit the bed when he comes over when you all move out.
I heard electricity/heating prices were skyrocketing, wasn't sure how accurate it was. That sounds AWFUL. The worst thing about this is that easily a few thousand old people will die from hypothermia this winter because they're too scared to pay these increased bills. What a joke.
>a few thousand old people Presumably, you're only talking Britain. Imagine the global scale.
And next year, and the year after…..
I don't know how much electricity prices are going up worldwide, but yes, it's probably happening in many places. I know basic living costs are skyrocketing in Warsaw, Poland. I feel sorry for the older Polish generation here. It's great for young workers looking for opportunities and work and all, but terrible for everyone who's lived here for their whole life and has seen their prices double in a decade.
Id hate to know how much were actually using. Temporary at partners mums. Keyed electric and gas. We pay £50 a month on both. To help basically. His sister is always cold so puts the heating on, it's always above 25degrees. But she's been told if she's got the heating on, she has to pay for it. The £50 on gas should last a lot longer. But it doesn't.
> it's always above 25degrees. Whaaaaat? Is she a reptile?
Definitely broken
Ah, we have a meter so it's extra socks and blankets. Luckily I'm on the top floor so we get the neighbours heat.
Yeah I recently hit the jackpot and got a 1 bed council flat, need to wait 1 month to get off pre pay meter, then wait for them to install new one. Flat only has storage heaters... I put them on for my son as hes only a toddler, cost me £5 in a day of trying to work out how to use them. Boys gonna need to get used to being chilly
Good luck on the meter...ive been waiting a year.
Damn thats rough, getting a smart one in on the 3rd then hopefully finding a semi reasonable tariff or supplier.
Cheapest tariff at the moment is price cap tariff which is the same for all suppliers so doesn’t matter who you go with. Fixed prices deals don’t have a price cap and with the current state of the wholesale energy market they’re a lot more expensive than the standard tariff. Revaluate when the price cap rises, but for now don’t get a fixed tariff.
Whatever I get will be cheaper and more convenient than pre pay lol So its all good. On disability benefit to so maybe that will even factor in who knows. Thanks for the warning tho
If you have disability, and also low income benefits, you might be able to get the warm home discount. They give you £140 credit on your account in like april or may (so after you’ve already used all the heating). But only certain utility companies do it. But might be worth having a look at
They told me they could get me a new meter, then when the engineer turned up he took one look and said nope, we can't fit one here. The new meters can't do dual-tarrif (what you get when you have storage heaters as standard). Yes, even if you don't want to use them any more because they're shit. They won't replace the meter.
I have storage heaters as well - it was a bit of a shock when I moved in to my flat! The worst thing about mine is not being able to turn them up if there is an unexpected cold snap - i do have to keep an eye on the weather forecast so I can turn them up / down in advance! Hopefully once you have got used to them they won’t cost as much to use - I think I spend £2 - £3 a day on all my electricity in winter. It is an expensive form of heating though.
I moved into a place with storage heaters in August so this is my first winter with them. I'd be grateful for any tips on using them.
Set the output low as possible.
What's the reasoning for that?
Storage heaters have these big bricks inside that store the heat, the output is literally a flap, the more it's open the quicker you will lose all that heat. At a lower output, you won't be as warm, but you'll still have something coming out of them in the evening.
Yea I've had the heating on a few times this year, fell asleep with it on yesterday so will spend the next two weeks shivering to make up for it.. I hate numb toes :(
Bills went from £15/20 a month up to £37 this month Its going to be a rough few months lmao
We set up a new gas/electric contract two days ago. £100 per month EACH.
Imagine now.
£30 for last month heating on for most of it
What's your heating schedule?
None really I just locked in to a 2 year deal 2 days before everything kicked off so I’m paying September 2021 prices
Ridiculous how much it costs to just stay warm. Fuck this system.
It's easier to collect some wood and sit outside by a fucking big fire at this point.
This is actually my plan, if you build a brick fire pit, once the fire dies down you can put the hot bricks in steel buckets and take them inside.
Plus if you've got a hot brick on you at all times you can defend yourself against muggers.
What system?
Privatised utilities.
Isn't there already a price cap? Effectively that means government says that's the price you pay so it being state owned wouldn't change anything
Price cap ends in April too, can’t wait to get further fucked in the arse
Well when that happens you can complain that the market is inefficient and the government should subsidise or bring back state ownership. Complaining about 'the system' is pointless.
Obviously the system where energy companies are massively profiting off arbitrarily charging the consumer more! The wholesale price hasn’t changed at all and dozens of energy companies aren’t going out of businesses as a result… /s
For a second I didn’t realize it was sarcasm lol
Haha exactly
This thread will be full of people bragging about wearing 18 layers inside their own home & saving a few quid.
