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We've put one of the butlers on a six day week.
Just a hypothetical...
What's to stop people over-declaring their meter readings now while on a 'cheap' fixed tariff and then gradually bringing them to correct over the next few years? Ie. Pay more up front now on the cheap rate, and less later when your contract has run out and its got a lot more expensive.
Obviously it's fraud and there is an upfront cost but apart from that?
I've thought about insulating between floors but it'd prevent the bedrooms heating up as much, insulating externally surely has to be done to an absolute maximum before internally?
I do need to make sure all the coppers properly lagged though
insulating externally surely has to be done to an absolute maximum before internally?
Not an option if you're in a conservation area.
I guess it would also cost several £k, so if you're struggling with bills you probably won't be able to afford it. Whereas a bit of DIY lagging / celotex boards inside would be quite cheap.
I'm sure there used to be LA grants for external insulation....
Our 1980 detached is pretty much as insulated as a structure of its type can be.
Graphite coated polybeads in the cavity, 300mm mineral wool in the loft. Argon DG throughout, plus a new boiler just before xmas.
But I do still have to do the underfloor, which is going to be a bugger.
I’ve just bought a load of smart Hive TRVs to go with our Hive system. Takes a lot of fine tuning and understanding how they interact but I’m getting there. Cost me £150 in their new year sale. I need to get a couple more though as I’m finding the hallway (which doesn’t have a TRV) rad is on loads now and it’s really warm in there all the time which is a waste and the kitchen dining room is the same. I’m wondering if I do need to have one rad which is open all the time or not as it seems such a waste. The way the TRVs work is that they request heat from the boiler so in theory when the boiler fires it will only be to a rad that needs it so it shouldn’t be an issue.
There are 2 of us in a big 3 bed semi and we work from home all the time so selectively heating rooms through the day makes a lot of sense to me - bedroom/bathroom in morning, work rooms during the day and lounge/dining at different parts of the evening then back on bedroom again for a short while just before bed.
I can't possibly face turning down our heating at all, I'm sitting here in a hoody with the hood up and a double blanket covering head to toe. The thermostat is set to a meager 17 degrees and it comes on for 15 minutes in the morning and between 6pm and 9pm in the evening. It's a 1800's farmers cottage rental which is barely above the minimum allowed to be rented and costs us £100 a month already and although I'd be happy paying more the heat just wafts out the doors etc.so I may as well open a window and through pound notes out.
The Greta generation are quite happy to steal their own future thanks very much, if my two are anything to go by...
Getting them to spend less than twenty minutes in the shower would be a great start for this household.
Meanwhile, all this lovely firewood blowing in like manna from heaven coupled with the energy price rises has been good for the woodburner game!
Getting them to spend less than twenty minutes in the shower would be a great start for this household.
We have a "pencil" HW tank, 20 mins is good going before the water runs cold!
None of my lot have a scooby how anything works, so maybe after 10 minutes I should just turn down the boiler water temp to minimum & tell them they’ve used all the water…..
this winter I’ve been under all the suspended floors and installed 100mm there,
What did you use?
I’ve been meaning to do this since we moved in. I’ve got OK access to get down there and wondered about dragging something like the foil wrapped space blankets behind me. But how to hold it up?
Having run out of oil and with no money to buy any I can assure you that it’s Baltic with no heating at all. I can’t recommend it 😉
Haven't used the Ch at all this winter despite young kids and me WFH. The wood stoves have been sufficient and since the wood was free it is saving a fortune. Still, the electricity cost increase is making up for it.
Electric heating. Electric hot water. Bill has nearly doubled, £210 last month expecting more now the cap has been increased. Good job it's mild!
I can’t possibly face turning down our heating at all, I’m sitting here in a hoody with the hood up and a double blanket covering head to toe
Get a proper thick wool jumper. Much warmer than any hoody and lasts ages between washes.
Go on holiday innit
What did you use?
I’ve been meaning to do this since we moved in. I’ve got OK access to get down there and wondered about dragging something like the foil wrapped space blankets behind me. But how to hold it up?
I used 100mm loft insulation (4" beams) and it's held in place with a breathable membrane stapled to the underside of the beams.
What did you use?
I’ve been meaning to do this since we moved in. I’ve got OK access to get down there and wondered about dragging something like the foil wrapped space blankets behind me. But how to hold it up?
I have celotex fitted between the joists. It made a big difference to comfort.
Cheers. I’ll do some searching.
I can’t do celotex unfortunately without ripping the floor up, which isn’t happening.
