Most of our housing stock is fairly old, unless you’ve got a time machine you can’t really criticise developers for not building them to a need that didn’t exist at the time.

Not least because most if us live in houses that did not have gas at all and many did not have electricity or perhaps even water originally

I assume everyone would like to upgrade but my only option is cavity wall and there are somewhat mixed reports on whether it is a good idea to do this to a wall designed to “breathe”.
Its quite hard to change the thermal value of your house tbh once built but yes we should do more.

ernie lynch – master of missing the point.

oh and JY its not “THAT” hard if your committed to it – what it is is messy and potentially lose a bit of “value” of their house by losing floor space.

people are quite ignorant though they just see immediate bills instead of looking at options for lowering them at there end rather than just moaning at the companies.

Not getting their boiler serviced

Sounds like a good idea – care to work out how long it would take to recoup the £60 cost from my £250 gas bill?

I worked out it’s going to make £56 differeance to my bill, so I’m putting back on the shelf (of Waitrose) the Argentinian Humous which incidentally is ground between the legs of a Virgin whilst she sings like a Mermaid on top of a rock, listening to the sea gently lap against her little toe.

£56 ain’t much over a year.

i worked out it was 2 quid a month on mine – i thought the same bikebouy

but if your a single parent/disabled on benifits or a pensioner its actually quite alot – sometimes we forget how lucky we are…..

ernie lynch – master of missing the point.

You mean the point that sitting in a car with the engine idling is contributing to gas and electricity prices rising above the rate of inflation ?

Yes I missed that point.

I didn’t even realise that sitting in the car with the engine idling was a serious widespread problem.

Is that really why energy prices are rising faster than both the rate of inflation and incomes ?

I’ve never really understood why people think there is a link between inflation and the cost of specific good or service like energy; the link runs the other way. As inflation is an average measure of the prices rises for a defined set of goods and services, the prices of some of these goods must by definition be rising faster than this rate.

the title says ENERGY prices

last time i checked petrol and diesel were sources of energy that cost a fair bit and fluctuate often both up and down

the point being is that people will happilly burn them without thought to how THEY can reduce their bills instead of moaning at the cost.

its not “THAT” hard if your committed to it

I agree but unless i get a loan that allows me to offset the savings against repaying the loan I cannot afford to do it
Perrhaps we should do this – energy reduction measures paid for via a premium added to your bill that is offset by the saving?
Everyone loves green stealth taxes dont they? 😉

FWIW my energy saving measure is to never use my central heating new boiler and energy efficient] unless I can see my breath inside the house 😉

FWIW my energy saving measure is to never use my central heating new boiler and energy efficient] unless I can see my breath inside the house

😀

My daughter has learned to love her hot water bottle, and I’m proud to say that the Slankets finally came out of the cupboard last night after a summer locked away!

So fuel prices are the same as energy prices, and when the OP talks of making homes more energy efficient and is criticising building standards and housing developers the aim is to reduce the cost of diesel and petrol ?

can be – your home can be more energy efficent in respect to fuel by not chosing to live 50 miles from work so you can afford a bigger house or even better – public transport links supported with more than a cursory glance – i once lived somewhere where yes they had trains but only 1 in and 1 out a day …. less than 8 hours apart so totally impractical for anyone to do a working day between the trains – or the bus , it took 3 hours to get to town, a journey that took 45 minutes in the car – so linked , yup.

a journey that took 45 minutes in the car

Did you sit in your car with the engine idling ?

My daughter has learned to love her hot water bottle

Glad that has worked out for you

Not at the slankets level personally as I just go for thermal underwear myself

edinburgh defence nicely deployed there ernie

What “edinburgh defence” ? 🙂

You’re waffling on about train, bus, and car journeys, on a thread about making homes more efficient. Apparently to way to reduce your gas and electricity bills is by not sitting in your car with the engine idling. And you accuse me of missing the point !

trail_rat – Member

edinburgh defence nicely deployed there ernie

It saddens me that some forum regulars don’t seem to know what the Edinburgh Defence is.

Surely means it’s time to welcome TJ back to the fold?

Trail_rat doesn’t understand what the “edinburgh defence” is. Either what it was claimed to be, or what it actually was (a childish insult to be thrown at TJ at every opportunity)

aye but it was thrown at TJ when every he basically gave a gallic shrug when proven wrong

fuel efficiency is not just the measure of heating and powering your home – theres alot of other factors. meanwhile we continue to build out of town shopping centres and sprawling industrial zones that must be accessed by car because of insuffient town planning.

Cold?

Put a jumper on you idiot!!

There, fixed that, next issue please…… 😉

but it was thrown at TJ when every he basically gave a gallic shrug when proven wrong

So when he still disagreed with you, which you term proved wrong, you insulted him how does this differ from what NW said?

As NW notes it was just another method for the bullies and trolls to mocking his views because they disagreed with him.

