EDF have upped our monthly DD to £860, equivalent to £10,300 per year for our 3 bedroom semi

deano2099

I used a heated airer for years and am not convinced they're that much more efficient than a heat pump tumble dryer. 

Unless it's very lightly loaded, it was 12 hours to get clothes dry, which is apparently now 10p/hour so £1.20. Our current heatpump dryer doesn't seem to need much more than that, and the clothes are less creased so less need to bother with ironing if that's a concern. Feels like the capacity of the tumble dryer is more also (yes, the heated airer looks massive but a couple of pairs of jeans take pretty much the entire height and three "racks" worth each - as you basically need to drape them over two bars to keep the halves separate, then leave a space for the air to circulate).

ariarnia

deano2099 said:

I used a heated airer for years and am not convinced they're that much more efficient than a heat pump tumble dryer. 

i agree but our airer predates when heat pump versions were really a common thing. one thing i would say is they're a lot cheaper than a new tumble dryer and can be put away so save kitchen/utility room space so we've not made the switch ourselves. 

mroshaw

Hi all! Thank you once again for the continued comments, suggestions and support. We're taking it all in!

We've made further progress, and I thought I would share.

We've spoken to EDF and agreed to significantly reduce the monthly direct debit. They are still unable to clarify where the massive gas estimate has come from, but we are absolutely convinced it's way, way off. We've double and triple-checked our historical readings and confirmed with EDF our cost estimates against those readings. They still won't budge on the estimate, though.

In summary, we've reduced the monthly DD to £350. What we've also done is tightened our belts and have set up a transfer of £250 into a discrete savings account each month. The idea is that if we do find ourselves underpaying, we'll have the reserves put aside to cover it. If we don't, we'll have earned a little interest and maybe a nice Summer holiday next year.

An engineer arrives today to fit the smart meters, and we're looking forward to seeing the results of that. We're submitting meter readings anyway, just to be doubly sure we start to see some accurate estimates.

We continue to make little changes - all lights turned off unless in the room, still no tumble drier (we now have a washing line hung up outside), and we've got the kids thinking more about when clothes need to be washed. We've turned the heating off for now, while it's still relatively mild, and will set the thermostat a little lower than normal when it does go on. The LEDs downstairs are making a difference, I think, as there is a noticeable drop in temperature! Seasonal jumper and slippers are taking care of that.

Getting some fascinating feedback from the TP-Link monitoring plugs, and have moved a couple of devices onto a separate plug so they can be switched off when not in use.

What I'm really looking forward to is updating this thread in March with our new estimated DD from EDF! Care to take a guess at what it might be? Woolly jumper of choice to whoever guesses the closest?

Thanks once again for the great community spirit and positive encouragement in this forum. Really grateful, and it's taken a shocking (and honestly, quite distressing) event and made something really positive out of it.

TheAble

It doesn't make much sense. If you know your annual usage and know your unit rate, then that tells you what your annual bill will be, give or take a bit.

Unless they're factoring in some uncertainty from the removal of the cap in April next year, perhaps.

Sea_Shell

"Accurate estimates"

🤣🤣🤣


But I know what you mean!! 😉

Ballymoney

All these suggestions of drying clothes on radiators or using heated airers, combined with lower central heating thermostat settings are a recipe for damp and mould.

We use a dehumidifier in the spare bedroom we use for laundry and it works well. Costs equal about 5p an hour (at todays expensive rate) but the clothes are usually dry after about 9-10hrs usage and removes the threat of damp.

poppellerant

I hope it's not too late for this, but take photos of your meters and the readings before the installer removes them.  When I had my smart meter replaced with a SMETS2 this year, I took photos soon after the engineer had called to let me know that he would be with me in 10 minutes time.  If your meters shows different screens when you press a button, take photo of these too.

When the meters are installed, keep the IHD plugged in as close as possible to the meters.  I was able to view both my gas and electric usage the same evening the engineer installed the meters, although I was warned it can take a bit longer than this.

One more thing I noticed while reading this thread, was your laundry situation.  Do you use quick and short cycles, believing that they are economical? It's common for people, especially the older generation, to put a full load of laundry in the machine and stick it on a certain cycle just because it has a short time (ie: Silks cycle).  In reality, this is bad for the machine, your laundry and your wallet.  A fully loaded cottons cycle should have faster and longer wash cycles, as well as spin cycles - meaning your clothes will dry quicker than a quick burst from a Silks cycle.

Slightly off-topic, but I knew somebody who would use a quick cycle on their Samsung machine to do a weeks worth of washing.  Every few months they complained about having to clean out black lumps from the pump.  This was the result of the laundry detergent pods not having enough water or time to dissolve properly!

ariarnia

Ballymoney said:

All these suggestions of drying clothes on radiators or using heated airers, combined with lower central heating thermostat settings are a recipe for damp and mould.

We use a dehumidifier in the spare bedroom we use for laundry and it works well. Costs equal about 5p an hour (at todays expensive rate) but the clothes are usually dry after about 9-10hrs usage and removes the threat of damp.

it is very possible to dry clothes inside in winter and not have a damp house. even without a dehumidifier. and you can run a dehumidifier and still have a damp problem if you have a lot of furnature pushed up against walls for example. you just have to be careful about ventilation. yes its better to dry them outside (and the op now has a line to do this). but thats not an option for everyone. 

mroshaw

poppellerant said:

I hope it's not too late for this, but take photos of your meters and the readings before the installer removes them.  When I had my smart meter replaced with a SMETS2 this year, I took photos soon after the engineer had called to let me know that he would be with me in 10 minutes time.  If your meters shows different screens when you press a button, take photo of these too.

When the meters are installed, keep the IHD plugged in as close as possible to the meters.  I was able to view both my gas and electric usage the same evening the engineer installed the meters, although I was warned it can take a bit longer than this.

One more thing I noticed while reading this thread, was your laundry situation.  Do you use quick and short cycles, believing that they are economical? It's common for people, especially the older generation, to put a full load of laundry in the machine and stick it on a certain cycle just because it has a short time (ie: Silks cycle).  In reality, this is bad for the machine, your laundry and your wallet.  A fully loaded cottons cycle should have faster and longer wash cycles, as well as spin cycles - meaning your clothes will dry quicker than a quick burst from a Silks cycle.

Slightly off-topic, but I knew somebody who would use a quick cycle on their Samsung machine to do a weeks worth of washing.  Every few months they complained about having to clean out black lumps from the pump.  This was the result of the laundry detergent pods not having enough water or time to dissolve properly!

We do a full "Colours" cycle, just now at 30 degrees instead of 40 or more.

BooJewels

I've been doing some washing experiments using my smart plug monitor and compared a quick 40°C wash to a long 30°C wash, because I'd noticed that the quick wash didn't actually spend much time washing.  The 40°C quick cycle took 55 minutes, of which only 21 minutes was heating the water and sploshing it about.  That cycle used 0.5kWh - most of which was that first 21 minutes, in heating the water.  The normal length 30°C wash took 100 minutes, but it spent 46 minutes heating the water and actually washing before it emptied any water.  That full cycle was 0.4kWh - it only topped 0.3kWh in the last stages of spinning.

So you can make your energy give rise to a better wash by not doing a quick wash - I think I've been doing it wrong for years.  I also reiterate my earlier comment about doing an extra spin cycle - I weighed a small towel yesterday and it held 217ml of water at the end of the cycle and an extra 8 minute spin got a further 52ml out - 24% of it. That should really help air drying times.

ETA: I've been reading machine specs for my son who's buying and several have commented to only use liquid wash in short cycles, not pods or powder, as they don't have time to dissolve, just as @poppellerant posted.