Winter fuel allowance

alared

Paid on 25th November last year.
So maybe this coming week.

Davesnave

I don't know how high my fuel bill will be for the present winter , but it's unlikely to be higher than the one I had last year renting an all-electric house left vacant when an elderly lady went into a home. In that, in the depths of January, the WFA would have lasted about two weeks.:eek:

It will be nice if it comes next week. I'm considering buying a chain saw, but cutting the trees down manually keeps me pretty warm, so perhaps not. In any event, I can't use them until winter 2010/11, and by then, the Nasty Party will be in, so logs could well be the only freebie I'll get!;)

wageslave

I have a fireplace that I have never used. Every year I promise myself I will get a man in to check out the chimney and do the open fire thing. Eight years later, still no further forward:o

The thing is you need to plan ahead with logs, get them in the spring and let them season. Peat nowadays is useless, it comes in sanitised little blocks and doesn't smell of anything.

Can you buy real peat anymore?

treliac

wageslave wrote: »

I have a fireplace that I have never used. Every year I promise myself I will get a man in to check out the chimney and do the open fire thing. Eight years later, still no further forward:o

The thing is you need to plan ahead with logs, get them in the spring and let them season. Peat nowadays is useless, it comes in sanitised little blocks and doesn't smell of anything.

Can you buy real peat anymore?

Peat bogs are being destroyed. I believe garden centres sell alternatives nowadays.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/water/water/peat_bogs/index.asp

wageslave

treliac wrote: »

Peat bogs are being destroyed. I believe garden centres sell alternatives nowadays.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/water/water/peat_bogs/index.asp

I sort of hanker after the real thing. I dont mind paying.

michaels

MY monthly fuel direct debit remains the same throughout the year - doesn't everyone's

Subsidies towards fuel use (and indeed reduced VAT on fuel) hardly square with a stated goal of reducing green house gas emissions - surely making fuel relatively more expensive rather than less would encourage people to insulate, double glaze, buy more sweaters etc or am I being dim?

wageslave

michaels wrote: »

MY monthly fuel direct debit remains the same throughout the year - doesn't everyone's

Subsidies towards fuel use (and indeed reduced VAT on fuel) hardly square with a stated goal of reducing green house gas emissions - surely making fuel relatively more expensive rather than less would encourage people to insulate, double glaze, buy more sweaters etc or am I being dim?

TBH you are being dim.

You are assuming a pensioner living on 90 quid isn't just glad it is summer and theres another tenner a week they dont have to spend on heating.

You need a half decent income to be able to budget

The_White_Horse

Yes, all those that saved should pay their own heating bills and all those that MEW'd their way to new cars and holidays and now have nothing should get it free.

Welcome to lefty britain - where the savers are punished and the wasters rewarded.

Just scrap the whole scheme, and those that have saved can pay for it, and those that haven't can freeze, as they deserve to.

Davesnave

treliac wrote: »

Peat bogs are being destroyed. I believe garden centres sell alternatives nowadays.

http://www.rspb.org.uk/ourwork/policy/water/water/peat_bogs/index.asp

Peat free alternatives are getting better, but for the person who relies on growing for their livelihood, it is difficult to eliminate peat, and harder still to avoid using fossil-fuel based fertilizers.

Peat for burning is a separate issue. There's plenty in Russia, but what happens if they go for full scale commercial extraction is another matter:

http://www.wetlands.org/NewsandEvents/NewsPressreleases/tabid/60/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1869/Alarming-plan-to-mine-Russias-peat.aspx