How was your November?

NannaH

Around 800kwh Gas,  have only been tracking the last fortnight,  BG app doesn’t work for gas 🙄
185kwh electricity.
We were away for 4 days mid Nov, which brought down our usage,  No heating on and used 3kwh/day for electric, which is 50% of normal. 

Ballymoney

Another good month for us. 4 bed detached up north. Nov 2022 we used 2000kwh of gas compared to 3400kwh in Nov 2021 and 3100kwh in Nov 2020. All achieved by turning the thermostat down to 18-19c compared to 21 previous years.

Looking at next week’s weather forecast I’m expecting Dec to be the first month where we eat in to the £850 credit we’ve built up with Eon. That’s what it’s there for though.

Novice_investor101

Ballymoney said:

Another good month for us. 4 bed detached up north. Nov 2022 we used 2000kwh of gas compared to 3400kwh in Nov 2021 and 3100kwh in Nov 2020. All achieved by turning the thermostat down to 18-19c compared to 21 previous years.

Looking at next week’s weather forecast I’m expecting Dec to be the first month where we eat in to the £850 credit we’ve built up with Eon. That’s what it’s there for though.

My November 2022 cost for gas & electric was exactly equal to the £75 DD & £66 rebate. December is looking freezing so the heating spend will go up. I’m at £550 credit but BG don’t actually bill until February 2023 so it’s a frustrating guessing game knowing if I’m on target or behind with the costs. 

I’m taking a gas meter reading on the last day of each month, & working out the cost because the gas smart meter isn’t Smart. 

I’m the same as you, building credit & using it to stay comfortable this winter. Who knows what will happen next winter. 

Ballymoney

Novice_investor101 said:

My November 2022 cost for gas & electric was exactly equal to the £75 DD & £66 rebate. December is looking freezing so the heating spend will go up. I’m at £550 credit but BG don’t actually bill until February 2023 so it’s a frustrating guessing game knowing if I’m on target or behind with the costs. 

I’m taking a gas meter reading on the last day of each month, & working out the cost because the gas smart meter isn’t Smart. 

I’m the same as you, building credit & using it to stay comfortable this winter. Who knows what will happen next winter. 

I have to say, this is where Eon Next are great. They update my account balance within hours of submitting meter readings on the app. Really useful during the winter months when our usage will likely hit £500 a month.

alicef

November 2022 electricity was 185kWh for 3 bed detached - we run 2 fridges and 2 freezers and have an induction range cooker so I was pleased with that, as last year we averaged around 200kWh a month.

No oil bought this year and no wood.  

Cautiouslyoptimistic

4 Bed 1960's detached, 3 kids, smart TV's every room, laptops, game consoles etc.  

Loft partially lagged, no cavity wall insulation, DG all round.   

November 2022 Gas 370 kWh (November 2021 Gas was 3,812 kWh) 
November 2022 Elec 460 kWh (November 2021 Elec was 420 kWh)

Big saving on gas this year as we turned on the log burner most days and we have managed to find a cheap source of wood. Nice to watch the energy suppliers forecasted cost for the year continue to drop. Hoping for another 400-600 kWh this month gas compared with 4,839 kWh last December.     

Also planning to supplement the logs this month with smokeless coal which burns longer than wood which will help with the minus 3 to minus 5 temperatures over the next week. 

£703 in credit and hoping to hold on to this. 

[Deleted User]

My November was, quite frankly, a kick in the teeth.

One adult, one dog. It’s a rental—the house, not the dog. I work from home, so I’m paying for all my energy usage

1860’s end of terrace, 2 bed, solid brick, loft likely minimal insulation. Double glazed. Part of the kitchen is the old coal shed, and is single brick. It is, thankfully, where the boiler is housed, so it doesn’t really get too cold. Boiler is a floor standing Mexico ideal, installed in 2001. Has a pilot light that uses a cubic meter every three days. Plain greedy.

Can’t compare 2021, billing dates are all over the place (single Oct 2021 to Feb 2022 statement covering last winter)

Nov 2022:

Elec: 186 kWh, at around £75

Gas: 789 kWh, at around £90

Which is, combined, a £60 jump on October. With gov discount, cost is possibly similar to last year’s November. Alas, usage is nothing of the sort. 

Electricity. Last year, averaging 10 kWh (those darn oil radiators). November this year I’m averaging 6kwh a day; dehumidifier (desiccant, any other type would operate poorly in this house) and a bit of batch cooking (plus a load of blanket and throw extra washing cycles). No oil heaters as of yet.

