Great Rural MoneySaving Hunt

bonsibabe

Thanks downshifter, it certainly was a shock to get a £500 bill, but certainly a relief when the electric company realised we were on the wrong tarriff and we had been stuck with a £400 debt that was not ours! At least if the bills stay around the £100 a quarter I will then shout from the rooftops how fantastic ASHP heating systems are!

I have actually had the nerve to put the tumble drier on in an attempt to tackle the mountain of laundry that was never going down as I was too scared to use the TD in case the electricity was too much. But on seeing my next door's bill (mine is now slightly less!) and she has her TD on at least twice a day, I've decided to use it but I still have the clothes horse in the bathroom as well! We have a small kitchen that is not big enough for the TD so it is in my huge bathroom! And with the ASHP system it takes all the hot air from the room so my reasoning is that the TD will provide hot air for the ASHP which should make it run efficiently! That's my excuse and I am sticking to it lol.

Megansmum

bonsibabe wrote: »

I think that self sufficiency is also a good way of teaching our kids where our food comes from. We grew strawberries for the first time this year in a half barrel and the kids were so happy to see them growing and they tasted so much better than the shop bought ones. I'm lucky because my children would rather be tramping through the nature reserve foraging for hazelnuts and brambles than sitting at a computer or watching the tv.

Bonsibabe I couldn't agree more. My first child I had young and did what I could, but now she is nearly 18 and I have another girl, Megan my 2 year old. Determined to learn from my mistakes with my eldest (she won't eat any veg and very little fruit), I am growing fruit and veg in the garden and little Megan helps me - she LOVES pulling potatoes and carrots up, she took her own strawberries and blueberrys through the summer, and she will eat ANY fruit and veg put in front of her.

I love seeing her in her wellies with her little kiddie spade, helping (and hindering) mummy. I wish it was compulsory for parents to do this with their kids - those that don't have no idea what they're missing!! Her face when she carries them in and helps me wash them, then watches me get them ready for her - it's priceless!

bonsibabe

Megansmum - I'm the same as you in a way! My oldest is 7 and will eat anything put in front of her while my 5 year old is as fussy as anything!! So my plan is the same as yours. My youngest loved growing her own strawberries this year and has loved foraging for brambles and hazelnuts! She also loves to go looking for mussel shells and seaweed on the shoreline that we use for the compost bins, as we are trying to teach the kids about recycling as well, and so far so good it seems to be working!

Good luck with your youngest too, I know what fun it can be!

harryhound

bonsibabe wrote: »

Thanks downshifter, it certainly was a shock to get a £500 bill, but certainly a relief when the electric company realised we were on the wrong tarriff and we had been stuck with a £400 debt that was not ours! At least if the bills stay around the £100 a quarter I will then shout from the rooftops how fantastic ASHP heating systems are!

.

If you can read your electricity meter regularly as the winter progresses, you might find it makes interesting reading, especially if you can relate the electricity usage to the temperature outside.

Heat pumps are getting more efficient all the time.
They now can have "heuristics" built in. That is just a posh way of saying they can anticipate events and learn a bit from experience. If the rate of fall in the outside temperature suggests that it will be a cold night, the pump turns itself on early to get extra heat into the house ready for the cold that is to come.

Technically the electric pump can be fitted with motors that can run faster or slower depending on demand, rather than simply turn on and off like a traditional domestic freezer.

That said there are two problems with an air source heat pump, that no amount of clever technology can overcome:

1. When the outside temperature is cold and almost freezing, it is often foggy. The heat pump, trying to extract heat from this "soup" ends up making ice to clog itself up. Precious heat has to be used to "defrost" the pump.

2. The efficiency of the pump is measured as its COP (co-efficient of performance). This is a number of power input to power output, typically something like "3". meaning that one unit of electricity input creates 3 units of heat output.
HOWEVER the cop is highest when the temperature difference between outside (input) and inside (output) is small. So in the middle of winter, just when you need the most heat, the pump becomes less effective at providing it. Many pumps, like some designs of night storage heaters, then resort to burning ordinary full price electricity to make up the difference.

