I wish I hadn't followed Martin's advice not to fix my energy deal

si_74

Tristan74 said:

Firstly can I thank everyone for showing me where I have got things wrong. That said I now feel close to tears at how this is going to affect us.

Your usage levels are very similar to my own. Family of four in a four bed house. We are doing what we can to cut back on usage and I downloaded the loop app so i cld see when most usage takes place. The shower is by far the most expensive thing we have to run.....but after years of trying to make the kids shower I'm minded not to reverse that! However shorter showers, less dishwasher, less tumble dryer, cooking one meal rather than the three separate ones we sometimes did. By looking at what is used and what costs then it is relatively easy to make little changes.

As for gas. I have cut down water heating from an hour twice a day to 30 minutes a day only. I did this without telling my wife as I suspected she'd resist.....it's been like it for 6 weeks and she hasn't noticed. Come the winter we will be changing the heating from what we have done previously. Turn it on an hour later, turn it off an hour earlier...maybe drop it a degree or two and turn the boiler down a touch. Every little helps.

Phlik

si_74 said:

Tristan74 said:

Firstly can I thank everyone for showing me where I have got things wrong. That said I now feel close to tears at how this is going to affect us.

As for gas. I have cut down water heating from an hour twice a day to 30 minutes a day only. I did this without telling my wife as I suspected she'd resist.....it's been like it for 6 weeks and she hasn't noticed. Come the winter we will be changing the heating from what we have done previously. Turn it on an hour later, turn it off an hour earlier...maybe drop it a degree or two and turn the boiler down a touch. Every little helps.

I used exactly the same technique last winter, only with my wife not yours

I found sneaking 15 minutes off at a time once a week, or 0.5 °C a week and no one noticed. The perfect crime. 

MattMattMattUK

If you want to do sneaky, many years ago I know someone who removed the dial on an old style thermostat and refitted it, so that it showed 2c warmer than the actual temperature, that way his wife could have the heating at 22c and he could afford the bills with it only being 20c.

I also reprogrammed the controller units on the air-conditioning in the office I used to work at so that they displayed 2c warmer than actual temperature. We unfortunately had a bunch of lizard people who were too cold (one even tried turning the heating on in summer), so that reprogramming gave us another 2c to argue with. 

Sea_Shell

Phlik said:

si_74 said:

Tristan74 said:

Firstly can I thank everyone for showing me where I have got things wrong. That said I now feel close to tears at how this is going to affect us.

As for gas. I have cut down water heating from an hour twice a day to 30 minutes a day only. I did this without telling my wife as I suspected she'd resist.....it's been like it for 6 weeks and she hasn't noticed. Come the winter we will be changing the heating from what we have done previously. Turn it on an hour later, turn it off an hour earlier...maybe drop it a degree or two and turn the boiler down a touch. Every little helps.

I used exactly the same technique last winter, only with my wife not yours

I found sneaking 15 minutes off at a time once a week, or 0.5 °C a week and no one noticed. The perfect crime. 

Are heating and hot water controls "up there" with using a BBQ.       

Mstty

MattMattMattUK said:

If you want to do sneaky, many years ago I know someone who removed the dial on an old style thermostat and refitted it, so that it showed 2c warmer than the actual temperature, that way his wife could have the heating at 22c and he could afford the bills with it only being 20c.

I also reprogrammed the controller units on the air-conditioning in the office I used to work at so that they displayed 2c warmer than actual temperature. We unfortunately had a bunch of lizard people who were too cold (one even tried turning the heating on in summer), so that reprogramming gave us another 2c to argue with. 

Priceless lol

fergie_

Phlik said:

Tristan74 said:

Firstly can I thank everyone for showing me where I have got things wrong. That said I now feel close to tears at how this is going to affect us.

Look at the big power user appliances first, tumble dryers, washing machines, dishwasher, oven and how you use them. How you heat water for washing etc, times spent in showers/baths. Look at the worst offenders before looking at the smaller low power equipment, it's surprising how big a difference using eco modes for some appliances make.

