And now we go again...

rtandon27

Thank-you ladies! - I'd never ignore you!

I'll revisit the fix but first look at the Octos offer over the weekend 😀

For today I'll bask in the 10% which is not going to E0n - LOL

Cheery_Daff

themadvix said:

@rtandon27, please feel free to ignore me, but I think Cheery has just had a smart meter fitted by the Cephalopods when other suppliers said there wasn’t room - worth checking with them?

I did indeed - well remembered! I emailed first to check, they said they thought it would need a fly lead, but when they came to do it, it didn't even need that. Previous supplier (Bulb) had a blanket rule of 1m in all directions, which we don't have, but smart meter was fitted easily and is now nicely up and running 😊

beanielou

I have not long fixed. 

EssexHebridean

Morning all - what a lovely lot of chat on the subject of energy, fixing and similar! It's always interesting when you mention something on here which then starts lots of other people off thinking about it too - just goes to show the value of the diaries really doesn't it! Thanks to all for dropping by and participating!

RT - there will be no saving for us on our fix as yet as it matches the current cap prices, and the exit fees are actually higher than the £50 you mentioned (£75), but if the prices do go up in January as is currently being strongly suggested then we'll start to see a saving at that stage of course. My reasoning was that we will maintain the status quo on the costs for the first couple of cold months this winter, may well see a saving during the Jan - April period, and then if the prices DO drop back again from April, then at least by that stage we should be using less energy so it will affect us less that we are paying slightly over the current price. if the electric unit rates fell back far enough we would of course have the option of doing the maths on paying the exit fee there, but to be honest I can't really see a drop to that extent occurring. 

Dreaming - the film could be worth a thought, thank you for the suggestion, but I think we'd want a blind or at least curtains anyway, and it would be a huge window to try to get the film onto nicely as well - air bubbles would well and truly drive me mad and I struggle enough with a screen protector on a phone!   The plan is that we will get top curtains for it this weekend I think as it already has a rail in place - so those can be drawn overnight which will solve the immediate issue and serve to block heat loss and then we can get the chap my Mum has used to come in and quote for fitting one of the day/night blinds she has which look great and don't block too much light if we decide it needs some form of window dressing for the daytimes. 

Before I go onto the MSE aspects of today's posts, something which might make people simultaneously chuckle and wince. We were contacted by the estate agent who sold the flat to say that the new owner (or rather, her tenants) were still struggling with the heating, and could we possibly contact her to have a chat about it, or even pop round. We agreed, MrEH made contact, and it was agreed that we would pop in there yesterday evening on our way home. 
On walking in (very strange to be let into "your own home" by a complete stranger!) we were met with a positive wall of heat - slightly suprising at 7pm in a flat heated entirely by electric storage heaters...that was kind of the first clue that things might be a little awry. On looking at the hallway heater I discovered that the Economy 7 feed was turned off completely, and it was belching out heat (set to 26 degrees - it can't have know what was hitting it!) entirely via the boost element. Next thing we checked was the immersion heater - another ouch as the time clock had been changed, currently thought it was 3am, and so was merrily ALSO heating itself up on day-rate electric... The front room heater was mainly OK except that the "output" was fully open, so it would have been losing all its heat by somewhere about midday, at a guess - it was certainly stone cold when I put a hand against it. We left them with the  immersion heater timer readjusted to the correct time, the hallway storage switched back on at the E7 feed, and the setting for the front room one adjusted to a level which should mean that they are still feeling some benefit around tea time today!  I did also warn her that the tenants MUST keep the property on Economy 7 - and explained what that meant for them, and also that they might also be a bit shocked when they see their first month's electricity bill...! Poor things - it is quite a minefield, but I dread to think how much it will have been costing them! 

beanielou

Eek to the tenants of your old property. 

Don’t fancy their bill. 

EssexHebridean

Right then, the "proper" post...

