Some eye watering numbers in these posts.
What honestly comes to my mind is 'WTF are people actually doing with all this energy?' Some must be either at hothouse temperatures, or have all the windows and door open permanently even when heating, or using a tumble dryer 24/7, or leaving a 10kw shower running for hours a day, lights all on full time. Etc. Or are huge cavernous palaces.
We've an 1850s stone house, old DG, can't do any wall insulation, cook on electricity. We're paying £160 a month for both - now jacked up from the £100 it was pre Unkranian war.
How much wastage is going on out there?
You can always rely on STW to tell it like it is 🤣
No point beating about the bush.
Actually I don’t shower everyday, too cold. LOL!
Has it retreated due to the cold? 🤣
Like many I'm sure, I've been thinking about home energy use quite a bit the past few days. Yet to buy some smart plugs but they're on the list as I need to get the bottom of what's causing us to use 6,500kWh a year. I thought we were quite efficient in our use already but seeing figures others are posting on here shows me we're not.
We’ve an 1850s stone house, old DG, can’t do any wall insulation, cook on electricity. We’re paying £160 a month for both – now jacked up from the £100 it was pre Unkranian war.
You're living like a pauper maybe?
Not sure how you can spend so little on both - our electricity bill for the 2 of is £160 a month (both WFH though) and our heating/cooking is on oil as we've no mains gas.
Or are you on the South Coast and wear a down jacket in the house in winter?
Like many I’m sure, I’ve been thinking about home energy use quite a bit the past few days. Yet to buy some smart plugs but they’re on the list as I need to get the bottom of what’s causing us to use 6,500kWh a year.
Thats a similar amount to us (2 adults, 2 young kids, 3 bed semi, gas heating, electric everything else).
I think most of it's cooking.
There are apps that can connect to a smart meter btw (even if it's now defunct). Obviously you're giving strangers access to your data but I'm not too protective about people knowing my energy use!
https://loop.homes/loop_apps/
https://hugoenergyapp.co.uk/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.hildebrand.brightionic&hl=en_GB&gl=US
Anyone got a coal fire?
All sales of traditional house coal will be banned in England from 1 May 2023.
"https://www.gov.uk/guidance/selling-coal-for-domestic-use-in-england
Anyone got a coal fire?
Just have to start/continue burning wood on it.
I stuck our figures in here https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/what-are-the-price-cap-unit-rates-/
Bill is jumping from 2300 to 4200!
My numbers are in. I moved into a new place (old house, Calderdale) on Aug 1st, and the energy company here wanted me to set up a monthly DD of £161 to cover costs AT THE CURRENT TARIFF. I knew I wouldn't use that much so elected for monthly payment by DD based on my meter readings, at least until I got a handle on my usage.
So, my combined gas/elec bill all in for August was £41. Looking at kWh usage where I was last year, January was by far the most 'expensive' month. Assuming similar usage (should actually be a bit less), in January 23 I could, after the £67 rebate, expect to be paying c.£60 IF THE PRICE CAP IS FIXED AS IT IS NOW. If the planned doubling of the price cap takes place in October, I'll be paying £162 for January after the £67 rebate.
Those are the numbers I'm looking at - manageable either way, if not enjoyable in the latter case. But I'm atypical, e.g. no TV, none of the consumer crap like smart speakers that others seem to find necessary.
It'd be nice to think further aid would be targeted at the people who really need it, rather than towards the continuation of facilitating healthy adults spending all winter in their underpants in front of a massive TV, but I have no faith in these clowns achieving that.
In fact, I have no faith in these clowns even keeping the lights on this winter, so have stocked up on large numbers of candles, rechargeable batteries, a hurricane lantern and paraffin. Good luck....
Looks like I spent £120 on gas since April with Ecotricity. If I am reading this right, actual gas usage (not standing charge) the last 3 months has been £4??
And what happens for those that tried to be proactive and invested in alternative energy? Do they also have to foot the bill? Should they pay twice?
I guess they won't get the savings they hoped they would, but they will still save. Hopefully that's not too terrible?
Assuming they are reasonably affluent then maybe they could be happy that the cap is being paid out of taxation and so they won't be hit anything like as bad as those on low incomes - who will still struggle this winter.
Seems a little low, our gas usage in the last month was £12, hob and hot water, heating was off, oven and showers are electric. Family do use the bath from time to time.
irc
Full Member
Anyone got a coal fire?