It's not just a case of looking at what you believe is using a lot of power, but finding out what actually is and why. I would start by taking regular meter readings - be it once a day, week, month, etc and putting them in a spreadsheet so you can see what you are using. If you are unfortunate to have a smart meter, the data will already be there. Also look at actual bills with real readings and try to work out what you used previously in a year etc.

For the gas side its a case of looking at how efficient your boiler is and how its being used. Can the heating and water be turned down in both temp and duration? Do you use a gas fire? How does the cost compare to central heating or an electric fire? (Its not as straightforward now as gas is going up nearer 80% a time where as electric is going up 40% a time) Do you use a gas hob and how? Could you find cheaper ways to cook food?

For the electric side, immersers, cookers, electric showers / jacuzzi baths tend to be the biggest users. This is followed by ovens, games consoles (the modern ones are scary), TVs (don't worry about stand by if its a modern model) and computers (can you change the sleep settings etc?).

A quick win is lighting - for any halogen bulbs, invest in LED equivalents. It used to take years to pay back. Its now like months. Halogens can easily use 10 to 20x the power of what you replace them with.

For washing etc plan to do full loads over night on eco settings. Try and avoid the tumble drier (I replaced mine with a pulley -not that expensive- and a drinks fridge - which is now turned off).

For cooking, we used to always use the smaller top oven, but we have now moved to using the Ninja unless cooking pizza or a large roast dinner etc. The ninja will cook in 5 minutes something that used to take 30 minutes in the oven so not only is it saving time, but the oven is simply on a lot less.

The easiest way to monitor plug in devices is with smart life compatible smart plugs with energy monitoring from Amazon etc. Cost between £7 and £20 each. You can also get devices such as Emporia Vue (£80 to £160) that allow you to monitor the electricity used over all and even individual circuits from your Consumer Unit.

So from my perspective, its not just about reducing your consumption, but finding out how much you actually use, how its used and how you can be smarter about it.

Alnat1

To help with heating costs over winter, make sure radiators have TRVs fitted and close doors between rooms to keep each room zoned.

Have thick or lined curtains, close them at dusk.

Walk around the house on a cold evening on a draught hunt, I found a few gaps under windowsills and around window frames that were easy to seal up.

Use old-fashioned draught excluders under doors if needed (a rolled up bathmat with an elastic band works well too)

Have the heating go off from about an hour before bedtime and on half hour before you get up. Set temperature quite low in mornings (16C?) everyone is rushing around and won't notice. Only have temperature higher (18C?) when folks are sitting around later in the day (we each have a snuggly blanket for evenings)

jimexbox

Last day of February at 11:40pm I read about Martins tweet about the eon fixed tariffs at April's capped rate. He said one year was a banker. Two year had increased standing charge, a hundred quid. The choice was mine. 

I opted for the two year fixed. Best tweet I've ever read, saved me thousands.

Both fixes were pulled at midnight. 

littlemissbossy

MattMattMattUK said:

If you want to do sneaky, many years ago I know someone who removed the dial on an old style thermostat and refitted it, so that it showed 2c warmer than the actual temperature, that way his wife could have the heating at 22c and he could afford the bills with it only being 20c.

I also reprogrammed the controller units on the air-conditioning in the office I used to work at so that they displayed 2c warmer than actual temperature. We unfortunately had a bunch of lizard people who were too cold (one even tried turning the heating on in summer), so that reprogramming gave us another 2c to argue with. 

This is me too, in our previous house our thermostat was a dial type which I found would pull off, so I pulled if off and reattached it so that the arrow was pointing to 20c when it was actually 18c, no-one noticed.

Imperial1847

Reading a lot of these threads and loads of people seem to be using way above the "average" use, you have to question if the stats given for average use and deliberately misleading.