I would be interested in your figures as the winter goes on.

Best of luck,

Harry.

Here is the forum thread on ASHP's
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1464827&highlight=gshp

bonsibabe

Thanks Harry, we are going to be watching the meter with great interest as we are curious as to how much of the electricity the ASHP goes off with over the winter. Our one does have the outdoor sensor which apparently turns the heat up when the temp drops so will just have to see as the temp here has been dropping rapidly over the last couple of days ... in fact we saw the first frost on the garden this afternoon and the car was frozen over after being parked for less than an hour!!! So will have to wait and see although my kitchen is blooming freezing lol.

Am off to bed as I have a job interview in the morning. Got a call the other day. I went for a job working for my MSP months ago but was just pipped to the post. Got a call from the guy who got the job to say another job had come up and did I want to interview for it? Of course I said yes! But curious as no jobs have been advertised for his office so wondering about it but not gonna complain if it means I have the chance of a job!

Fingers and toes crossed in anticipation!

Hope you all had a good weekend. nite all xx

mardatha

Just worked out out heating costs after reading all of this thread (whew)
coal costs us £30 a week so that's £1560 a year. But we have the big stove on all day every day...we found that if we let it go out then it took so much coal every time to get going again that it was more economical to keep it on but turned right down to 0. From this we get constant boiling hot water all day every day, and as many baths as you want.
Just went back to my beloved Calor gas cooking with a nice new cooker. Buy a few spare cylinders and store them, then you have your cooking all sorted and paid for in advance with no bills.
We found that when we stopped work we saved an absolute bomb, we were doing a 50-mile-round-trip a day plus more at weekends to visit family.
I love shopping online, the delivery charge is less than it would cost me in petrol to go and get it, plus I am sometimes not able to go out. I was amazed to learn that Asda in Edinburgh do as far as Berwick on Tweed & the border on their deliveries !
I love the silence, the slow pace of life, the darkness at night, the hills and the hawks. To me thats worth any amount of money !

Davesnave

I think our Aga takes around £35 oil a week, but we cook on it and so the gas hob is hardly touched now. We don't get boiling hot water, but it is OK and there's some spare for a radiator. Apart from that, the woodburner in the evening does enough for a few more radiators. Being down south, there will only be a few weeks when we need to improve on this, I think.

I agree about the slower pace of life. Before coming here, I lived in Bath, which used to be quite laid-back, but there's more rush & push now. There, Sainsbury stwice tried to fine me £50 for parking too long, even though they had receipts proving I'd spent a lot and spy camera evidence to show I'd stayed on site. All I'd done was meet too many people to talk with! Needless to say, it was all hot air if the threats were ignored. I'm glad Martin has done a feature on parking rip-offs recently.;)

Down here it is fairly quiet and off the main aircraft lanes, which I found a constant drone in certain bits of Wales which were otherwise tranquil. We do get the odd bit of low level fighter training, but I can live with that, so long as I'm not fishing. When I was young, they used to bring the big atom bombers up my valley, to practice going under radar surveillance, I think, and I almost fell in several times, the noise of the river masking their approach!:rotfl:

As you say, doing things quietly, at your own pace is priceless.

davemorton

nykmedia, I notice in an earlier thread that you said you took part in the scheme the forestry commission ran, where you could pay to collect wood. Do you know if they still do this, as I had heard they had stopped. Just wondering if what I heard was true or not.

downshifter

mardatha wrote: »

Just worked out out heating costs after reading all of this thread (whew)
coal costs us £30 a week so that's £1560 a year. But we have the big stove on all day every day...we found that if we let it go out then it took so much coal every time to get going again that it was more economical to keep it on but turned right down to 0. From this we get constant boiling hot water all day every day, and as many baths as you want.
Just went back to my beloved Calor gas cooking with a nice new cooker. Buy a few spare cylinders and store them, then you have your cooking all sorted and paid for in advance with no bills.
We found that when we stopped work we saved an absolute bomb, we were doing a 50-mile-round-trip a day plus more at weekends to visit family.
I love shopping online, the delivery charge is less than it would cost me in petrol to go and get it, plus I am sometimes not able to go out. I was amazed to learn that Asda in Edinburgh do as far as Berwick on Tweed & the border on their deliveries !
I love the silence, the slow pace of life, the darkness at night, the hills and the hawks. To me thats worth any amount of money !

