Winter or fuel bills

[libby lou lou]

I notice round here lately that most people shut their curtains, lights out and go to bed. It's ten bells, are people that skint that it's cheaper to be in bed?.

That's bad if that's the case.

 

[gregers]

no there in bed shagging there mates

 

[Whitespirit66]

They're a bit like that around here. Mind you, a lot of them are getting on a bit.

You know what the wrinklies are like - bed with cocoa at 9pm then up at dawn. Probably spend the rest of the day wondering why they got up so early.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Its no joke though, in two days I used £30.00 worth of gas and electricity, I worked out to exact decimal point, including equivalent standing charge.

e.g. I with eon, their gas rate is 4.33p per kilowatts, I use a simple multiplication factor of 11.08 times cu m to convert to kwh, and daily standing charge of 27p

for electric their charge is two tier, which really means a daily charge of 25p and per kwh 13.1p

Since realising this I am now covered in two or three layers of clothing, turned down heating my heating from average 21c to 19c, and lighting and around 20 appliances switched off from standby.

 

[jockscott]

I'm with Eon.. Bloody electric is costing more than gas these days. If I have the choice between eating and staying warm, I reckon I'd rather eat. But fuel prices are bloody ridiculous now. Previous (and present) governments have done nothing to help with all of these "Green " issues tbh. Why should I pay, to subsidise these FIT's for those who have money to spend on solar panels etc? They reckon their saving money (bloody sure they wouldn't without the FIT's)

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Though gas is roughly a third of the electricity, it has larger loses through inefficient boilers, with non-condensing boilers you practically lose around 20 to 25% to atmosphere.

If I was living in a farm, I would most probably use other means to generate my own heat and electric, such as running generator on heating fuel through a small 15Kw engine and the heat produced by this engine could be used to heat the house through some sort of heat exchanger, including hot water.

 

[JBR]

I notice round here lately that most people shut their curtains, lights out and go to bed. It's ten bells, are people that skint that it's cheaper to be in bed?.

Seriously, our electric blanket uses a similar amount of electrical power as a light bulb, and once the bed's warm we can turn it down or completely off.

Similar 'electric throws' are available and I've often wondered whether, if some people are finding it difficult to afford to heat their homes properly, this might be of some help.

An efficient way of keeping warm at night?

 

[Mikefromlondon]

That is what I was considering getting now, we have never seen one in our life but time has come for these electric blankets, definitely, and also to heat just one room where you spend most of your time.

I have just had roof insulation put in, my roof never had any at all before, will this make any difference I doubt it, as two days consumption running my boiler at around 35C flow temperature though for 24/7 doesn't reflect any savings by the thick 270mm insulation that i have just had

Something else shocked me as well, I normally take shower, may be bath once a year, and only if my bones are aching, so I also monitored my hot water useage, so before taking a shower, I plugged the bath tub, and took a standing shower in the tub, and after dressing up, I went back to the bathroom, with a measuring jug, I used 45 litres of hot water, at about 35 to , because by the time I went back to it about 20 minutes later, the temperature was 31C, this really shocked me as the tub was almost 1/4 full.

But the next time I showered, i used 20 liters, as I wet my body, and then stopped the water running while I applied soap to my body and then reopened the water to rinse.

So we need to change our habits. Currently my water is fixed charge and not metered.

 

[big-all]

Its no joke though, in two days I used £30.00 worth of gas and electricity, I worked out to exact decimal point, including equivalent standing charge.

suspect a few miscalculations there
if we assume a daily charge off say 50p for each and a 50/50 split for gas and electric if we assume 15p for 1kw electric and 5 p gas your talking 20units x 14= 280kw a day a small hotel useage i would think

and £14 divided by 15p = 94kw a day or several canabis farms side by side
94kw divided by 24 is 4kw an hour do you have electric heaters or hundreds off down lighters ??

 

[Mikefromlondon]

The figures I have quoted are true, I use all energy saving lights, one in passage is on 24/7 as well as 3 in Kitchen diner and each draws 11watts, so that is 44watts and another small utility room had a 32watts round tubelight fitting that used to be on 24/7, I have since taken this down and replaced it with an 11 watt energy saving bulb now, outside in the garden is another 5 foot tube consuming 55watts which is switched on from dusk till I go to sleep at 3am! This keeps my garden lit up for cats, and deters burglars, in the last 20 years no one has approached my rear garden! might be worth a small price to pay for security.

