Winter Energy Savings Tips

xzibit

We’ve set our hot water to only heat for 1 hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. We shower on those mornings only. The heating won’t be coming on either. Hopefully will keep the gas bill affordable. 

Mstty

markin said:

Your family will have to charge you rent in these difficult times, And you can clearly afford it, 18c! You must be rolling in it.

I have the hot water down to 45c, 40c was pushing it too far and felt too cool to me, But 45c still feels as hot as 50c.

Lol, if I could get away with it I would set it at 16oC 

We have recently gone from 50 to 45oC as well for hot water. Ignoring the heatwave and the need to not really have hot water for showers at the moment it's about right and I agree 40oC is a bit too low. 

Very cheap each day I have just looked at my June and July calculations. Bearing in mind we have an air source heat pump 45oC burn every morning at 4am and one legionella burn costs just over 7kwh a week of electricity.

Over the next two weeks of hot weather going to heat the tank every other day as after two showers this morning it still shows 46oC on the tank and we won't want a hot shower after 32oC heat today.

@xzibit that looks sensible only heating what you need

Swipe

fergie_ said:

Those turning their water storage below 60 degrees, remember there is a huge risk of legionaries etc due to bacteria build up.

Nonsense. As long as water is being run off your tank frequently legionella is not of concern as it only forms in standing water.

LADYXXMACBETH

This last winter my thermostat was set at 14c. I'm not sure I can reduce it anymore than I do. My electricity bill is higher as I have teenage children who play pcs in the house. I'm not going to make them sit and listen to a wind up radio. 
Ive bought a heated blanket and intend to use that to keep me warm in the house. 
I'm really worried about my bill. It's already £278 a month and that's 21% of my income. That's with the heating turned down. 
I think that come January time I may have to stop paying by DD and they'll have to move me to a prepayment meter. I can't pay what I don't have.

Boxman

My wife and myself contracted Covid about 10 days ago and have been 'flattened' by it with no personal energy or inclination to do anything but lie back and endure it ever since.

However we have used about a third less electricity than we would normally over the period!  (presumably through almost no cooking and consequently dishwasher usage).  Bit too much of a price to pay for the cost saving though and I don't recommend it.

Mstty

Marvel1 said:

I wore a oodie. - comfy too.

In winter my house was about 17 degrees, got low as 14 degrees in evening, but oodie on didn't feel it, my heating was on in mornings for short of periods to keep pipes from freezing.

May get another oddie ready, before the prices of them go up.

I just need to find a doodie for the dog.

SAC2334

Marvel1 said:

I wore a oodie. - comfy too.

In winter my house was about 17 degrees, got low as 14 degrees in evening, but oodie on didn't feel it, my heating was on in mornings for short of periods to keep pipes from freezing.

May get another oddie ready, before the prices of them go up.

Good idea. I m a bit of a camper and we all know that goose down sleeping bags and clothing are the warmest , so I will buy a used Goose Down jacket and maybe leggings too  or maybe just get in my super warm goose down sleeping bag which is good for minus 20 c lol..
 Can t believe I m saying this in 2022 but I ve been used to 2.4 p a kwh not 13 p kwh ! 

Its getting to the point that I m also claiming its daylight robbery especially the predicted Oct rise of around 5 p/kwh on top of 7 .25p/kw ..wholesale gas prices have nt gone up that much surely when a month ago I read that we were awash with cheap gas .

As a long time meter reader I know exactly what will happen when the weather gets colder. the fiddling will go mad ! 
Three gas explosion in a month in summer is very odd too, another one today 

QrizB

Reading this thread keeps making me want to turn the thermostat down - then I remember it's July, the heating's off and it's 25C here all by itself

greyteam1959

Let's just hope we don't have a -10 or -15 degree winter or everybody will be in the !!!!!! right good & proper.

Mstty

Forever31 said:

My strategy is to:

- try to minimise how much I put the heating on.  I know below 18, I start to feel pretty cold, but I wfh so I'll have to see what I can bear/live with without it impacting my work.
- wear an oodie, and generally wrap up warm
- watch TV in the evenings in bed
- put 2 or 3 duvets on the bed
- have a blanket over me when working from home during the day.  May wear scarf, hat and fingerless gloves too.
- use a hot water bottle
- maybe use door draught excluders (the material long rolls) on main doors. I would like to do this internally, but the downside is that I usually have all the doors open as I have a cat.  

Other than that, I may be burning stuff in the garden to help keep warm <joking>

Apparently that's the official backup plan in Germany now with gas supply disruption. Burn wood (plan B 😅)