Yep our old 45000btu Coalbrookdale / AGA Severn stove - it was scheduled to be removed along with a few other major house jobs but they got cancelled with Covid and unavailability/long lead times.
I'm in the process of replacing the firebricks and bought 2tons of Excel smokeless last month for £1100 as I wanted to 'lock in' our energy costs for the foreseeable. Sorry Greta - it's not for ever.
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Has anybody tried getting their supplier to pay back credit from their energy account? I've been doing this with shell, they aren't trying to stop me, but it's taken newly a week, multiple calls, and now it's approved another 5-10 days before the money moves to my bank. If I do it again in the future I'll be able to speed that up and reduce the calls needed though as I now know the process.
Id just keep on top of your direct debit amount so you never build up an excessive credit.
I'm with OVO.
Monthly it gives me, we expect your annual usage to be £x and if you make monthly payments of £y you'll have a balance of £z in a years time.
Anytime its showing an expected credit of >£100 I adjust the DD down a tenner.
Shell might not be as helpful.
I've been paying the maximum monthly DD Shell will allow to build up some equity for the winter. Now sitting at £867 credit, between that and the £400 Gov EBSS it should flatten out the spike in usage/costs for the next 6 months!
I can get similar info from the shell website. I had a large credit for a couple of reasons, previous supplier (green) did a couple of offers where for a short time of you paid money in extra they gave your an extra 10%, and then being realised shell make extra payments by card very easy I used a credit card which gives me a little cash back to top up the account, before pulling the money back to my bank in time to pay the credit card bill. It doesn't get me much, but now I know it's a meter reading and a phone call at the right time in the month I might do it a few more times.
Ah, couldn't find this thread earlier. Had my gas tariff through earlier, with similar usage to last year I'll be paying approx 25% more
There was also a letter attached saying I will get approx £67 credited to my PAYG electric meter every month for the next 6 months. At current prices / usage that's about 12 months of free electricity. How does that work? 🤷
I'm with Shell and after September's bill I expect to be £350 or so in credit. My usage for the next 12 months should average about £256 a month but they're wanting to adjust my DD to £299. I think this is because they review the DD every 6 months and are basing it on the next 6 months of winter use.
I'm inclined to set my DD at £256 and ask for my credit balance to be paid back to me. I'm not sure if they'll allow this as it'll basically mean i'll quickly go into debit over the winter and only catch up by this time next year. Essentially i'll be in debit all year.
Sounds like a few of us are with Shell and might be helpful if someone in the know could let us know how to go about getting credit balances paid back to us.
Shell. Make sure your latest bill is based on actual readings not estimates, and don't try to call in the billing cycle when they are generating that bill (the 5-7 days after they ask for the readings). Then call them
03300945800. You'll need your account number, address and that's it. Ask for a refund. They will try to encourage you to leave some credit, initially with me they floated a ridiculous figure then without pausing for breath reduced the suggestion by £300. It was still daft so I said so and suggested a figure myself which they accepted. I'm sure if i'd pushed for every penny they would have given it, but might have had more to and fro. It then takes 5-10 days for the money to leave and appear in your bank.
If you are excessively in credit I think you have a legal right to get it repaid
You can adjust the DD on the Shell app yourself with a range. Looking at what they have recommended I'm not sure it takes into account the £400 rebate - but it's not exactly transparent
Just has my estimated cost for the next year from British gas
Based on last years usage it will cost us £4154 this year.
Last year we had a boiler that was about 35 years old (changed two months ago), two teenage girls spending half hour twice a day in the shower so hoping it won't be as much as that.
How does that work? 🤷
Probably because your not 2.4 people in a semi detached house.
Email through today from UW, electricity going from £1042 > £1225 up £183 and Gas £1126 > £1545 up £419
Minus the £400 from the Gov this puts us under the £2500 cap, unit charge and standing charge have both gone up as well.
Scottish Power not confirmed anything yet. We've really cut electric use which will throw their calculations out. Will be £500 in credit next week, after asking for £400 back in June. Managed to find the 'refund' option buried in the web site (used google to help with that) and it was repaid within a couple of days. As my annual review was last October, we drastically cut use from March, so our predicted use remains high, and we're overpaying by £150 a month - currently £330, but using on average £180 of dual fuel. Gas has been £12-£15 a month recently (stove and hot water). This will rise, but on average it's no more than £100 a month in winter at the new prices - gas has been easy to calculate as the last 3 years KWh on gas are very similar - it's electric where we've made massive changes (all for the good though).
