We had a perfectly timed incident of our heating timer/switch or whatever breaking the week before Christmas and the engineer being like "I can't get parts until the 5th of January"... We could still turn the heating on and off at the mains switch on the wall... But (being lazy) inevitably we were just leaving it on all day from about 7am - 11pm.

Usage for the month was less than 10% more than the previous month when it was only on half that time, AND it was during that insane -7/-8 cold spell.

:shrug: I dunno.

To be fair we hopped on the air fryer trend and I love the stupid little thing so pretty much never use the gas oven any more which will help.

since getting my air fryer, the oven goes on about once a week now, i still dont see a massive reduction. The thing that stands out for me as using a ton of energy is the dishwasher. I tried turning my tv off for most of the day, putting my computer on sleep etc, but the difference was pennies :shrug:

the different is price if from the cold snap before Christmas and the cold snap last week, gas on for about the same number of hours but 10.00 a day rather than the 15.00 that it cost before Christmas...not complaining but its very odd

the cold spell after Christmas has been cheaper for me too, maybe it is a different type of cold .... like less windy or something :laugh:

how strange :laugh:

Modern (flatscreen) TVs, games consoles, laptops etc. use very little energy. A TV usually about 100w, consoles about 90w, laptops from 70w anywhere right down to about 35w.

I mean for perspective - before LED/"energy saving" bulbs became a thing, the "big ceiling light" was 100w!

You'll also see all sorts of nonsense about not leaving things on standby but realistically you're drawing maybe 2 or 3 watts, it's literally next to nothing even at "new" prices.

Desktop gaming PC is a bit of a different issue... with the graphics card drawing power the whole thing can be burning through 650w easily, which can stack up. It's like... 10 laptops :joker:.


The things that really eat electriciy are anything that makes heat. I actually have remembered the other thing I cut that has clearly made a huge difference in my electricity usage ... ... ...

I had a terrible habit of turning on the electric shower and then getting distracted by my phone for half an hour+, every day, before getting in. It must have been EATING electricity. A simple committment to... erm... not turning on the shower until I'm actually going to use the shower... has clearly made a big difference. Who woulda thought.

As a nice bonus it also means I don't have to repaint the bathroom ceiling every 3 months :joker:.

Under the existing rules, energy retailers - the companies that supply electricity to firms and households - are forced to pay the highest price for wholesale electricity, no matter how it has been generated. That cost is then passed on in bills.

That means they have been paying for all their wholesale electricity at the price of gas-fired generation, which only represents about 40% of all electricity generated for the National Grid.

Because of elevated wholesale gas prices, that type of electricity generation has been much more expensive than nuclear power and up to three times as expensive as renewables such as wind farms.

That's also meant windfall profits for renewable energy generation, which have been paid much more for their power than it costs them to generate - one reason the government has imposed a windfall tax.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64471262

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This is scandalous

Yeah I cannot understand that at all ....prices are set by the gas price so when they are banging on about renewables it desnt matter as it still costs the same :shrug::shrug:

it means that the energy retailers have no incentive to buy green energy either if they are always paying the maximum price, which seems incredibly stupid

They've been talking of de-coupling electricity prices from wholesale gas prices for years but it never happens - which means that, someone (powerful), somewhere, has it in their best interests for them not to be de-coupled.

It's going to have to happen eventually, my gas engineer was telling me last week that the plan seems to be to completely remove domestic gas supplies and gas electricity generation eventually.

I was worried for poor Dave but he assures me that he gets more plumbing jobs than gas heating jobs these days anyway so his business won't go under. Whew!

...yes our boiler is so old and **** that I see the local gas/plumbing fella quite regularly... :joker:.

Our old boiler is over 50 years old and going strong ..

We have it serviced when it fails :)

The old engineer told us to keep it as it’s practically bombproof and rarely has problems but the last guy said that he thought we should get a new boiler for about £1,500 ….

We are keeping it for the moment although I’m not sure how efficient it is financially speaking


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BBC News Text:
[Plans to raise the cap on energy bills
would be a "national act of harm",
reports the Daily Mirror.
The paper says the finance guru was taking
aim at Conservative plans to increase
the limit on a typical family's energy costs from
£2,5000 a year to £3,000 in April.]


https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cp...or-nc.png.webp

How do we know of we’ve been getting all the government’s money off our bills if we are paperless with one of those companies who find you the best deal ??

The wife moved ours to one of them years ago though I’ve never really approved


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paperless shouldn't mean no access to bills, you should be able to access your bill online

Households are unlikely to get extra support with energy bills from April, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has said.

Energy bills for a typical household are set to rise from £2,500 to £3,000 a year.

The government has been under pressure to offer additional help for people to cope with high gas and electricity costs.

Consumer finance expert Martin Lewis said that allowing the bill increase would be a "national act of harm".

The government's energy price guarantee reduces what households pay per unit of energy they use.

From April, the typical household bill will be allowed to rise to £3,000 per year. The scheme will run until April 2024.

A £400 discount applied to most households' energy bills from October is also due to end at the beginning of April.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64594707

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Thats when the tory party will really feel the weight of peoples anger so come the next local elections, they will get a hammering

This is basically the reason I went to paying in full on receipt of bill rather than direct debit spread across the year - I've paid the "real amount" for what we used monthly over winter, minus £67 every month. Our gas usage is currently about £170/month but we use (bascally) next to no gas at all from April - October, so should be paying a good chunk less than now overall over summer, even without the £67 discount and cap increase.

Next winter could be a fun one though if prices don't fall :joker:.

As always grateful that we can afford it regardless, I know that's not the situation for everyone, but :shrug: it still massively sucks. It's a large chunk of money that could be spent on my kids (or on ME! :oh:) just going up into the air.

My gas bill is tiny because i got a fixed deal, i am basically basking in warmth. Even with the fixed deal on electricity its still higher than i ever dreamed it would be, and when i get an sms to tell me it's been paid i always have a few choice swear words ready

You are charged more per unit for not paying DD, and people on prepay are charged the most...criminal really

The difference with my supplier works out as less than 3% so I'd rather pay the extra than let them "guess" at what my usage is going to be for the year - which they always MASSIVELY over-estimate. Also means that if, for example, you go away for a week your next bill will be 25% less, because you used 25% less, rather than exactly the same as every other month.

Basically it's paying a small premium for them to have no hold whatsoever over me :joker:. They can't estimate my usage, they have no access to my bank account, I'm never in debt or credit with them. I order energy from them, they send me the bill, I pay the account to £0 and we have nothing else to do with each other whatsoever :hmph:.