We're in a 5 year old house, with triple glazing, air source heat pump, LED lights, solar panels, under floor etc. Estimated bill over £400/month. That's 3 teenagers though.
Teenagers are the issue. We haven't even got a chimney we can make them clean......
Some folk choose to pay £60+/month on a phone mind and believe the 'upgrade for free' BS every couple of years.
boxelder - get rid of your children; think of the cost saving and it will help them to become independent.
On a slightly more serious note...I'm now definitely going ahead with ripping out a nasty faux chimney breast and having a floor to ceiling one built in stone to house a woodburner - DEFRA approved, of course.
The original chimney and liner are in great condition so that's one possible concern out of the way.
My place is pretty old and split over 3 floors - our family is young kids and pets. I’ve insulated the ground floor and 1st floor voids but can’t get to much of the 2nd floor loft space because the struts are too close together to crawl through. I’ve also fitted smart catches to the windows so when the family open the windows the heating cuts out automatically.
I’ve tweaked quite a bit of our elec and gas usage over the last few years including the obvious stuff:
- radiators off on the floors / rooms not used in the day
- max temp of 19 for a few hours in the evening but other than that 18 in the daytime and 15 overnight
- turned down the flow on hot water taps and dialled hot water back to 15 mins a day on the timer
- installed smart timers to turn off some devices overnight / when we’re out
Winter has been a tiny bit cold at times but I’ve worn extra thick socks and an extra layer of jumpers. It’s not been too bad even working at a desk for long periods - having a hot meal for lunch definitely helps.
Our current energy use is about £5 a day including the standing charge - with a 2/3 split of elec to gas.
Based on what some neighbours / friends say, we use about 1/3 of similar families but even though it’s pretty easy to dial back usage many folk just can’t be bothered.
That said, for people renting in uninsulated homes or old folk who are infirm / can’t go out the latest rises are brutal - so it’s good to see some offsets in place through council tax etc.
Based on friends in far flung places the huge inflation of gas prices seems to have hit everyone - it’s a tragedy that the UK’s politicians and energy regulator failed to plan for this scenario for the last 20 years - and let it be compounded by allowing uk production of nuclear / gas to fall before reliable alternatives were in place.
I'm in a modernish 1 bed flat and can't go any lower on my usage without causing problems. Everything is electric: Economy 7 storage heaters, tiny hot water tank (not big enough to make a warm bath!!), cooker and oven. I have the hot water on for an hour every night as any more means it's too cool to have a short shower and wash the dishes. Heating is on the minimum setting when I use it. All my lights are LED and I can't add any insulation anywhere. My direct debit went up from £63 to £108 last month despite me being in credit ~£200 and then I'm being forcefully switched to a different provider next month (current provider hasn't gone bust) which is triggering an extra price rise. Not looking forward to any more rises!
Reviewed my number of £400 for a break tank pre combi.
Ok it's not £400 but it is under £500.
IF i can find a suitable good used tank off ebay for around 150, thrn its £280 for the copper tube, back plate again ebay off cuts, amd glass.
Tank would be external, ground level, in a lean to housing the 12v pump and controls system.
Wall mounted panel on 18mm ply, cellotex lined, 30mtr of copper, spray paint, toughened glass
Got loads of 12v transformers kicking around already
Unknown cost is fixing tube to backplate, brazing and heat sink paste.
I think i could produce 100% of my hot water for half a year with a well lagged correctly sized tank ie small around 150ltr.
What did you use?
I’ve been meaning to do this since we moved in. I’ve got OK access to get down there and wondered about dragging something like the foil wrapped space blankets behind me. But how to hold it up?
I've insulated some of my underfloor, it's a hateful task.
Very little wriggle room and access is a bitch.
I used the recycled plastic insulation rolls from B&Q the issue I had was keeping it in position as the joist spacings were all over the place.
My solution was to use plastic orange barrier netting stapled onto the underside of the joists.
HTH Good luck
Has anyone installed a home battery system?
Watched a Youtube video the other night about them and the potential payback could be as little as 4 years. That was without any Solar PV and on an EV night time charging tariff.
My thinking was get one installed without the PV, I'm a spark so installation other than materials would be negligible.
Then further down the line bash a couple of solar panels on the garage roof/gable wall.
Not ideal but it's the only South facing part of our building, but something is better than nothing.
Short of going solar I'm not sure the is much I can do to save money (well I could ditch the snake collection however I have already pared that back a lot).