MSE Stuff:
- Banks checked and all good.
- MrEH's Oyster feed from yesterday still showing pending, not quite sure why it's being slow but it will probably go confirmed today, and it's being taken account of anyway.
- Wanton and profligate use of cars today as planned - albeit in the end it was actually very necessary as MrEH left home at 6AM THIS MORNING! Categorically not a chance that I was prepared to travel that early, so the extra diesel was very much not for quibbling.
- More annoying is the fact that unless the thing he is working on today goes through faster than expected he will have to be back in London again tomorrow - giving him a 5 day commuting week and hitting our travel budget rather harder than ideal. It's all still doable, just annoying, not least as it will hit what we can OP this month and you all know how pleased I'll be about that situation! 
- Last night's tea made use of a super cheap jar of pasta sauce I grabbed ages ago (they were on a 2 for £1 deal and I couldn't have made it for that!), one of the tins of Lil's BOGOF pink salmon from last week, half the remaining mushrooms and the last of a bag of frozen peppers, so was both very economical AND very fast to throw together. It was also declared very tasty, which is a shame as the chances of me seeing D01m10 sauce at a price I'm willing to pay again is slim. Hey Ho.  
-This evening's tea will be using up the remainder of the mushrooms, two cooked sausages from the freezer that I hope will turn out to be pork ones, and it will be sausage and mushroom risotto which is always a favourite. 
- Heating experimentation continues. As we wanted to sit in the cooler living room last night (bigger TV for Bake Off!) I shoved the thermostat briefly up to 18.8 - in part I was curious to see how fast it warmed things up. The answer was not only "very", but if the IHD is to be believed it took just under 10kWh of gas to do so. The more interesting thing is that the heating didn't to my knowledge kick in at all this morning, as it was still very much warm enough downstairs for it not to be needed. I've now reset the thermostat at 18.2, and we will take a few days to see how that level balances cost and comfort.

Spendiness:
- Nothing today, I hope. MrEH has to buy his lunch, as he can't carry his usual bag to where he needs to be today, so carrying his packed lunch isn't practical. That's his problem though, and will come from his personal spends, so is cash neutral for my purposes.
- will be doing the Lil's shop tomorrow (free sourdough - yay!), but also need to get in to Al's at some stage over the weekend.
- Curtain spendiness will be occurring at the weekend. It needs spending on at some stage, and we may as well do it before it gets properly cold again as it should save us money on heating - particularly with the front door. We'll be adding curtains for the 3rd bedroom (dressing room) to this as well as the ones we have in there are a) thin and b) too long, so all the radiator heat is heading up behind them and heating up the window recess quite beautifully.  Allowing that we have no specific colour scheme planned for in there these will undoubtedly end up being whatever is competitively priced in a design or colour we like. 

Other than the breathtakingly exciting curtain shopping, very few plans for the weekend. There is of course the Rugby World Cup semi to be considered - yes, sorry fans of other home nations, English supporters are well aware that there is no justification for us to be in there but - HA - WE ARE! MrEH will probably want to watch that at the club, he may already be there depending on whether he is playing in the afternoon. I will not be heading off for their match even if he IS playing, but will decide whether to go and join him for the semi final later to watch us getting walloped by the South Africans. (spoiler alert - I may well opt for the far calmer and quieter atmosphere at home, we'll see. Anxiety has been a big player in the room this week so I may just decide I can't cope with the raucousness of it all!). Mum is popping over tomorrow afternoon as she's not seen the house for a few weeks and lots has changed. And that's about all, I think! 

EssexHebridean

beanielou said:

Eek to the tenants of your old property. 

Don’t fancy their bill. 

No. Me either! Hopefully the new owner is honest enough to take some of the cost as apparently it was her who messed with the time clock for the water - regardless though, it's not our problem! 

PennysIntoPounds

That's very decent of you going round and sorting out all the heating issues, I would've been tempted to ask what fee I was getting!

Blimey, where did you find two D sauces for a quid?! 1990? 😂

Sorry you've been feeling anxious, you've had a lot of upheaval and achieving things lately and that's bound to have an impact at some stage. Enjoy your curtain choosing, rugby watching, and time with your mum x

Sunshine_girl2

Thanks for the thoughts on fixing energy price . I am with Shell at the moment , we will be with octopods by New Year . However it states in the bumpf that they will honour any fix you are on . I did a quote with them and it was more or less the same . Think I will bite the bullet and fix as well . 

Very kind of you going to sort the heating out at your old place . My old landlord asked me to go back and show them how the meters worked , they were smart meters 😂. 

Hope you find some good curtains , at a decent price . 

beanielou

I can give you a referral for Octopus if you want @Sunshine_girl2. We would both get £50 credit on our account.