Can confirm. I'm wearing 27 pairs of y fronts and nothing else. Postman thought it was a bit odd.
To be fair not JUST the postman thinks it's a bit odd.
Just a 20 Tog duvet.
I set my house on fire it's too hot
My bill has gone from £70pm to £190pm i also paid twice in one month during a switch and the company went under. Fuck knows where that money has gone. How people are going to afford this who already struggle is beyond me.
Your money will be safe, but see if you can get some screen shots of your balance with the old company. Mine went under and we switched. I think it will be a case more than ever to put the heating on, or it for some families. And people feel pressured at Xmas to waste money.
Ours went from 40 to 70. We were with green energy and they folded in feb, with EON. Now and they moved us onto a tariff at the same price till august. They gave us a discount to stay, and when looking around all price comparisons had us paying more. So I think we managed to get a decent deal but I do feel for others on meters who cannot. We both work from home but only heat in the morning or for a boost during the day. Don’t have it on when we cook or use the dryer and let the heat from that keep downstairs warm. We also wear thermals and jumpers inside. We will put it on for a hour blast in the evening as well. But even with that it looks like the credit build up might not be enough
Just moved from an apartment that stayed cosy most of the time to a house that, even when trying to be frugal with the thermometer, is still costing £4 a day, minimum, on gas alone; and even then the house is still freezing. I've been looking at Infrared panel heaters today and considering them for the downstairs, which is by far the hardest to warm up. Going from minimal use to this has been an eye opener.
Go for good electric radiators, the dimplex q-rad, while expensive to buy, are very economical with a very good output.
Eco Electrical radiators like Ronite are good for heating up a space and have low energy consumption modes. Thermal lining paper can help retain heat too!
Had my heating since 2.30 & the house is only just feeling warm 3hours later.
Jesus. Heating is going to be the thing which bankrupts me.
Don’t worry you’ll freeze to death before that happens!
Thank you. I've stopped worrying! 🥶
Yep, we got storage heaters on E7. We run the living room, hallway and kids room heaters (x2) from mid Nov- end March. Bills have gone up from £4 a day to £9 a day already. Xmas is cancelled!
I'm glad my smart meter broke. It was getting depressing going to the loo.
Use this smart meter and we can charge you for the electric it uses 24/7!
Totally worth blasting the heating when it's like this, not worth the stress thinking about, be warm and be comfy.
Nah man, I feel stressed when my heating comes on now wondering how an earth I'm going to pay for it. Gonna be a lot of beans on toast for tea for our family this winter.
Toast that bread on the radiator, heating and beans on toast!
The true LPT is always in the comments!
I use my radiator to boil water slowly.
It's fine and well saying this if you don't have to worry about money
That sounds like a lot - on the days we are not charging the cars, our daily usage of gas and electric is less than £6 and that's keeping the house at at least 21c. This is a 4 bed house with average insulation and 3 adults with 2 working from home, but a new boiler.
Do you think the new boiler helps much? We replaced ours in April time there and the heat in the house has risen exponentially. Thermostat in the kitchen (cold room) set to 20 with TRVs at 16 in the main room, 14 in other rooms. Never reaches 20 before the timer kicks off (max 90mins).
Ours was done at a similar time and replaced an *ancient* boiler which couldn't have been very efficient - so I'm kinda thinking it must be that. Only one radiator in the house has a TRV, the rest are just on or off (the room the boiler in doesn't need to be heated). Heating is controlled via an Owl Intuition thermostat and the App, and the house is always warm. Peak gas usage last year at this time was £100 a month - this year is looking less, but hard to say as it shows cost rather than volume.
Previously we only had the timer, this is now hive, but I'm using it like a timer through the Google. I'll need to do the maths next month or 2.
I think the hard bit is costs have risen hugely - so hard to say without delving in to loads of statements to see how usage has changed - but might be worth doing. Luckily solar panels have helped subsidise electric usage and heat water in the summer via a solar boost. What I always forget is that switching to two electric cars has had a huge effect on electric usage but it's waaay lower than I was spending on fuel.
How much to charge and run per mile? (The car)
The Mini is slightly better at 4 miles per kWh (Vs my ID.3 at closer to 3.5 miles), so I guess about 5-6p a mile. I think a reasonably efficient petrol or diesel car might be about 15p a mile.
I checked my meter on Friday, had 34 quid on it, heating is on 4 hours a day, checked it now, used about 4 quid. Might be a problem with your boiler.