Many many posters on here post things that they dont mean just to get a reaction – whatever you think of TJ he did believe what he said and was no troll and he had no malice
This cannot be said about many of his detractors

DP

matt_outandabout – Member

Why is the outrage not aimed at the fact that we have allowed ourselves to live in such inefficient homes and businesses?
Surely we should be angry with building standards, the house developers and ourselves?

i live in a drafty old terrace, it’s just like many thousands of others.

insulating these old houses to modern standards is very expensive, if not practically impossible (eliminating drafts can often lead to damp problems).

i’m not saying there’s nothing that can be done, old houses are cold, live with it. But this is a problem that we’ve inherited, it’s no-one’s fault, there’s no-one to blame.

things are getting slowly better, but the energy companies are raising prices simply to increase their profit, and that’s a bit naughty.

but the energy companies are raising prices simply to increase their profit, and that’s a bit naughty.

It looks like some people are starting to believe the politicians dogma.

go on, enlighten me.

You’re waffling on about train, bus, and car journeys, on a thread about making homes more efficient. Apparently to way to reduce your gas and electricity bills is by not sitting in your car with the engine idling. And you accuse me of missing the point !

The higher the demand for oil for transport means that overall prices are higher, hence higher energy bills.

Secondly, the point being made is that whinging about high energy costs is a bit hypocritical when you hop in the car to drive 500 yards to the paper shop.

Much of the price rises are directly due to govt policy. In the future those green subsidies are projected to increase substantially.

1) Environmental charges already account for 11% on electricity bills, and 9% of dual gas/electric ones.

2) These amounts are set to rise sharply in future years.

3) By 2020, environmental charges will account for 33% of electricity bills, and 41% by 2030.

Electricity Prices To Skyrocket

It looks like some people are starting to believe the politicians dogma.

Indeed everyone knows that privately owned shareholder owned companies who exist to generate profit for shareholders are really doing their best to help us all out rather than set up their businesses to avoid tax, gain subsidy and make profit for themselves

Gawd bless them I say and thanks for that insightful correction

ahwiles OK ,As above, the price rises are split into

1/ Government policy, especially ECO is having a huge impact at the moment. The government have set some very strict deadlines around insulating homes in poor areas or that are hard to treat (eg need wall cladding) in the next two years. This is all free to the end consumer but the energy companies have to do all the marketing and supply all the goods free of charge, this is around £1BN of additional cost just over the next few years for Brtish Gas. There are good arguments for the government helping with awareness and collecting this money through general taxation
2/ Investment in the transmition and distribution network, basic stuff really
3/ Wholesale gas price, global market, Japan has closed nuclear and is driving up the cost of shipped LNG. Sensibly USA are keeping their shale to themsleves.

At the end of that there is still a modest margin to make so the investments can be made and the shareholders can recieve a dividend, most of these are pension funds etc.

ETA – Junkyard, the UK’s biggest energy compamy is also the biggest single tax contributer in the UK, despite not being the biggest by market capitalisation by a long way

The question I would ask is why is the industry over taxed and then asked to collect psudeo taxes. What is happening to the contribution from vodafone, BP, Glaxo, Diageo etc??

Much of the price rises are directly due to govt policy

SSE which announced yesterday that next month it will put up prices by more than double the rate of inflation makes £1,500 profit a minute.

This presents a 38% increase in profit from the previous year. So it looks very much that the price increase is simply to increase their profit even further, whatever excuses they like to give.

As OAPS struggle to heat homes SSE bosses reveal £1500-a-minute profits

Well its very easy to link to headline grabbing figures to divert away from any meaningful debate on the subject.

So the energy companies profits aren’t part of the debate ?

Their profits suddenly don’t matter when the subject is price increases ?

But the rest of the time a company’s success is measured by its profits ?

ffs

What really sizzles my sausage is that the energy companies blame green taxes, then get the proceeds of the green taxes as subsidies to make the infrastructure they should be paying for for int he first place. After all just what exactly would they propose to sell if the generation and transmission systems weren’t producing and distributing their fricking product?!?!

(so ironically they’re right we should blame the government for making these behemoths financially sustainable – and yes I am confusing my frickin self).

and despite all the BS about markets and competition they operate as a cartel so we’re no better off than with a state monopoly that just charged what it needed to deliver the infrastructure rather than just baulking at the cost, privatising as a way to ‘solve’ the problen and then paying for b*stard anyway.

Either way, the solution = use less energy

They also need large amounts of money to invest, e.g. SSE statement from 2012:

SSE expects its capital and investment expenditure to total just over £1.6bn in 2012/13 and to be between £1.5bn and £1.7bn in 2013/14 and in 2014/15.

But also wholesale energy costs have been going up, so regardless of who owns it your energy bill would be considerably more expensive now than in 2005.

Well its very easy to link to headline grabbing figures to divert away from any meaningful debate on the subject.

Seems like its very easy for you to ignore anything that does not fit with your view and then accuse others of diversion…oh the ironing

Big numbers, but on average only £68 per customer per year. Doesn’t sound particularly outrageous.

Well its very easy to link to headline grabbing figures to divert away from any meaningful debate on the subject.

It is even more difficult to look at massively increasing profits for the energy companies year on year, compare that to an increasing cost to the customer and try to see anything other than a direct link. The companies are not getting magnitudes more efficient every year and the profit keeps climbing. Despite the tax issue, energy companies are not exactly Little Sisters of the Poor.

TooTall – I’ve just looked at EDF’s annual report for 2011 and 2012. The cost energy purchases went up year on year and operating profit fell year on year. Where are the “massively increasing profits”?