Viewing 40 posts - 361 through 400 (of 489 total)
  • So, what’re your new energy costs?
  • retrorick
    Full Member

    I’ve built a reasonable £350 buffer from last winter and through this summer. Paying £65 a month for both via DD. This will probably only just cover my nominal usage so with the govt £400 and the buffer I should be able to make it through to next april but without any reserve for next winter.
    I need to go wood collecting and order more wood briquettes for winter 2023 next summer.

    dyna-ti
    Full Member

    I’ve just had my annual estimated use costs in from British gas, and currently gas for me costs £930/year, going up to £1300/year, and electric currently £550/year, going up to £650/year.

    So not too bad really. £470-£500 extra to find, though I got £650 from the gov so its pretty much covered the increase. And I’ll be a bit more frugal in energy usage, so i should be able to get that increase down a couple of hundred/year.

    retrorick
    Full Member

    I’m reducing my lighting costs by trying to only use my cooker hob lights in the kitchen 2*4w rather than 6*7w. If the lack of light becomes a safety issue i’ll revert to the big lights. I’ve removed a few bulbs in the bathroom as well. All miniscule savings in the grand scheme but the changes might add up over 6 dark months.

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    chewkw
    Free Member

    4c! My living room used to get to 7c but now with better windows and draft reduction it might drop to 10c.
    I won’t be using the ch in the morning this year before heading to work. I’ll make do with the far infrared panels i have bought or a fan heater in the kitchen to take the chill out of the room.

    North facing bedroom with no flat at the side or above to provide insulation. Worst case scenario is to sleep in the living room.

    Another way to keep warm is go to work earlier … arrghh …

    molgrips
    Free Member

    We’re on about 8kWh a day without the car and it’s hard to see how to reduce that. We already have very little lighting on. Kids’ computers and telly are basically the main discretionary usage. Background consumption is about 100W ish at night. To save much out of that I’ll have to go around turning things off standby every night, which is a royal pain. I could do it with smart plugs but they have their own power consumption.

    Every 10W of continuous load is worth about £2.80 of leccy per month.

    twistedpencil
    Full Member

    @trail_rat there is a ‘Energy Bill Support Scheme’ payment of £66 on my September statement… if this has been incorrectly applied that would account for a deduction in my current billing period…

    Looks like a omnishambles one way or another…

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Just realised Octopus haven’t actually billed me for the last few months. I’ve been paying in though still.

    oomidamon
    Full Member

    Just had an email from Bulb telling me to reduce my monthly DD. Haven’t they seen the news?!

    stcolin
    Free Member

    We’ve just moved into a new build. Contacted OEN Next and they need to change the account from business to domestic. Takes a week or so, so I hope that the first estimation isn’t based on the usage by the builders during the build. We have £260 credit from Bulb but we just got that back and will use it towards the winter. Trying to find out what their tariff, almost impossible!

    olddog
    Full Member

    Every 10W of continuous load is worth about £2.80 of leccy per month

    I was just coming to say that must be too high but just done the sums and get more or less the same. It’s surprisingly higher than I thought.

    In terms of actual costs – Shell energy have been pretty useless – only updated smart meter/app with new tariff today. The app is showing my account with £67 additional credit on one screen and not on another. I’m sure they haven’t taken account of the significant credit properly in our DD – but equally we’ve only had an EV for a couple of months so that will not have played through. Also a new gas boiler, better insulation, better controls means gas will be lower than estimated.

    So I’m leaving my DD at their predicted £220 per month with a £460 (or is it £527 credit) and will let them sort out the app first, then I’ll work out my own estimated usage when we’ve had a couple more months of EV

    Daffy
    Full Member

    I realised this a while ago – that our house base load + the daily standing charge would cost us £550 a year without ever switching a light on or boiling a kettle.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I think that all the sundry chargers and things on standby must be about 10-20W. I suspect the WiFi and broadband modem are hefty though.

    gobuchul
    Free Member

    I suspect the WiFi and broadband modem are hefty though.