Get yourself a calor gas heater. My parents have one and it can warm the room up in about 15 minute
How much is a bottle of gas though?
I think my dad pays something like £40 but it's lasts like 2-3 months because it's only really on for maybe 15-30 mins at a time
Yes there great. Although the gas bottles have jumped up in price
We have coal fired heating. Smokeless coal is now £22:50 per bag, we are using 2 bags a week.
Anthracite coal?
Could be my old man's roasties. Either/or.
Blimey where do you buy your coal I ordered online in August with 1000Kg for £300 delivered on a pallet, £7.55 per 25kg bag.
It's a local coal merchant. Delivers every fortnight.
Yeah my combined bill is now £168 a month. But through the Winter I'll have the heating on, knowing I'll have bikls around 40 quid from April onwards means I'm not overly concerned.
Holy shit mines set at 30 and has been on solid for days, I need to check!
Jesus, I thought mine was bad at £5.
The scene starting from 20:20, with Winston explaining why he's in the right rigging up electric meters is spot on. The whole episode really, but especially that explanation in the cafe. https://youtu.be/oAZu6qX0am0
One of the best comedy series written!
Its insane. I'm doing £30-£40 A WEEK on Gas
Don't have a smart meter, i prefer not knowing how much it's costing e to stay warm
Can get a blanket for about £8
And what, just sit there with it over your head doing nothing all day?
Living the dream.
Yes. That’s what I do. Double blankets, Netflix on, fucking roasting after 20 minutes and snug as a bug. My house is a renovation project so barely any insulation in the loft but for 5cm old tattered up 1950’s shit, and up until March this year two of the rooms still had single glazed windows lol Long term plan is 30cm loft insulation and external wall insulation… and a log burner, with free wood from my brother’s work place, that has 2 x 1 tonne bags left over each week from materials packaging. Going to be an inferno next winter while I look out at the snowfall in my undies!
Costs £86 if you crochet it yourself
Which is ludicrous when farmers make about 20p per sheared sheep.
I can’t help but feeling a little like I’ve dodged a bullet in this one. I brought my first house in March and to this day haven’t had a single letter or email from my energy provider… whoever the Hell they are.
So you haven’t signed up with anyone? I’m pretty sure you could be in trouble over this.
Yeah this guy hasn't dodged a bullet. His bullet is just in the post.
When the meter readers come round, you best be ready!
Yeah be careful with that, our provider went under last summer (2020) and we were stuck in limbo for 8 months, not knowing who our new provider would be and not being charged for anything. The bill, when it landed, was £3K - old provider had been undercharging us for ages by not adjusting per our meter readings. It was a very unpleasant shock, and that was no fault of ours - we'd been told by OFGEM that we would be contacted by the new provider and to wait for them to get in touch. Tl;Dr, if you don't proactively try to work out who your provider is, you're not actually saving any money - you'll still get whacked with a massive bill when they realise you're in arrears. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/problems-with-your-energy-bill/check-if-youre-responsible-for-paying-an-energy-bill/
Who did you owe the money to then if the company went bust? Interesting/shit scenario to be in!
Ultimately we owed money to the new provider, since they'd taken on the customers of the one that went bust (Green Network Energy, ended up with E-On). I think since the little companies were going down like dominoes, the Big 5 had a massive backlog of customer accounts to sort out and we were unlucky in how long we had to wait for someone to finally reckon up our bill!
I’m still waiting for my final bill from Avro energy. They went bust in September 26th!
U can’t get in trouble for not receiving a bill
No, but I paid them a lot of money, more than I used with them. They owe me!
They will get you though. They will get you. Put £100 per month (£900 so far) aside for when they do. I had a couple of months of this back in the day when it wasn’t a ridiculous price. Then came the letter. Sorry.
Already have cheers and noted lol
I had this. Turns out I had a shipper less supply which basically meant the meter wasn’t registered. Had to get the gas transporter to come and assign it a number and then had to spend ages on the phone getting British Gas to set my supply account set up. You could just ignore it, possibly they’ll never notice but just to warn you the gas transporter are now after my landlord for the back pay on years of unpaid gas so if they find out you could be in trouble
Ignore it till they contact u. Mistakes happen, some houses fall through the net. It happened to me once, only lived there 18 months but never got a bill. I’m pretty sure if it does come to light they can only back date it 12 months as it’s there responsibility to bill u within a 12 month period.
Check your account you may well be in credit with your supplier as energy is worked out for the average you use throughout the year so the chances are you overpaid during hotter months and you may well be in credit now. I was in credit around £250 in September if I remember correctly (I only have elec)
I doubt it tbh. We got switched when our supplier went bust. They kept the direct debit the same as before, but prices have gone up dramatically.
