It's time to start digging up those Squirrelled Nuts!!!!

Sea_Shell

MallyGirl said:

Yep - detached Victorian place which is permanently cold enough to need me to wrap in a blanket when I watch TV. Officially only 3 bedrooms but really it is 4 and all the rooms have very high ceilings and single glazed sash windows. Mostly stripped floors or encaustic tiles. No cavities in the walls to fill. There are 19 radiators and I hate to think about how many 100s of metres of copper pipe under the floors.
Add in dogs that go in and out and in and out all day.
We will stay here for the first 10 years or so of retirement but I expect we will downsize at some point.

Brrrr. I feel chilly just reading that.

They are beautiful houses though.

Go make yourself a hot water bottle. 🤗

michaels

Our gas bill is extravagant, but it turns out that the heating bit is fairly normal but the hot water is 5x as much as the govt estimates for an EPC - that is one thing the DKs moving out eventually (I live in hope) is going to impact.  However we always keep the account in credit - ovo pay 3% on credit balances up to £1000

Sea_Shell

I'll look into OVO. Is that an apr?  So max £30 per year?

We're with So Energy and they do seem very competitive.   I check regularly.

Be interesting to run a comparison.

A job for tomorrow.

shinytop

We are all electric (no gas in our village) and our leccy bill was about £300 for November.  That was with our electric Aga which is now gone and it should be about £180 with heating (E7) on and £70 without.  Plus another few hundred for logs and coal (2 burners).  That's a very draughty 4 bed bungalow but we're getting new windows, doors and loft insulation. Might look as heat pumps in the future.  

Sea_Shell

Well I've had a look at current pricing and this is my findings.

We use 12600 kwh Gas and 1600 kwh Elec.

Current tariff is So Alder, which expires in May 2021, but based on our usage, gives an annual cost of £662.  (our £720 is a running 12 month cost including time on a previous tariff).

OVO on the same figures comes out at £680, so even with cashback, it's a marginal saving.   Plus it has a £30 per fuel exit fee, whereas So is only £5 per fuel.  

Outfox the Market come out cheapest overall at £620, but as we are happy with the service from SO, i'm not sure i'd be looking to move mid term for a net saving of approx £3 per month.

Always an interesting exercise to do though.

I've just submitted our Nov-Dec readings, and our bill should come in the next couple of days.   I've calculated that it'll be £67.96, made up of £13.23 standing charges, £21.25 Elec and £33.48 Gas.   After which we'll be £41 in credit.

cfw1994

@MallyGirl makes our £1800 pa for gas+elec seem mighty frugal!
Mind you, it includes virtually all of our car “fuel” costs - around 12,000 miles last year (18,000 since Jun19) in our Kona EV.  

Having Octopus Energy GO tariff means we get 5p per kw for 4 hours each night (when we also do washing and dishes), and our monthly charge hasn’t changed since getting the car (& moving to Octopus).  Plus, ignoring referrals, we are about £300 in credit.
Might be higher this month, mind.....we’ve re-filled Quarantine Tubatino again, the Aldi bargain hot tub we bought at the start of the lockdowns back in March!  That was used through to Sep, only been emptied for the past 6 weeks or so....but there won’t be any solar energy helping charge that this month    A pleasant way to spend an hour on a crisp evening!

Oh yes: on usage.  Before we moved to OE, we uses just under  30,000kWh gas and 4,500kWh electric....so around 2.5x SS’s frugal use 
I must check on usages since Sparky and Tubby joined us....

MallyGirl

We use Pure Planet so green/renewable which might bump it up a bit. High ceilings are a killer - if you climb a ladder it is warm up there. We have water UFH in the orangery which is the room we use most but it is 6m x 4.5m with a big lantern roof over the lot, bathrooms and my office have electric UFH and the rest is just radiators which can't cope. 

It is all factored in to my 'number'.

Sea_Shell

I'd say we're not frugal users, just live in a modern well insulated house, with an old style gas boiler with a hot water tank.

We're not sitting in the dark, with just a candle for heat!! 😉

Although we don't keep the house at T-Shirt levels of heat.

michaels

cfw1994 said:

@MallyGirl makes our £1800 pa for gas+elec seem mighty frugal!
Mind you, it includes virtually all of our car “fuel” costs - around 12,000 miles last year (18,000 since Jun19) in our Kona EV.  

Having Octopus Energy GO tariff means we get 5p per kw for 4 hours each night (when we also do washing and dishes), and our monthly charge hasn’t changed since getting the car (& moving to Octopus).  Plus, ignoring referrals, we are about £300 in credit.
Might be higher this month, mind.....we’ve re-filled Quarantine Tubatino again, the Aldi bargain hot tub we bought at the start of the lockdowns back in March!  That was used through to Sep, only been emptied for the past 6 weeks or so....but there won’t be any solar energy helping charge that this month    A pleasant way to spend an hour on a crisp evening!

Oh yes: on usage.  Before we moved to OE, we uses just under  30,000kWh gas and 4,500kWh electric....so around 2.5x SS’s frugal use 
I must check on usages since Sparky and Tubby joined us....

Similar gas to us, we use a fair bit more leccy. We are tied to ovo at the moment as part of a very lucrative v2g trial despite their rates not being the best hence taking advantage of the in credit interest. PV and EV and v2g would work extremely well with the octopus tariffs including the export ones but we have 18 more months on the trial before we can take advantage of that.

Audaxer

Sea_Shell said:

I'd say we're not frugal users, just live in a modern well insulated house, with an old style gas boiler with a hot water tank.

That's good that you have such low costs with an old style boiler. We changed to a combi boiler about 5 years ago to replace an 18 year old boiler and water tank. The new boiler is more efficient and works better for us as a couple, although the charges have gone up a bit recently to £93 per month.