- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
in other news, BP are reporting huge profits
Where's the angry emoticon when you want it?
Energy bill increases
- Thread starter GuyBoden
- Start date
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Where's the angry emoticon when you want it?
Jody
Stubborn git
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
fossyant
Ride It Like You Stole It!
- Location
- South Manchester
Our 'changes' to wasting energy have had a big effect. If we 'exclude' winter just gone, our typical dual fuel month was about £260 before the price rises (was hitting over £300 in winter). March was £190, this month £220 (new prices). Down side is Scottish Power only letting me bring down my DD by about £30 a month, and I'm £320 in credit. I'll be about £450 in credit next month....
Dryer and hot tub was our energy wasters, oh and oil radiators for the conservatory whilst I worked - a jumper is 'fine', as is a dehumidifier and a clothes horse for washing.
Scandalous when you think what we wasted by not turning the 'tub' down, and being lazy with the dryer. I think we've used the dryer twice on low for things we needed 'dry' promptly. We are still using the hot tub, but pick one night a week !
I can live with £220. No doubt it will creep up in November - February, but doing your own reading once a month, or more, helps ! I'm still hearing many instances of power companies not billing accurately, or timely when folk have a smart meter.
Dryer and hot tub was our energy wasters, oh and oil radiators for the conservatory whilst I worked - a jumper is 'fine', as is a dehumidifier and a clothes horse for washing.
Scandalous when you think what we wasted by not turning the 'tub' down, and being lazy with the dryer. I think we've used the dryer twice on low for things we needed 'dry' promptly. We are still using the hot tub, but pick one night a week !I can live with £220. No doubt it will creep up in November - February, but doing your own reading once a month, or more, helps ! I'm still hearing many instances of power companies not billing accurately, or timely when folk have a smart meter.
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
Where? And what's been going wrong? I've dug quite a bit and found exactly one real recent instance, where OVO failed to allow for the random offset of smart meter billing periods (which is there so that when we go "smart grid", not everyone's cheaper electricity will start at the same time and lead to mass switch-ons spiking the demand and knocking things out) and were asking for a day's usage data before the meter's day had completed, so they were getting 23.5-hour days and miscalculating the bills as a result.
A lot of the complaints about smart meters seem to be about them failing to connect to the network, or about them not switching providers cleanly (even more so with the energy company collapses), but in that situation, I think you're no worse off than you were with a dumb meter.
PaulSB
Squire
- Location
- Chorley, Lancashire
What a difference a month makes gas consumption dropped from 430kWh to 139kWh and electricity remains stable at +/- 180. I did adjust the thermostat and CH timings on April 1st but it's impossible to know the impact of this as the weather warms.
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PaulSB
Squire
- Location
- Chorley, Lancashire
This is the case in my house and locally though I'm not complaining. My old gas meter was very difficult to read, especially in winter, as the glass panel was usually covered by internal condensation. I opted for smart meters on the basis it would replace two old ones and be easier to use. The display has never worked which I understand is an issue with the HAN communications and the information has never been communicated to the supplier as the WAN in our locality has issues - no one in our village has a working smart meter in this sense and I know of others in the neighbouring village with the same issue. British Gas say they are aware of the WAN issue and it will be resolved in three weeks time - that was in January!!!
I can't say I'm very bothered, I wanted new meters and got them for free. Yes, I have the inconvenience of submitting, and recording for myself, the monthly readings but I don't see this as a particular hardship. The downside is I have to use the BG website which is absolute shite.
I keep meaning to plug in the display to see if it now works but I can't find it - one of those things I've put away in a safe place!!!
I don't really understand all the fuss. A smart meter was never going to cut my consumption, only I can do that.
Scaleyback
Veteran
- Location
- North Yorkshire
Well said. IMO the energy companies are disingenuous in their approach to promoting 'smart meters' as if the actural smart meter is a fuel saving device ! Users need to have an appreciation of the energy consumption of various devices. Most people wouldn't consider buying a car without some knowledge of it's fuel conumption they need to carry this approach into their 'white goods' etc.
I don't really understand all the fuss. A smart meter was never going to cut my consumption, only I can do that.
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I used a electric consumption reading monitor (think it was from Maplin when they had stores) which gave a quite clear reading of the actual electric consumption at the time it was viewed; useful when thinking everything that should be off was off but why is the consumption so high? The smart meter I have is not so smart and also still fails to give a gas reading despite the metres being next to each other. Too far away said Shell Energy!
mjr
Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
- Location
- mostly Norfolk, sometimes Somerset
They could be. Smart meters have a few ways to signal devices to switch on and off with changing energy availability, like a more sophisticated version of Economy 7 or the various overnight electric vehicle charging plans. I'm not sure any suppliers are using it yet, though... and the cynic would ask why would they enable it right now.
rogerzilla
Legendary Member
Tumble dryers really don't use that much, because they're not on for long. In winter, I suppose I dry two loads a week. 100 mins on half heat is about 2.5kWh, or 70p. So £3 a month, which is worth it not to have a damp house. The big electricity user (hot tubs excepted) in a gas-heated home is the fridge-freezer.
Electric_Andy
Heavy Metal Fan
- Location
- Plymouth
I hadn't thought about that really. I have gas central heating but my fridge and freezer are next to the kitchen radiator so it's been turned off since I moved in. I had thought about moving the fridge so I can have the radiator on (the kitchen feels like a good 5 degrees colder than the rest of the house) but maybe now I'll re-consider.
rogerzilla
Legendary Member
Another point on tumble drying: energy efficiency ratings on vented dryers are not on the same scale as those on condenser dryers. Very few condenser dryers use less energy per cycle than a vented dryer, even though the vented dryer might be rated B or C and the condenser dryer A.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
I don't have the radiator on in my kitchen either; logic is this... the fridge and freezer chuck out a bit of heat just by being 'on'. The oven and hob chucks out more when I'm cooking. Having three outside walls it's (in theory) the coldest room in the house, but it doesn't feel like it.