Gas even with an Aga (which is going very soon) was only £48 last month so will be £28ish once the Aga goes and that's in winter and I've been cutting back on the leccy as much as possible but can't seem to get it below £120 in the winter and £90-100 in the summer.
But, the outlay for solar is not insignificant and I'm yet to be convinced its worth it. If installation costs drop 25-30% it becomes more viable.
Re heating - have you all considered your curtain arrangement?
We have thick curtains on all our windows with extra thermal lining. Many of them stay closed during the day when people are out (we have few houseplants!). Our living room has a big window and patio doors but the curtains are closed on winter evenings and the TV and two people watching telly is enough to heat the room. We also have a curtain at the bottom of the stairs on a removeable pole that we fit in the winter. Makes a tremendous difference to the temperature downstairs. And when we want some evening light, the two biggest windows have two sets of curtains - the inner set is muslin so can be drawn to let in light but still keep in a fair amount of heat. Also the front door has a curtain mounted on a portiere rack that opens and closes with the door.
This year I also covered the gaps in our warped UPVC windows with tape to block the draughts. Very effective - I recommend you check yours for gaps with a piece of paper.
I can’t do celotex unfortunately without ripping the floor up, which isn’t happening.
Posted 12 hours ago
I plan to use Celotex, cut each sheet into the right width strips then pass the strip through a small hole and fit in between the joists. If you cut it a bit over sized you can just tap it into place and it crushes a bit at the edges to create a snug fit. Same method I used to fit between the workshop rafters.
just about to press go on Hive TRVs. assuming the £150 was for the 3 pack, what was your strategy for where you put them? We've got 17 radiators to cover, but though i'd start with just the 5... hallways/corridors don't need them as they are on low anyway, same with bathrooms. 2 of them are in the thermostat room so that doesn't need any TRVs. thinking the big rooms such as lounge, kitchen and main bedrooms.
already in 'discussion' with the OH about which rooms would need heating during the day. she's adamant "kitchen and bathrooms definitely do". me "you're in the kitchen for 15 minutes max, making lunch and getting brews - it doesn't need to be heated" etc...
The other thing, our thermostat is in a room that won't be used as an office, but I can't really think of a better place to put it. Where do others put their main thermostat? the main sitting room has a wood burner so that would send the thing crazy. Are they supposed to go in hallways...?
I'd like to do external wall insulation. A house a few doors up had it a few years ago and I can see the results are smart. I did do a few searches, found assume websites which gave me rough costs and I worked out the break even was something like 15 years. So I took it no further. If this price rise is permanent then pay back could be 6 or 7 years now.
Oh and just to say, an easy win is treat yourself to good curtains, or blinds as well. The added insulation across window openings can make a good difference even with double glazed windows.
Gas even with an Aga (which is going very soon) was only £48 last month so will be £28ish once the Aga goes
Don't forget to factor in that you'll lose the heat given off by the Aga - will you replace that?
Many of them stay closed during the day when people are out (we have few houseplants!).
I sometimes do that but we face south so the solar gain can be quite appreciable. That said, 3/4s of our downstairs doesn't even have curtains now after a remodel - we very rarely closed them anyway.
But, the outlay for solar is not insignificant and I’m yet to be convinced its worth it.
I can't wait for the slightly longer days and increased PV production.
If I had the money I would be adding greatly to our current 4Kw solar array (ground mounted as I have a lot of space).
I even thought of filling a currently unused 2 acre paddock with panels!!
+1 for molgrips' comment about curtains.
Mid to heavy weight fabric, lined and interlined.
I recommend a front door curtain in addition to doing windows and patio doors.
boxelder – get rid of your children; think of the cost saving and it will help them to become independent.
You could try giving them an energy budget. Get a plug-in meter and work out how much it costs them to run their computer/electronics, then demonstrate how much computer time the shower costs them etc.
That said, 3/4s of our downstairs doesn’t even have curtains now after a remodel – we very rarely closed them anyway.
This is a bad idea, you're literally throwing money out of the windows.
Are they supposed to go in hallways…?
Yes. The hallways usually have the ballast radiators in which won't have TRVs on. If you put it in a room where the TRV is and the setting on the thermostat is mis-matched with the TRV then you could end up wit the heating churning away and baking the rest of the house, or you could have the opposite.
We bought a moveable one and experimented with having it further away from the hall radiator to stop it clicking on and off so rapidly. However it wasn't needed since the movable one also had a setting to compensate for it. But it was an interesting experiment to see how moving it up and down the hall (or even upstairs) changed the behaviour. You just adjust the temp to compensate. Hallway is set to 17C but it's clearly warmer than that in the rest of the house because living space is one floor up.
