The £400 help to energy

pb8770

I'm quite fortunate to have low energy costs. At the moment both my gas and electricity is £61 per month, there's only me living in my house, and I've just read that Octopus are reducing direct debits by £66 till October then £67 from November through to March, will that mean I won't pay for my energy until March. If anyone is wondering how I've managed to keep it low, I have my heating set on auto, where I've set it on 18° so my house will never dip below 18°, as its cheaper to reheat a warm house than a cold house, and when washing my hands I use cold water and soap, because I've a combi boiler, it could take a few minutes to get hot water, so I'd rather be in and out and have showers daily. So does that mean I'm going to have energy free months and I'm still in credit by £121

darrenw6000

You wont want to be washing your hands with cold water in the depths of winter. Good to have a buffer but inevitably you will use more in the next few months.
The bigger picture here is that we are all being trained to use less, wait until they bring out the carbon credit score

[Deleted User]

pb8770 said:

where I've set it on 18° so my house will never dip below 18°, as its cheaper to reheat a warm house than a cold house, 

I'd disagree with that being a good thing.  Heating empty rooms (or an empty house) is wasteful, and overall you will be using more energy than you would by letting it go cold and then heating it back up.

But as far as I understand the rebate, yes, you'll be getting free energy for six months from a scheme to help people with unaffordable bills.

Astria

[Deleted User] said:

pb8770 said:

where I've set it on 18° so my house will never dip below 18°, as its cheaper to reheat a warm house than a cold house, 

I'd disagree with that being a good thing.  Heating empty rooms (or an empty house) is wasteful, and overall you will be using more energy than you would by letting it go cold and then heating it back up.

I do the same and some days I use the same amount of energy, other days it can be a few pence more, there's really not much in it. If I let the house go cold it uses significantly more energy to get the house back upto temperature than just leaving it at a set temperature, so in the end it all balances out. For example, when I drove to work it was off all day, it could take 2 hours with the boiler running flat out to reach 18c at night, but with the heating left on, it just fires every 30 minutes or so for a short duration.