Cheapest Way to Heat a home

Jonesya

Perhaps she always wore a vest and a jumper and rarely had the heating on? Who knows?!!

But generally it's pretty simple, you use less energy by keeping rooms at lower temperatures and heating for shorter periods, so turn off the heating in unused rooms, keep the house at a lower temperature and heat one or two rooms. Like the Victorian terraces, where they lived in the back room and the rest of the house was largely unheated.

Leodogger

Only problem with that is we are retired and move around the bungalow a lot during the day ! As I say we usually have the heating on two hrs in the morning and 6 hrs from 4pm onwards when the weather starts to turn really cold and it is dark. We also have vertical blinds all around the house which we keep shut in rooms we don't use to keep the heat in. Don't know what else we can do ???

matelodave

TBH a gas fire can be quite expensive to run as a good proportion of the heat goes up the chimney (possibly up to 50%) unless it's one of the later models which are a lot more efficient.

Perhaps you need t re-evaulate your heating and sort out the controls. Have you got a thermostat or timer. If you've got a combi then the best way to control it is to get rid of the timer and fit a programmable room thermostat which would allow you to have different temperatures at different times of the day. Do the rads have thermostatic valves, if so are they set correctly.

Are you using your hot water sensibly, every time you turn on a hot tap, the boiler fires up to full bore and then runs to produce hot water, even if it's just to rinse your hands or rinse a pot or dish so use cold water when possible.

Leodogger

We have thermostats on all radiators and a programmable thermostat for the central heating which we can use to set 3 heat programmes for the day. It is set to 18c and goes down to 10c when the timer goes off. We have the programmer sited in the coldest bedroom on the window cill so that it is controlled using the coldest room. The radiator stats are all turned to full as the rooms are otherwise cold. Perhaps we should just turn up the heating on the programmer for the boiler and turn down the room stats, I never know which is wisest but it is difficult to keep the heat in one room in a bungalow higher than another when you are all on one level and going in and out of rooms constantly.

Robin9

Leodogger wrote: »

Only problem with that is we are retired and move around the bungalow a lot during the day ! As I say we usually have the heating on two hrs in the morning and 6 hrs from 4pm onwards when the weather starts to turn really cold and it is dark. We also have vertical blinds all around the house which we keep shut in rooms we don't use to keep the heat in. Don't know what else we can do ???

So are my wife and I but we believe in keeping warm - heating on 0700 till 2200 at 22 deg. Yes there's a cost.

Don't forget you get the Winter Fuel Payment (£300). Spend it on keeping warm and not on presents for the grandchildren. !


PS My November consumption 2000 kWh cost £70 ; what was yours OP ?

Do you also qualify for the Warm Home Discount of £140 ?

Have you done a comparison of suppliers in the last 3 years or are you still with that supplier - in which case you are on their Standard (ie expensive) tariff !

Leodogger

We went on the Scottish Power Saver December 2021 fixed rate on 9th October which was the cheapest tariff on offer.

How do we find out how much we paid for 2000w ?

How do we qualify for Warm House Discount? I thought you had to have a child under 5,or be disabled etc.?

We get £100 each winter fuel allowance not £300. Also we don't buy presents for the grandchildren. They are all grown up.

Gerry1

Leodogger wrote: »

How do we find out how much we paid for 2000w ?

Presumably you mean 2000kWh of gas? If so, it's 2000 x the rate per kWh that you are charged. If it were 3p/kWh, then it would be £60. (Don't forget VAT and standing charges.)

Leodogger wrote: »

How do we qualify for Warm House Discount? I thought you had to have a child under 5,or be disabled etc.?

www.gov.uk/the-warm-home-discount-scheme

Robin9

OP - have you got the ACTUAL annual consumption figures you used when you selected SP in October. To have a DD of £90 you must be using in excess of 25000 units a year ( unless the DD includes elec - does it?)


Did you consider companies other than SP ? On face value you could save £30 by going to SSE ?

Do you also take your elec from SP ? The general thought these days are that you should have seperate suppliers for gas and elec.

Leodogger

We are on a dual fuel rate with SP. I had to guess the consumption rate based on what we paid per month 3 yrs ago before we rented out our house.

I didn't think it was always cheaper to take gas and electricity separately from different suppliers? As we were returning from Spain, I just did one or two comparison sites and wanted a fixed rate for a year or so which I got with Scottish Power and they came out more or less the cheapest when taking into account things like customer satisfaction, online account management etc, yet when I rang them when I arrived back and quoted the comparison site figure for their cheapest rate they said they don't use the figures on the comparison web sites and took the monthly DD figure supplied to the tenant in our property previously which was a much lower figure. I didn't quibble as it was a much lower figure than I was paying previously 3 yrs ago but I had heard whilst in Spain that the energy prices had dropped so thought my approx. monthly DD I quoted I was paying when I did the comparison web site was over priced. After checking my smart meter though now it seems my monthly DD will still be the same if not more than 3 yrs ago.

Robin9

Leodogger wrote: »

We are on a dual fuel rate with SP. I had to guess the consumption rate based on what we paid per month 3 yrs ago before we rented out our house.....................

That's fine but now you know your ACTUAL annual consumptions for gas and elec - what are they please ?

It's not always good to have separate suppliers but you need to do your own sums.