Ive got dumb TRV's on all my radiators, but they're all set to max, I was looking at getting some smart trv's so I can turn off the lounge, dining room, bedrooms etc during the working day, and only have heat in the rooms where we work, but smart trvs are hellishly expensive, so I figure all I really need is programable TRV's, where I can set a daily schedule, and just leave them to do their thing.
I already have the overall system being controlled by a google nest thermostat - which has made quite a difference to gas consumption in the 18 months we've had it.
So I've ordered 4 programmable TRV's for £60 in total , which is about the same as buying a single tado TRV, plus you also need a tado bridge on top. if these 4 seem decent then I'll get a few more to sort the whole house out.
Ive got dumb TRV’s on all my radiators, but they’re all set to max, I was looking at getting some smart trv’s so I can turn off the lounge, dining room, bedrooms etc during the working day
I just do this by hand in the morning / evening.....
I just do this by hand in the morning / evening…..
yep, thats the really cheap way to do it - I'm too lazy.....
This is a bad idea, you’re literally throwing money out of the windows.
You could argue this.
But you don't know how efficient my windows are and, as it would cost at least £3k for new curtains (and we're probably not here for more than another 4 years) then it's not worth it.
As I said, we never closed the curtains in these rooms in the 17 years before the remodeling as we're not overlooked by anyone.
I plan to use Celotex, cut each sheet into the right width strips then pass the strip through a small hole and fit in between the joists.
Another method is to simply push loft insulation between the joists and then staple plastic mesh (or similar) underneath to hold it in place.
Quicker, cheaper, easier and probably just as efficient under a suspended floor - less gaps also unless you're planning on foaming your celotex into place.
Don’t forget to factor in that you’ll lose the heat given off by the Aga – will you replace that?
The Aga only really heats the kitchen, it's not attached to any radiators. Yes we will lose a little but not nearly enough to mean the boiler is going to be on longer or do much more work.
Plus in the summer the Aga is still chomping through £13-15 p/m just making the kitchen unbearably hot.
Even if we break even in the cost the gas is not massively costly for us and the Aga is not really the way forward environmentally these days and they are not hugely practical a lot of the time.
Great for drying clothes on though 🙂
Ive got dumb TRV’s on all my radiators, but they’re all set to max
If they're set to max then you might as well not have them. Setting them to 3 gives you about 20 degrees.
We have all the radiators turned off in the bedrooms(but not the bathrooms), enough heat makes its way upstairs to keep things at decent temperature.
Our house is reasonably well insulated but nothing spectacular.
Quicker, cheaper, easier and probably just as efficient under a suspended floor – less gaps also unless you’re planning on foaming your celotex into place.
You get a perfect fit just cutting over size and forcing in place - it deforms locally quite well. The advantage of the solid stuff is you know you have the full depth everywhere. Plus you can tape it if you really want to ensure an airtight fit.
It was pretty easy doing that on the workshop roof, so I'd just so the same under the floor.
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If they’re set to max then you might as well not have them. Setting them to 3 gives you about 20 degrees.
Yes,exactly, the dumb ones are currently pointless, the rooms are being heated whenever the house thermostat calls for heat regardless of whether we are using the room or not, but the programmable ones will allow me to turn the heat off in various rooms during the day when we're not using them, and turn it on at night when we are using them without having to manually turn the dial.
Just need to ensure we keep the doors shut when we're not using the rooms.
A post for working-at-homers.
Since COVID I have been working in the loft. A few weeks a go I bought an AEG portable air-con with heat pump, that I have up here. It consumes around 700w and outputs 2.2 kw of heat.
... those figures are a bit miss-leading as it is sucking up the air from downstairs (and ultimately outside). But it basically means that I can have the heating in the house turned off all day. Even when it is freezing outside, on average it only consumes 250w throughout the day and it is 21-22 degrees up here.
Yes,exactly, they’re currently pointless, the rooms are being heated whenever the house thermostat calls for heat regardless of whether we are using the room or not, but the programmable ones will allow me to turn the heat off in various rooms during the day when we’re not using them, and turn it on at night when we are using them without having to manually turn the dial.
Sure, but at the moment, some of your rooms may be hotter than the one with your thermostat in. Using TRVs appropriately will at least solve that problem. For example, one of my kids' bedrooms is small, internally insulated and has a good sized radiator so heats far faster than the rest of the house. She leaves her TRV on 2.