cheap heating

Emily1003

What whould be the cheapest way to heat my home?? atm im using a fan heater but its killing my electric and i cant afford to put money on both my gas and electric every week as it is i put £10 on my gas every week - £5 for debt and £1.86 charge and really cant afford to put more on but my house is so so cold and ive got a 2 year old with heart problems so i need to find a cheap way to keep the house warm before the weather gets worse xx

zaax

Move to http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/switch-now
Live in one room

Are you living in rented?

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Emily1003 wrote: »

What whould be the cheapest way to heat my home?? atm im using a fan heater but its killing my electric and i cant afford to put money on both my gas and electric every week as it is i put £10 on my gas every week - £5 for debt and £1.86 charge and really cant afford to put more on but my house is so so cold and ive got a 2 year old with heart problems so i need to find a cheap way to keep the house warm before the weather gets worse xx

You mention gas. Is that for heating or cooking or both? If you have some form of mains gas heating that will normally be substantially cheaper than using an electrical heater.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

zaax wrote: »

Move to http://www.goodenergy.co.uk/switch-now <snip>
Live in one room

Are you living in rented?

I hope that's not a referral link.

HappyMJ

Gas is much cheaper than the electric.

Heating costs money....a lot of money. Most people pay by direct debit around £120 per month but when you are on prepayment you might need to put £50 per WEEK in the winter. £10 will be just enough for the standing charges, debt repayment and hot water....i.e it should be the amount you would need to top up by in summer.

If you were on Ebico then gas costs 5.41p/kWh. 500kWh of heat about enough for 6 hours of heating (on full which would be very likely if you had three 2 hour heating periods set on the timer) a day for a week and that will cost you £27.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Don't fall for that exclusive ethical and environmental market supplier in #2, its always going to be more expensive than a non ethical and environmental supplier. Until you pay your debt down and make the £5 quid a week penalty disappear, wearing more clothing, or getting a charity to pay your debt is your only real option.

Emily1003

The gas is for heating and hot water only and everything else is run off electric xx
i do wear a lot of clothing and im not worried about me its my 2 year old that i worry about, even my health visitor who visited yesterday said that the house was far too cold for her cos of her heart problems and at the moment we are living in one room - the bedroom but my health visitor also commented that this was not fair on my little un or me xx

zaax

I think you need to talk you your landlord about how much insulation the building has. It should be 300mm in the loft, and cavity walls insulated, also A+ double glazing. If this is done correctly your heating cost will half (£20 / month)

WestonDave

zaax wrote: »

I think you need to talk you your landlord about how much insulation the building has. It should be 300mm in the loft, and cavity walls insulated, also A+ double glazing. If this is done correctly your heating cost will half (£20 / month)

In an ideal world yes but there is little to push a landlord to insulate to this standard - A+ double glazing is relatively new and no landlord is going to replace older double glazing just to meet that standard.


In reality £4 odd per week on gas simply isn't enough money allocated to heating. It might be worth heading for the debt free part of the forum, posting up your budget and letting the old hands over there point out where savings could be made that can be put to more heating.

zaax

Landlords get money for insulating their houses
https://www.gov.uk/landlords-energy-saving-allowance

saveallmymoney

WestonDave wrote: »

It might be worth heading for the debt free part of the forum, posting up your budget and letting the old hands over there point out where savings could be made that can be put to more heating.

Great advice here from WestonDave!