Minus the £400 from the Gov this puts us under the £2500 cap,
I know it's been said before, and it's probably phrasing but there isn't a £2500 cap
The £2500 refers to an 'average' household that the Gov and energy co's use to illustrate, with an average gas and electricity usage. The energy firms are limited to what they can charge per kWh and SC, etc so that at the average usage defined above, the bill is no more than £2500. In reality will be £2500 because I'm not aware anyone's selling for less than the allowed amounts (if they are tell me so I can move to them)
It's there so that people can see more easily. The kWh and SC is OK if you're a detail freak like me that knows my usage but to some punters just knowing the cap for this mythical average user used to be £1971, was supposed to be going up to £3549 (for the same usage, remember) and now the Gov has said is limited to £2500. Plus we all get this £600 help, fed in as a reduction in bills or your DD payment over the next 6mo.
https://heatable.co.uk/boiler-advice/history-of-ofgems-energy-price-cap
If you live in a 25 bed mansion, and run the hot tub all year and a hydroponic scheme in the loft, you will still pay way more than £2500. Like you give a shit, obviously, if you live in a 25 bed mansion. You'd still be benefiting the same from the per unit limit and also getting the same £600 as someone fighting to survive (clearly not right) but use 3x the average # of units, you'll pay 3x as much.
Got our estimate yesterday from Eon Next. They have estimated 5300Kwh Elec and 22300KWH Gas (though how I'm not sure as last years usage was 4634 KWH Elec 19645.8KWH Gas) giving about £4500pa! Seems we use approx 160% the average household :/ for last years usage. Not seeing many ways to cut those numbers. Elec does include charging the car so that I don't think is so bad, whole house is LED already and I think I've stopped all the left on stuff (e.g. distribution amp for TV that is not needed). Tumble dryer usage is the only place I can see to cut that further. All the gas cost is heating, house is as far as I can see well insulated (for its age). Already knocked 1deg off the thermostat (wasn't hot to start with) and I think we will have to close all the bedrooms off during the day and keep them cooler than the parts we are in (both WFH).
Bulb have just sent us our estimates through. Going from £1,150 per year to roughly £1,400 per year for electricity
Heating oil is near impossible to estimate unfortunately
Was at a site the other day where they have 3 x 8MW gas boilers & told me how much their kwh & standing charges had gone up by.... 😬 didn't realise the rise in standing charges was to pay off the debts of the companies that have gone pop, so much for free market competition, just tory bullshit.
Still waiting for Octopus tariff, but my usage is reasonably close to the standard anyway - 11300 gas (12000 is the standard for calculating the cap) and 4000 electricity (2900)
So we're 30% above electricity but I'm about to lose a major user to University and I've become a lightswitch Nazi so that'll hopefully get lower, and 8% below gas - don't tell wife but I've knocked the heating down by 1 deg and also shortened how long it's on to reduce the gas bill. I'll be somewhere between £2500 and £3000 a year, I guess.
Currently £550 in credit due to the end of summer and having put up payments to build some credit as insurance. I reckon £200 a month approx from here would bring me to equity or a small +ve this time next year, but depends also on how long that £2500 is supported for, and whether I really can drive down usage.
Just had our revised estimated from SSE based on 5150Kw of electricity and our bill is going to increase £270 to £1890/yr. 110m2 new build with ASHP - never been happier to have followed the advise of building the smallest house you need. Hate to think what the bills at our old place, 4 bed detached with solid concrete floors would be now. Seriously going to look at solar + battery too - a small wind turbine would be nice too.
Also looking at solar for next year (with a change of habits to use as much of the power generated as possible), seems to be a minefield picking a good installer though!
Gas will be about 9500 KWh, so pushing £1.1k before standing charges or £92 a month - that's doubled of course.
Electric, last 6 months we've used 3,900KWh based on about 20 KWh a day - we've reduced that recently to 11KWh - more probably soon, when daughter is at Uni and the gaming PC isn't on 10 hours a day (even in idle it uses uptp 200w). We've two gaming PC's that are using about 4 KWh a day (son and daughter) measured over the last week with monitoring plugs - that's nearly 1,500 KWh !
So about £2,500 in electric at the 20 KWH a day, or with lower use of say 15KWh or £1,800
So somewhere near £3k - £3.5k. SP now saying I'm not paying enough on the DD at £330 a month, but £500 in credit, £400 back, is more than enough. SP estimates will be based on the energy I used to use, not what we use now due to some 'effort' and reduction on being lazy (dryer use).