Gas. What. A. Slap. In. The. Face. I consider November my ‘bill shock’. Not in terms of what I’ve paid, but in terms of what I could be paying were I to have an hour or two of heat in the evenings. The gas portion has doubled from October (£45) without any drastic changes to my usage. Colder incoming water playing it’s part, no doubt.

I heat water for an hour each morning. I do this set by the timer, year round; I’m not one for manual hot water scheduling. At some point, once November wasn’t quite so mild in the mornings, I added the central heating into the same timer settings. Take off the morning chill. Around mid-November I did this.

These are were my default settings, every year. One hour of heat and water on auto, in the mornings. Any heating in the evening has been manual, ever since the incident (five or six years ago) when my winter coat zip jammed, and I felt panic rise within me as I began to overheat, having arrived to a heated house after a long dog walk. I should have just gone back outside into the cold and sorted it out. That’s hindsight. 

Back to 2022. I haven’t yet used any additional heating this autumn. No evening heating at all, neither gas or electric.

So, to burn through what I have feels like an massive eye opener, especially when others on here are stating less despite using their central heating quite freely. The boiler is set at 2, radiators (trv valves) between 2 and 3. There’s nothing obvious, no excesses, I can see other than I live in a terribly insulated house with an inefficient old boiler. 

The hour of heat in the morning has since been terminated, and it’s back to water-only. I’m likely going to cave before the end of this week, however. I’ve no desire to be cold and miserable.

I’m sure this has been said time and time again, but I do feel many people are in for a real shock, when their autumn/winter bills hit them. I’ve been fiddling with a calculator for most of this year; I’ve preempted these prices in my head, and November still had the power to surprise me. £90 for a house that’s been, on average, 12.6c (and falling) in the evening; I could pay nothing and still experience that. I cannot imagine the cost of trying to keep this house comfortable. I honestly think December could easily eat all of the credit balance I currently have (around £450) if I go wild and put the heating on for an hour or two in the evenings. More than a little restraint required.

But I do have hot water.

And I am fairly active, I find I can tolerate low temps fairly well. Arriving home, dressed in layers from an evening dog walk, and 12.6c can feel fairly cosy. For around half an hour!

Sprigitgirl

Really interesting reading! Until I moved to my current place I didn’t much think about energy, but now it’s become a bit of an obsession.  

First winter in a semi-detached 16th century timber framed cottage, with 2 and a bit bedrooms and an open fire that I use a lot. When I moved in there was no door or window insulation (single glazed), although I’ve put some basic strips in now except one door to do (I’ve put a bit of felt over the old metal letter slot!). thermal lined curtains on every window now. SE location. Oil for heating, electric otherwise incl hot water and electric shower. I live alone, and WFH 3 days a week. Due to the solid wall construction, I have to watch out for damp, so my set back temp is 14C and I sometimes have to open a window or two to reduce window condensation. When heating is “on” its set to 18 but hardly ever gets there in the kitchen where the thermostat is on colder days (and I haven’t even experienced sub zero weather yet!) 

My energy supplier (Good Energy) have me on a fix with variable direct debit, and I learned if I forget to submit a reading by the last day of the month, they will estimate my bill and it will be more than double what I’m actually using. So I’m really pleased to be on variable DD! They currently have my annual estimated usage over 10,000 kWh 😱. I reckon it’ll be less than 2,500. I’m feeling pretty good about that number. 

Electricity in Nov: 191 kWh (Oct was 181)

Oil: not sure, the drop in bars on my Watchman happens slowly and I’m not keeping good track (and it goes up and down which seems strange)

FreeBear

apw81 said: 1860’s end of terrace, 2 bed, solid brick, loft likely minimal insulation. Double glazed. Part of the kitchen is the old coal shed, and is single brick. It is, thankfully, where the boiler is housed, so it doesn’t really get too cold. Boiler is a floor standing Mexico ideal, installed in 2001. Has a pilot light that uses a cubic meter every three days. Plain greedy.

Got an even older Baxi back boiler here that nibbles away at gas to the tune of ~4.2KWh per day thanks to the pilot light. Over the summer, I took to turning the gas off at the meter and just lighting the pilot light when I needed a bath - This has helped to cut my annual gas consumption by half. Also set the cylinder thermostat to 50°C for further savings.

As the HW tank is only ever used for a bath, kettles & electric shower is more than adequate for day to day hot water. But now the cold weather is here, pilot light is on 24/7 so that the heating can kick in.