I agree with so much of this, however the cold stark reality of real life gets in the way as it has with me today and sometimes I just wonder if all this being frugal, country living, moneysaving, eco-lifestyle is really worth it. For example, although my petrol costs are higher than my food costs, without my car I couldn't get to work and without work I couldn't afford to live - no buses here, and anyway, aren't they so expensive?. Mardatha, how do you pay your rent/ council tax and for the stove/ advance buying of fuel? I plan so much in advance, shopping, buying petrol and the rest of it only happens if I go into town for my job, I would never make a special trip for that. I grow all my veg and eat my own chickens' eggs (though it's not a great time of year for eggs right now) My heating comes on between 5 - 7 (oil) but I'm worried sick about when it runs out, especially if I have visitors coming, I can't expect them to sit around in a freeezing house. I don't know what the temperature has been indoors, my thermometer only goes as low as 14 and it isn't up to 14 yet. I have some logs, but they don't really warm the house or room well when used in an open fire (and I can't afford a woodburner - how lovely that would be) and a little coal, but can only use that sparingly. I'm trying to do an online interactive course, but because I can't get broadband out here it's virtually impossible to do it. The cows (not mine) have broken through the fence into my garden and I'm sure soon enough they will be munching the lawn and my dog will be playing chase with the sheep. I've just had a water meter installed but am worried all the time now about the cost - I'm really beginning to regret doing that. The septic tank will need emptying soon - over £100 I haven't got.

I know that for most of the time it's great but today, looking at the beautiful snow on the hills filled my heart with dread. Being snowed in isn't fun - romantic yes - until you run out of things , can't get to work and your boss doesn't believe you when you tell him why!!!. Sometimes the thought of living in a nice clean, modern little gas centrally heated flat has it's charms. Not often, but life would be so much easier.

I've lived in this remote part of the world for over 10 years now, and know I'm very much a country person at heart - definitely not a townie. However, it's not all romantic idyll as people have found who have believed the dream. Being poor in the country is infinitely worse than being poor in the town - I've done both! There's a lot of poverty in rural areas, it's often masked because people still live in big cold old farmhouses, but without a profitable farm to support that sort of life any more.

Gripe over. I've had to admit defeat with the course. The electricity keeps threatening to go off too, at least if the power stays on and it doesn't rain the telly will work ( tv signal dies if it rains!)

I agree though, the silence, the wildlife, the scenery, the privacy, the safety and sometimes even the weather can fill your heart with joy, and as I turn off the main road onto the 5 or so miles of pitch black small lanes to get home I know I can never live anywhere else. But sometimes, just sometimes - I wonder why I need to make life so hard!

DS

mardatha

Well, we are both retired now, living on pension credit, so no more rent or CT. One thing though I could say - in our last house we had storage heaters that cost a fortune to run and just lifted us above freezing. We tried leaving this off and with the money saved from that I bought coal, and kept the open fire on every day. Once the room gets heated, if you dont open and shut doors constantly, the room gets very cosy. And I found we could put up with freezing bedrooms as long as we had a cosy livingroom and good warm duvets. I found that we preferred one warm cosy room to lots of just-above-freezing ones !
I had the sheep in the garden too, ate all my bloody pansies. I thought I was being smart and got my son to put up a wee fence. Then looked out of the kitchen window and saw this huge cow calmly leaning over it and eating my tatties !!!