They aren't having more as I'll be asking for more money back in 6 months.
I seriously need to bring down usage. I thought we were doing well, a well insulated house, modern boiler, LED everywhere and very frugal use of heating. But usage is still 6,300 of electricity and 22,000 of gas per annum.
I have three teenage kids so easy to blame them but that is waaay over average house calcs. Luckily I have another 12 months of fix at pre daft prices to sort stuff out, including a proper look at solar and hybrid heat pump/boiler combination.
I can recommend the TP Link Tapo plugs at less than a tenner each to keep an eye on what's gobbling juice. We've also got a couple of 'manual' monitor plugs, mentioned in a thread recently, which I leave on the two gaming set ups - my son's knocked a few settings down to reduce idle power (e.g. browsing), but I said it's going out in the evening, and leaving the thing on for 6 hours when not in use - somehow the power saving isn't kicking it to standby).
Our big energy user was the hot tub - that's been 'off' for 6 months, and switched 'on' if we decide to use it. We just pop the filter pump on a couple of times a week (only runs for 24 hours if not heating). We worked out that to use it for an hour, including re-heating from 16-20c upto 39c would cost £6 to £8 (based on 2-2.5 KWh heating) for 12 hours, which is much cheaper than leaving it ticking over 24/7.
Our gas use hasn't changed in 4 years - just downloaded it from my supplier and it fits the same pattern each year - except cost has more than doubled. For a small 3 bed semi, our electric has been 3-4x the 'average'. That's having young adults in the house. Gas is below average.
Electric is now only 'double' which I'll live with.
Just had an email from Bulb saying my monthly leccy payments are changing from £90/month to £13/month. WTF! Wonder how long that will last.
Octopus aren't changing our DD after the 1st Oct price change - they just said they'll see how it goes and adjust if necessary. So, still on £160/month from the 1st April price change.
Right, does this seem a bit odd to you guys?
We recently had our meter changed from an old school one to a smart meter.
Electric usage remains roughly the same.
Gas (showers/heating/hot taps/hobs) has gone from 158kWh over 17 days in end August / beginning September (9.29 kWh per day)
to
33kWh over 14 days since the meter change (12th til 26th September - 2.35kWh per day)
No heating on, same regular usage but 1/4 of the gas used with the new smart meter.
Appreciate limited data, but I always suspected our gas bill was huge compared to everyone else, seems the old meter might have been inaccurate? If so, no idea where this leaves me as old energy company went bust and on British Gas now. Might have been overpaying by 3/4s for 13 years?
Octopus has said our monthly DD will fall by £67 due to the government subsidy. We're currently £300 ahead of usage on the account, the subsidy will be squirrelled away to cover any price shocks due to the incompetent in no.11.
My supplier has informed me I need to increase my DD by £20 or thereabouts up from the last year’s usage, which I must admit was a pleasant surprise.
Octopus here and the same -£67 adjustment to the DD. I get that they need so this to reflect the government £400 reduction, and to be seen to passing that benefit on (make sure UK.gov get the credit eh). But it’s clear from our info from them that even with the cap, our costs will still be a good chunk higher and more than our monthly DD will cover. So really the reduction in DD is just creating an issue, we’d be underpaying.
Fortunately (a) I actually analyse this sort of email when it comes in and (b) we can afford to up our DD to what actually seems sensible and will cover our usage this winter.
I do worry many folk not in same boat and will get to end of winter and find out their due a big outstanding sum to their supplier. At the same time the £400 ends. Double whammy.
Low users here just me and wife About 2000kw of leccy and 3ó00 of gas.
Been using about £60 a month in energy over summer but paying 100 to build up a bit of credit for winter
Had the we need to change your direct debit email today
£1.04! Due to the rebate
It will be interesting to see what happens with our place by the beach.
I pay £25/month for electricity (there is no gas there).... With the rebate they should be paying me!!
Just for a ref point. Our recent gas bills are around 5kwh per day for hot water hobs and a total of about 3 hours heating. So your new bills sound good.
As far as your old bills go. Worth checking what units your old meter measured Ours measures cubic feet which is converted to Kwh for the bill.
For a month we are using 4 to 6 cubic feet. If the old meter was cubic feet anything under a couple of months is too short a time period for an accurate rate.
For examlme going from 2 to 3 cubic feet boosts the apparent use instantly by 50%. Over time it balances out and is accurate but needs a few months use to be totally accurate within a few %.
