Do you pay for what you use?

SJMALBA

Variable DD for me, too (at no extra cost). Use energy, get a bill for the actual amount, pay the bill - simple, straightforward.

Never seen the appeal in so-called 'fixed DD'; if I was inclined to build a 'war chest' for winter, I'd put it in a savings account or similar, rather than the coffers of an energy supplier.

YMMV.

Spoonie_Turtle

I think for variable DD to work, the customer either has to be financially comfortable enough to absorb the increased winter costs, or very on the ball with their energy costs and budgeting.  Of course it works great for some, but many people do need the certainty of fixed outgoings, or simply find it easier.

I like the idea of variable DD but I don't like the idea of the bill being 2 whole weeks after the reading.  At the moment our setup is the monthly meter reading 3 days before the DD goes out so I can adjust it if need be - but that works because Octopus generate bills so quickly and let me change the DD whenever I want (at least, they did before all this mess.  The bills are still as quick though).  Other companies may not be so flexible.

[Now I have a savings account that earns interest on the whole balance rather than a capped amount, I am considering adjusting the DD more.  Previously it really didn't matter because I was already earning interest on a capped amount of savings, so where the rest of them were made no real difference!]

Workerdrone

I pay a DD of £135 a month so right now I'm around £215 in credit. The rest I put aside in a column marked extra energy on my household budget spreadsheet. This just sits in the offset account along with the rest of the savings.

I log into my energy companies site every day and keep an eye on my usage. With the £150 council tax rebate, the £400 energy payment and the £780 I've set aside I reckon I should be able to weather the October price increase without too much trouble. I'll just make manual payments through the winter to keep my balance at zero.

The key for me has been logging in every day. My smart meter does half hour readings so its been easy to identify what was leaching energy. e.g I always thought my very small 400w underfloor heating in the bathroom used very little as it comes on and off. Since we did the bathroom and the fitters overboarded the tile with wood flooring (not the way I would have done it) its suddenly working a lot harder to get the heat through, so now I just run it morning and evening for a few hours. Saved 3kwh a day there. Im using the gas hob, microwave and slow cooker a lot more. In the winter I'll do my roast in the slow cooker and will grab a cheap air fryer for crispy things like roast potatoes (I'll microwave them to get them soft then finish them in the air fryer).

Even though I have a new condensing boiler and Honeywell evohome zoned heating, I have pulled down all the zone temperatures and how long they are on for. I work from home so I will use sunny winter days for thermal gain in the south facing lounge and keep the curtains closed on colder ones. As soon as the kids and mrs go out to work I'm quite happy to knock the heating off and sit on the sofa in a sleeping bag to save a few hours gas.

Ive long since done all the usual things, thermally lined curtains, house insulated and draught proofed, radiators bled and balanced, don't overfill kettle etc. I even plumbed my washing machine into the hot feed. Yes clothes come out more creased but it works out cheaper to fill with gas heated hot water than have the machines electric heater do it. Next thing to plumb into to it is the dishwasher (yes I've checked and hot fill doesn't present a problem according to the manual)

A hot water bottle in bed is seen as a winter treat by the kids. 

With regard to energy bills in general I take the view that It's a bit like captaining a ship through an ice field. My job is to take smooth evasive manouvers to get my family through it without them noticing any discomfort.

I agree with other posters. Keeping an eye on the figures is key!

wild666

I pay a fixed DD each month of £55, at the moment it covers the whole bill each month but I have a credit of £280 which come October will be degreasing rapidly over maybe 6 or 12 months depending on what I do, by that I mean going out every day so my usage decreases but not necessarily the overall price I pay each month.

Sea_Shell

Whilst I'm getting Santander cashback, I'm staying on fixed DD and overpaying.

That way I maximise the amount of the cashback over summer, and don't hit their cap in winter.

If I feel my balance is starting to grow a bit too much, I just ask Eon for some back, which they have done twice now without any hassle (just waiting for the second credit to hit my account as we speak).

I'm currently on a "reasonable" fix, but am running a spreadsheet to compare to current and future caps, to see where we'll be on current usage by the end of our fix.    We're £27 "worse off" at the moment (against the April 22 cap), but come October, we should claw that back quite quickly.

If cashback ended, I'd have no problems moving to variable DD, and probably would.   

jrawle

Workerdrone said:

Ive long since done all the usual things, thermally lined curtains, house insulated and draught proofed, radiators bled and balanced, don't overfill kettle etc. I even plumbed my washing machine into the hot feed. Yes clothes come out more creased but it works out cheaper to fill with gas heated hot water than have the machines electric heater do it. Next thing to plumb

into to it is the dishwasher (yes I've checked and hot fill doesn't present a problem according to the manual)

It's good to see someone making an effort to save energy. I'm intrigued by the washing machine comment, though. Do you mean the machine is designed to take a hot feed, or is it a modern cold fill machine but you've chosen to attach that to a hot tap?

The reason machines tend to be cold fill now is that often the pipe run to the machine is so long that you hardly get any hot water through when the machine fills. The hot water is just left sitting in the pipes in the wall to go cold and be wasted. The machine's electric heater still has to heat the water up to temperature. If you have a particularly short run to the machine, it could work. However, if the machine is designed for cold fill, it will be drawing hot water when it only needs cold, e.g. for cold washes or for rinses. Apart from what it might do to your clothes, if it uses hot water for a couple of rinses, you are using additional hot water unnecessarily.

Dishwashers use very little water, so ditto. They do seem to use huge amounts of electricity (which I assume is partly the drying bit of the cycle). There is always the option of filling the sink and washing dishes the old way!

R.j.Belcher

I do the same. Fixed in January when everybody said not to. We had a energy blitz turned off our second freezer, beer fridge and stoped using the dishwasher, (we only have electric) cut consumption about 20%. I knew our DD would not reflect this as they wanted c£180pm, so I cancelled it and on the 1st of each moth I read the meter and make a payment in full. We are now paying about £20 more than we were last summer.I know come winter bills will go up but again we will cut down and we spend far less in the winter on going out etc then we do in the summer so it should balance out. The crunch will come next June when the deal ends. 

Going off on a tangent we don't have central heating so we don't sit around in our pants in the middle of winter. Some of those withe stupid bills surely need to invest in some warm clothing first? The bills are really not right but help yourself first.