Time to Face The Music

alt80

Beautiful place @RelievedSheff

alt80

Regarding energy bills I don't seem to have seen any refund although haven't logged into my energy account, just not seen a refund to my bank. The bill is now over £550/m for mine tbh probably will be cheaper to run the house off the coal this winter idk just aware energy costs have risen rapidly for all.

RelievedSheff

alt80 said:

Regarding energy bills I don't seem to have seen any refund although haven't logged into my energy account, just not seen a refund to my bank. The bill is now over £550/m for mine tbh probably will be cheaper to run the house off the coal this winter idk just aware energy costs have risen rapidly for all.

Refunds start next month. £66/67 a month from October through to March.

Ouch. That's a big bill 😲

Strange times for us. At the minute we wish this house would cool down a bit but we know in the next months we will be grateful of how well it keeps the heat.

Currently sat with all the windows and doors open trying to release some heat built up over the weekend 🙄

RelievedSheff

alt80 said:

Beautiful place @RelievedSheff

We had forgotten how pretty Ripon was.

Such a shame it suffers with gypsum dissolution. Can't imagine living somewhere not knowing if the house will be swallowed up by a sinkhole. 

We quite by chance walked down a city centre passage and got talking to a resident who showed us behind some barriers which were hiding a modern building that is slowly sinking. Can't have been 20 years old. It was severely cracked and distorted. Demolition isn't straight forward though due to the built up nature of the area, restricted access and not wanting to lose the Demolition gear in a sinkhole 😕

alt80

That makes sense then re refunds. Yeah it's a ridiculous bill, my home is very poor in the efficiency stakes. Although it's some of my tenants I really feel for; a fair few of my BTLs are also older, bills for those are c£250-300/m so my tenants are reporting and some of them have very low incomes - £66/67/m will still see them paying considerably more than about a year ago.

Regarding your house I do think an A/C installation would work well for you in the long term. Whilst in the winter months its good, during the summer sounds like hell. 

I've never been there but after seeing your photos it's on my list of places I'd like to visit - you'd do British tourism a lot of good if you started writing about travel with your photos in some kind of 'official' capacity haha. Absolutely devastating re the sinkholes, I couldn't live somewhere like that either I have seen the destruction they can cause, it's !!!!!! terrifying. 

RelievedSheff

It's crazy how much energy bills have gone up. Last year we were paying £60 a month and were in credit!

£160 a month now.

We are giving serious consideration to installing both AC and solar with battery storage on this house. We won't be moving anytime soon if at all and it will make living here so much more comfortable in the summer months if we are going to continue getting hot summers.

Ripon is well worth a visit. So much to see and do. Very dog friendly as well. The dog went shopping with us yesterday and went in pretty much every shop 😀

RelievedSheff

Not quite a no spends day today. I have had to nip to the shops for some bread this morning.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be from stores. Breakfast was crumpets, we have both taken our packed lunches to work and dinner tonight is chicken in black bean sauce with noodles and spring roll.

Tonight's jobs are:

• walking the dog
• looking at the washer dryer. We suspect the condensor unit has failed. Going to have a quick look but fully expecting it will be new washer dryer time
• cleaning out the fridge

Sun_Addict

I hope you can get the washer dryer fixed yourself. Is it not worth the cost of getting it fixed?

RelievedSheff

Sun_Addict said:

I hope you can get the washer dryer fixed yourself. Is it not worth the cost of getting it fixed?

If it is what we think it is, then it has already been replaced once under warranty. 

We have nursed this one through the last 5 years so it is probably time to say goodbye too it rather then throwing more money at it again.

It still works as a washing machine for now. So we can manage with it for now, but we will most likely replace it when we get back off holiday.

alt80

It's moved incredibly quickly and the wider issue of high inflation / increase in rates factors too, I do wonder what the future holds. Grew my business during and after the last recession but it's a different entity now however a lot didn't fare so well especially in my industry. Tbh I'm really trying to reduce my personal spends and streamline business spends and reduce liabilities all round. I'd like to be in a position when I refinance my portfolio to not be so leveraged. Idk possibly over thinking it as usual but I don't think the way things have been turning during this year are good for any of us and hope Truss can get it under control before we are all faced with a longer term prospect of continued high inflation. Turning to energy specifically, perhaps I'm going soft in my old age but I mainly worry for those on low incomes and the hospitality industry. Realistically we are both fortunate enough that it'll just likely mean a slightly longer time saving for some luxury or maybe one / a couple less weekend breaks over the year / few less dinners out or something but some are going to find this really difficult.

Think it would be money well spent for you to look at the A/C as you say it will make your house a lot more comfortable and with planning to stay long term I think it's one of the best alterations you could make to your home. We are fortunate that during the summer months the house remains cool. Solar with battery storage is interesting I'm not sure where we are rn with battery technology but have a feeling it will dramatically improve over the next say 5 years could be worth holding off for a few years to see where things go you may find the technology gets both better and cheaper. 

Will have to try to make a weekend trip to Ripon some time next year. For short UK breaks we have started to take the dog with us so how dog friendly it is up there is attractive.

Washing machines and dryers tend to be better separately - Miele still come with 10 year warranties, whilst they are expensive they are worth it and will take a battering. Put these in HMOs as well as my own home and they've been bombproof.