    Not really, depends on the model but some only run at 5 watts.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    8-14W for the router and we have a fibre modem l too, as far as I can tell it’s similar. So maybe as much as £5-6 per month between them.

    Or put another way, in the region of 20% of our base load. Not sure what the rest is. I think the readings of 90-95W I see at night are when the fridge is idle.

    monkeyboyjc
    Full Member

    Just had a revised heating (central heating and water)

    prediction come through of a 60% increase.

    Which sound ok on the face of it – however it’s within a community heating scheme, which according to the email has been running at a 60% loss since it’s introduction 7 years ago.

    Daffy
    Full Member

    Ours are fridge, boiler, fish filter/pump, security system, router and a couple of 2w lights. The only things on standby in our house are the microwave, hob and oven. Everything else is off. Base load is 122w.

    neilnevill
    Free Member

    Seems a complaint, combined with raising the DD, had kicked shell into action to raise the refund request again…. It could still take 10 days to reach my bank and it’s not the full amount which I asked for when I raised the complaint (rather the previously agreed amount) but if it’s paid this time I’ll not push it further. Blood and stone come to mind.

    Is it just me or do others think the app is a pointless and stripped down version of the website? Usage for instance, website=monthly usage for gas and electric in kWh or in £s (would be daily if I had a smart meter). App= monthly combined cost 😕. Think I’ll bin the app off

    onehundredthidiot
    Full Member

    Today was most expensive so far 6kw of electricity and 34kw of gas.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Ah yeah we have fish, forgot about them.

    richardkennerley
    Full Member

    Shell emailed us today. Our DD has been £200 per month for a while and we’ve ended up £350 in credit (this is including an EV.) From next month they’re upping the DD to £252, but they’ll also effectively be getting £66 on top of that for the next 6 months. So they think our bill needs to increase £118 in one month, despite us currently being in credit.

    I was expecting to keep the DD at £200, let them add the £66 on and monitor how we get on for a few months.

    LD
    Free Member

    I’ve just had the “conversation” with Bulb. In good credit now but they wanted to raise my monthly DD from 350 to 550 (which would be 616 with gov contribution). I tried to adjust down as I have done previously but the lowest allowable was 488. Not really wanting to give them a large interest free loan (and have had house re insulated and plan to save power/heat this year) I contacted them and the solution was to go onto pay as you use DD (which I didn’t know existed). Might be a good option for some. I am in the fortunate position of being able to absorb the month by month changes and this stops me from getting into massive credit or debit.

    FuzzyWuzzy
    Full Member

    Just had my Shell email to, DD rising from £165/month to £214 (am currently £430 in credit), looking back it went from £89 to £165 in June

    oscillatewildly
    Free Member

    has anyone received the £67 credit yet? as a british gas customer im led to believe it will be paid back in as a type of refund seperately? were now 11 days into october has anyone received it?

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    has anyone received the £67 credit yet? as a british gas customer im led to believe it will be paid back in as a type of refund seperately? were now 11 days into october has anyone received it?

    Not from BG, who Im with for my gas, but Scottish Power just text and emailed to tell me the £67 was being sent to my bank account. I wasn’t expecting to receive actual cash, I assumed bills would be adjusted etc.

    What’s to stop folk using this cash for something other than a gas or electric bill???

    jam-bo
    Full Member

    octopus just dropped my DD by £67 and said I could put it back up manually if I wanted to.

    and looking at my account, there is a £66 credit.

