Am I The Only One Happyish With Fuel Bills

welshlil

:j I was dreading my fuel bills, but just had mine. My Gas for the period Oct - Jan last year, before any increases was £169-00 this year.......£168!
My electric bill last year, before increases, £140-00 this year..£111-00 [give or take a few coppers] The only thing I was really annoyed though, that my discount had not been applied (was put on the energy care plan 6 weeks ago) queried this with the manager of SWALEC who explained that there was a dreadful backlog of paperwork. She went on to say that she thought that this was unacceptable and offered me a goodwill gesture of £10-00 from each bill.

I live in a three bed roomed council house, with no double glazing. Have not gone cold once this winter. Heating goes on when first one gets out of bed! By the time they've had a shower house is warming up. Council have fitted a combi boiler. Pull curtains at dusk. Turn heating off when house is empty, it's usually warmer than outside when I get back. No clothes on radiators, but on a very old [50 yr + wooden airer] so rooms get warmer quicker, Will not use nor have a tumble dryer. Fitted energy saver light bulbs in every room possible. Where not poss use a lamp with one in. Turn all unused electric items off at socket i.e. microwave, tvs [3] upstairs, phone chargers, and network box and tv downstairs is off all night, computers printer etc. Anyone else managed this as well?:beer: Forgot to say I'm in most days, disabled - so heating is on for a good many hours.

Rikki

welshlil wrote: »

:j I was dreading my fuel bills, but just has mine. My Gas for the period Oct - Jan last year, before any increases was £169-00 this year.......£168!
My electric bill last year, before increases, £140-00 this year..£111-00 [give or take a few coppers] The only thing I was really annoyed though, that my discount had not been applied (was put on the energy care plan 6 weeks ago) queried this with the manager of SWALEC who explained that there was a dreadful backlog of paperwork. She went on to say that she thought that this was unacceptable and offered me a goodwill gesture of £10-00 from each bill.

I live in a tree bed roomed council house, with no double glazing. Have not gone cold once this winter. Heating goes on when first one gets out of bed! By the time they've had a shower house is warming up. Council have fitted a combi boiler. Pull curtains at dusk. Turn heating off when house is empty, it's usually warmer than outside when I get back. No clothes on radiators, but on a very old [50 yr + wooden airer] so rooms get warmer quicker, Will not use nor have a tumble dryer. Fitted energy saver light bulbs in every room possible. Where not poss use a lamp with one in. Turn all unused electric items off at socket i.e. microwave, tvs [3] upstairs, phone chargers, and network box and tv downstairs is off all night, computers printer etc. Anyone else managed this as well?:beer:

If we all lived there we would be able to save too.

Mine only went up by £15 for the same quarter last year. Better than I thought. :cool:

Magentasue

We've made cutbacks and savings this year in a similar way. Emphasis is on cutting waste without giving up any comforts and conveniences. I haven't found it a struggle - the real work is keeping everybody else on track. I don't mind paying for energy to keep the house warm and run the things we want but resent lighting unused rooms and leaving the TV on with just the dog in the room.

welshlil

i just realised the spelling error made me giggle

Antispam

Am I The Only One Happyish With Fuel Bills

yes

greenbee

I'm happy with mine too...

I think a bit more about what I use, but haven't been cold this winter (yet :rolleyes: ) and pay £10 for gas and £9 for electricity on my monthly DD. Before anyone points out that this may not cover everything, I read my meter weekly for imeasure, and also submit the readings to my supplier at the same time (why not?!), so my bills are accurate and I'm actually in a better position than I would expect at this time of year.

Like the OP, I have the heating on for an hour in the morning, and its then off when I leave the house. When I get in, I shut the curtains and switch the heating on if I need it. I turn it off when I start getting ready for bed. Not having it come on automatically in the evening probably saves me quite a bit, as my hours are fairly erratic and otherwise I might well be heating an empty house with open curtains for several hours a night!

I also switch everything off at the mains when not in use. I do have a TD (otherwise nothing would ever get dry!) and run a dehumidifier. I also have quite a lot of halogen bulbs, but the lights are never on for long! However, I don't have a TV or any of the gadgets that go with it. If only I went to bed earlier, I'd probably have even lower bills!

Michael_Nottingham

:beer: Impressive - I thought at £60 per month Dual Fuel I was quite low - obviously have more to learn

Sirbendy

I'm possibly the only person who's happy to be on a prepay meter..heh..we're moving to a place with quarterly meters - not overly confident about that. Prepay is easy to keep a monetary eye on..."normal" meters don't read in £/p, so they're not as nice, to my eyes..

Heyho, I've written a spreadsheet calculator to work out costs from readings now...still tedious, but at least that'll help automate the "how much have we used?" bit.