I spend most of my time in my utility room, which is 20 x 12 foot, that uses 4 x 55watts 5 foot tubes which are On from about 10Am till 3 am, like for example I have not gone to bed yet so they are still on since about 10am this morning.

Then I have in between electric heating top up gas central heating, since I run my boiler at 35C flow temp, 24/7, occasionally when I feel the chill I run the fan heater on 1kw for about an half to an hour, every few hours.

Then I have far too many pieces of audio.tv/satelite equipment, around the house, one in each bedroom, living room, two in my utility room! all separate pieces of items like DVD recorder, sky digital, sky digital 2nd receiver, sky spare room receiver and if each draws on average 3 watts in standby, it all adds up. then I have these digital TV recorders in two rooms, video, DVD players, Hi Fi, Not forgetting the boiler kicks in full swing when we use hot water, and then there is the cooking, a fridge, my laptop that is on most of the time, along with another desk top computer, and endless number of smaller electrical items like mobile phone chargers, 2 home telephone bases, also I use plenty of hot water to clean cat's plates, clean their liter trays etc, far too much energy consumption!

I sure will be trimming my energy consumption. I just hope Goverment don't impose penalty on those who use more energy, thus discourage people from wasting energy, already I have stopped wasting much now, and wear an extra layer to stop feeling cold, the temp right now where I am in my utility room which faces the garden, or where I spend most of my time along with my cats , right now is 20c, whilst outside it is 9C

Upstairs in my bedroom I also use electric heating to top up the warm room temperature of about 18c, Not forgetting I have a 40l fish tank, and run a pump constantly, and the lighting!

Will a condensing boiler save me much if I only run my heating at 35c flow temperature but may run at around 50c when extremely cold outside near freezing? i heard that a condensing boiler won't save me much unless I was operating it at higher temperature of above dew point.

 

[AronSearle]

Let's face it, the day of reckoning will come!

Cheap energy was only going to last so long, maybe it's a bit skewed by the government, but it was coming anyway.

Far to many homes have little to no insulation, too many stupid people think a carpet is enough insulation for a floor, loads and loads of energy being wasted heating up the outside air.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

True, though carpets ust help a little, my utility room which is 20 x 12 foot, was constructed in 1992, using cavity wall principle, with insulation pads inserted during construction, it was regularly inspected by Building control, and 4" polystyrene insulation went in under 4" of concrete and then another 2 " of screed.

Today, I switched my heating off completely (well actually this morning at 6am before going to bed as I had to finish off a project, and the temp was 20 deg C, now I am back down again, and the temp has only fallen by a mere 2 deg C to 18 deg C, and I haven't turned it on yet, so i am going to wait until it is about 16 to 17 before I turn it on and this time may be I will try and use a higher temperature flow (60 deg C) and use the the room thermostat to regulate it to 20 deg C.

So losing 2 deg in 6 hours is pretty good as far as the insulation is concerned I recon. Not forgetting the outside temp is around 8.5 deg C


Main problem is learning to cope with reduced heating, to save on huge heating bills, and my house is full of gadgets all plugged in on standby, this wastes so much electricity, however, all this energy eventually ends up adding to overall heat any way, as if the house was being heated by lots of small heaters!

 

[jeds]

Mike, I don't know if you are a compulsive wind up merchant or what? I don't personally believe in the nanny state controlling how people think and behave but if somebody wanted to put up an example of why it might sometimes be justified you'd be a pretty good subject.

 

[Mikefromlondon]

Mike, I don't know if you are a compulsive wind up merchant or what? I don't personally believe in the nanny state controlling how people think and behave but if somebody wanted to put up an example of why it might sometimes be justified you'd be a pretty good subject.

There is no wind up, I live in a real world where your income declines as you get older, you have to balance your books, just like our Govt has do now, they are cutting things here and there, and I am glad they backed off with their green tax which would allow energy companies to limit their prices rise to an acceptable level.

But at the same time, why throw your hard earned cash down the drain, so why not economise on wastage and unnecessary wastage of resources. like taking a shower pouring down 40 to 45 liters of hot water, is insanity, so now I soap my body first then wash off, this way i am saving 20 liters of hot water!

wear an extra layer, cut your heating bills down, is not dictated by Govt, but just makes personal sense, put that money in your pocket you save, why beef up profits of these giant companies whose mercy you are at.

 

[Ricardus]

Mike, are you MickeyMoody with a new username?