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    £66 from EDF yesterday – paid into my account.

    oscillatewildly
    Free Member

    @boardinbob – thanks – my dads with eon and his is just coming off his bill apparently, but british gas is supposedly paying the £67 back into the bank account if you pay via DD – im not bothered really but id know where im at a bit more if i did get it as a refund as ill just keep it to one side, if it come off my bill id be confused as hell as to how much im actually using/charged as no doubt it would generate about 50 different bills knowing BG

    fettlin
    Full Member

    I’ve had my £66 credited to my account (Bulb). Email from them on the 1st of Oct telling me the Energy Bills Support Scheme payment had been applied.

    oscillatewildly
    Free Member

    good news guys – i didnt really believe it but thats positive! least its a little nest egg to keep to one side for next year (im already almost £500 in credit)

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    Just checked my British Gas app and there’s no sign of any credit or refund

    stcolin
    Free Member

    EON really are a useless bunch of *insert popular group slur here*

    Trying to get an account setup is like pulling teeth out of teeth. Going from a business account which was owned by the builder during construction to a domestic account means we will probably have a crazy estimate for our first months. We had been paying around £120 a month with £280 credit with Bulb. I fully expect it to double even after the gov grant.

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    EON were bloody useless when we moved too.

    I had that ‘going round in circles’ conversation many times and they completely refused to accept I’d done the address switch online weeks before the move.

    They’d even written to me at my new address to acknowledge – but no, that couldn’t have happened!!! I sacked them off in the end and stayed with the previous home owners supplier.

    stcolin
    Free Member

    Sounds about right. We have been on the phone to them, everything has been done at our end with meter readings and account details. Still no email to activate the online account. I think the address is all correct, they haven’t queried it with us. I’m just worried those first few months will be crazy until a few months of correct meter readings settle it down. We have a smart meter in a box, I’m very reluctant to use it.

    irc
    Full Member

    So I just checked the wattage of my pond pump. 38W which runs 24/7. I make that nearly 1Kw a day. Which is around a sixth of the whole house consumption. I am going to change the water at the start of November then turn it off until April. It’s only goldfish not Koi. I’m sure they will be fine without a pump and filter running over winter.

    I also used to have 40w of LED lights in the garden on a timer. Up to 8 hours a day from dusk to midnight. THey are already switched off.

    Our 2021 Sept electricity was 225KWh. This year it was 186KWh. Removing the pond pump should get us down towards 150KWh which is a one third reduction achieved fairly painlessly.

    Garden lights reduced. Pond pump off. Less use of tumble dryer. Careful to only fill kettle as much as required.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Amazes me that people fill kettles just to make one cup. It takes forever to boil!

    montgomery
    Free Member

    Eon credited my energy account with the first £66 last week which means, I guess, that September’s £47 gas/elec bill won’t be DD’d on the 21st – and the £19 credit will be added to next month’s £67 thus giving me another free month’s utilities even at the new rates. Thanks, Liz!
    (*Two hundred year old stone building high up in Calderdale).

    the-muffin-man
    Full Member

    @irc

    I’m sure they will be fine without a pump and filter running over winter.

    We just used to run pond aerator over winter, you may find that uses less energy while still keeping things healthy. Also helps to stop the pond freezing up.

    You can even get solar powered ones – not sure how much use they’d be in winter though!

    BoardinBob
    Full Member

    Trying to get an account setup is like pulling teeth out of teeth. Going from a business account which was owned by the builder during construction to a domestic account means we will probably have a crazy estimate for our first months.

    I’m a year and a half since moving into our new build and in that time British Gas are still unable to properly transition us from the builder to our own personal setup. Latest debacle is them insisting our opening meter reading being 00000 despite it actually being about 00640 when we moved in and calling at the time to tell them. So glad I took a note of the reading. Utterly useless

    longdog
    Free Member

    Still waiting for my £66 prepayment meter voucher from EON 🙄

    And still wondering if well ever find out how to get the £100 for oil heating…

    DT78
    Free Member

    Take photos of your meters, don’t rely on the fact you told them, submitted online or have noted it down.

    I had a nightmare with companies going bust, the meter being misread by a meter read (transposed 2 digits) and then all my submitted readings continually being ignored. Hours of phones calls to sort, only to revert again the following month. Apparently I was owed over £1k from previous supplier, only then to get hit with a baliffs letter demanding 300 from supplier who had gone bust and there website where I had submitted the readings had gone so no way to prove either way. Absolutely nightmare to deal with British Gas…

    I take photos every month now, lessons learnt.

Viewing 40 posts - 361 through 400 (of 489 total)

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