Owning your own home

electricity only (economy7 smart storage heaters) 1 bed top floor flat and bill for Nov was £168 so £100 with the top up. but that's wearing jumpers/fleece and 19° during the day and 20° in the evening, not using the towel rad in bathroom and not using the oil filled rad in bedroom, kitchen is unheated but just opening the door to lounge heats it up as it's so small, so being in there cooking is enough to heat the space.
partner will be here in Jan/feb while new place is being done and it will be a constant 22°, the IR/mirror heater in bathroom will be on along with bedroom rad and the 120lt of hot water in the unvented cylinder will fill a bath every evening (to the brim and too hot to get in so left to cool down).
if it's a close to 0° month i fully expect the bill to pass the £300 mark before discount. rates were 6p overnight/20p day it's now around 20p/30p
triple glazed, 270mm insulation in loft but tile hung dormer roofs with a few inches of polystyrene can only do so much.

growing up with crittall windows and no heating upstairs means i'm quite comfortable at 20° and not bothered about heating a bedroom above 17-18° but feel sorry for those who need to be warmer for age/health reasons but simply cannot afford to be warm.
shareholders get paid though...

From a practical point of view, what can I do to help out our elderly neighbours? They rent the 3 bed, un-modernised victorian terrace next to ours. He asked me the other day if we were cold at night as the 'have never been this cold'. I suspect they are not using the heating much, if at all.

I was going to but them a super warm duvet and say we were given it as a house warming gift but don't use it.

I also have a modern 1.5KW oil filled radiator that I could lend them to just heat the one room, but I don't want to give them something that will send their bills sky high.

They are hard of hearing, but I'm going to try and ascertain if they are on a DD or smart meter. If they are on a smart meter I will try to check that they have received and used the vouchers that are sent as the Gov £400 support payments.

Any other ideas?

8 bed detached passivhaus with a 25m underground pool and 6 car heated garage in Kensington. We’re usually away over winter.

Electric blanket? Cheap to run and effective.
https://www.dunelm.com/product/cosy-and-warm-electric-blanket-1000193268?beddingSize=Kingsize&defaultSkuId=30652064&ds_c=QandP_Electric+Blankets_%5BGOO-LIA-QANDP-ELECTRIC%5D&gclid=Cj0KCQiAkMGcBhCSARIsAIW6d0ALvy_2gTMofKdCVUYEFyxQltGgt02uiAjPdjNwHXUiQWK-iDnnieIaAmu6EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

Removed? Can you just not use it or do you still have to pay just because it exists?

genuine lol

There's a daily standing charge even if you don't use any gas.

Bring the server into the house? Free heat.

reduce my DD

This has been a different variety of fuckery. I think the companies decided to start ratcheting these up over summer to prepare people for winter & reduce their credit risk. Bulb is now holding over £600 from me despite always selecting the minimum DD option.

I see. Figured. Do they just cap it at the wall or something?

We don't have gas but I was always thinking of adding it because elec was supposed to be spendy. Can't be arsed now. I want to move.

it just gets added as credit to your account

My supplier gives me a monthly credit to my bank account for the government bit.

They also direct debit too much and have just decided a need a £1700 credit.

Any other ideas?

+1 leccy blankets but they have to be safe.

Ha!

How much does it cost to take one out? Gas standing charge is something like £100 / year so interested to understand the payback period.

Someone once claimed to me that it cost £4k to move their meter during a refurb.

EDF have a grand of mine and upped my monthly DD to £180 even though I'm on a fixed deal till July 23

With Octopus when I moved house I didn't bother setting up a DD and now just pay bills as they come in. They don't seem to care as long as it's paid within 14 days. Saves me the high DD hassle. It works for me because I know I don't need to have an energy "savings account" for winter like they try to sell you as the benefit of a high DD.

Happy with our decision to get solar panels installed, particularly for when prices go up property in March/April next year. I'm assuming its going to be around 60p a kw.

We got our lowest generation day of 800w the other day, but still got 25kwh last week. (6.6kw system)

Currently use about 10kw of electricity a day, no idea about the gas as our smart meter is broken, and the energy company is being really slow about replacing/repairing it.

I'm hoping they have no record of consumption, so they go by the estimated usage, or 0 usage...

I run pretty warm so I can cope with the heating off and 12 degrees or so during the day (and given I haven't broken out the thermals yet probably a fair bit colder).

The trouble is that the house takes a long time to heat up so my previous plan of just turning the heating on as other people get home isn't going to work for much longer.

Although it did occur to me that, on days when I don't cycle the tube costs me £7 to get into the office and I don't really notice that so that's about equivalent to the heating being on half the day.

I gave in to the random DD because many (most?) energy billers charge more if you pay on receipt of bill, even if a direct debit, and the money doesn't get much in the way of interest in my current account anyway.

nadda

on days when I don't cycle the tube costs me £7

Today I've got the train into the office so free heating there but I could have just spent the £11.40 on gas. What I really need is some sort of e-bike that I can charge at work and then power my house with when I'm at home.

Bulb is now holding over £600 from me despite always selecting the minimum DD option.

In Octopus you can apply to withdraw part of your balance and it's automatically approved up to £500 provided you leave some kind of "recommended amount" in your balance . Which I did few months ago. A similar thing could be possible for Bulb customers now that Bulb is being absorbed by them.

Good to know I'm not alone. Now interest rates aren't zero there's a real cost to this! Not to mention the highly lucrative investments that I fund with my interest-only mortgage, natch ;-)

Had a second viewing of the place we’ve had an offer accepted on. Having lost one to significant subsidence my partner and I are now somewhat paranoid. Are these cracks anything to worry about @leggy_blonde? Obviously we’ll get a proper survey in due course but whilst we’re waiting for all the initial conveyancing to go through I’d value your thoughts, as well as anyone else that knows about such things? Wondering (and hoping) they’re just cracks in the render from settlement etc

2 Attachments

The cracks are failed render, which could mean damp problems.

I'm not a surveyor / structural engineer, but as I understand it, they're the wrong direction for subsidence.

If it's a solid wall house, I'd be walking away - unless you fancy stripping the render & starting again.