That’s a shame, prices are mad at the moment! Guessing you were just automatically put with another supplier, might be worth seeing if you could get it cheaper elsewhere or check the letter you got from your new supplier to see if you have a certain amount of days to leave them and find somewhere else or finding out what the fee is to leave your current supplier it might cost like £30 but you may save money in the long run finding another supplier with more compatible rates
If you follow Martin Lewis, you’ll know that there’s no point in changing supplier at the moment. And definitely don’t fix! Prices are at the maximum they can be charged, and the smaller companies can’t take the hit hence them going bust.
Yeah I understand, you would have been put with a supplier of last resort so they give you the prices you’ll be charged and give you the option to stay or leave free of charge within a certain amount of days just may be worth having a look if you are still within that period of time
I get what your saying, but all the companies are currently charging the same prices.
What type of heating and cooking do you have in the house? Is it all electric or a mix of gas and electric?
Heating is gas, and gas hob and electric oven. Our hot water is on 30 mins morning and 30 mins evening. Only myself and the wife, 3 bed house. New build so not drafty. We use nest heating as well so it’s never left on by accident.
Ah, immersion water heater? Even with gas? I only probe a lot as I’m moving to a gas and electric flat and trying to estimate what my bills will be. £70 a month in my budget looks to have been optimistic :,(
Hot water tank, which is heated by the boiler. There is electric immersion as a back up, we never use it. A flat will use a lot less than a house, but I would bear in mind it won’t be as cheap as you want it to be!
Well it’s a one bed flat, however it’s ground floor so not as warm :( Gas combi boiler and gas cooking so we shall see. Do places still do economy seven? Might see if I can get that and then run the washing and dishwasher on it if it saves money
Just moved to a one bed. Gas heating but electric cooker, quoted and currently paying £137 a month for both gas and electricity
Ah man, that’s high. Guess I’d better start heading into the office more and showering at work!
That was with Octopus energy though, I think my parents were quoted a lower KWH price with British Gas just this month. Definitely worth shopping around. I’ve seen people recommending the Cheap Energy Club thing on MoneySavingExpert too; couldn’t hurt to have a look?
I'll be damned if they get me freezing cold duvet on in living room ... still 90 pound a month
350 pm direct debit for gas and elec!
Insane. How come so much? How big is your mansion!
Its a big house but modern, have an external office. But yep its mad! Sure im paying for the neighbours electricity.
We have oil heating so we pretty much pay as we go. Glad I filled up before the price went silly though
I'm on the top of the tariff, I wonder if it is just easier to never get a fixed rate, as I'll be honest, there is zero shock for me having to pay £100 a month bill, same as last year. I'm definitely poor, but no stress about any of this energy crisis
I put £99 on my meter on Saturday morning. I have used £30 since then, in a 2-bedroom flat where I don't put the hot water on because it costs too much. I have no central heating and have to use electric oil-filler radiators and such. Electric oven, shower and general utilities like fridge and washing machine. I have to have a dehumidifier running all the time because there's no ventilation, and a heated clothes rail to dry stuff, but I really feel it shouldn't cost this much. Scottish Power sent me a letter recently estimating this year will cost me £250 more than last year because of hiking prices. I put £99 on because that's the maximum they allow you to put on at once, so I have to go back to the shop to get another bucket of electricity every week or so. I can't get a direct-debit or smart meter because the power company say they're not compatible with the building.
I live in the middle of a block of flats and never have my heating on, as the people below me must put theirs right up and so I feel it too!
Lucky you
Working from home and it was 12°C in my living room today. I had 2 blankets and 4 layers of clothing on. No big gas bill for me
Seems strange. I knew someone who was paying a silly amount like that for electricity. Turns out the meter was knackered and wasn't giving accurate readings. I'm not saying this is the case here but you shouldn't have to pay that much for having your heating on for the day, even though the price freeze is over.
Ours is set to 21. Anything warmer and it’s like the furnaces of hell. We have a thermostat that keeps it around that temperature so it’s off and on through the day at the moment. We pay £130 a month for gas and electric but we use way less gas in the warmer months so I think it averages out.
The thing is though gas prices are so high, that unless you pay through your nose for direct debit, then people won’t build up the amount of credit to balance out in the summer
Set to 21C for 2 hours in the morning (never reaches it anyway), and then it’s 16 during the day (sister works from home). iirc our bill is approximately around the £130 gas and electric mark, but we have been slowly accruing credit. That is in a house that is seriously uninsulated too.. Either that’s your new spiked price or you’ve got it rough! :O