General Chat

Oh my Brian!! That's nearly £80 per week. What kind of heating do you have? Is it a large house because that's a very large bill.

Florence in the hebrides

It's detached so exposed on all four sides, five bedrooms with us and our semi-disabled daughter with gas wet central heating.
Half of it is a 1990 extension with hopefully decent insulation but the older part is c. 1955 with cavity walls but no filling so that is something to look at.
The loft is insulated and boarded and the windows are double glazed with external shutters.
We do tend to keep the radiators on in all the rooms so will turn those down or off when not in use.
I suspect that most of the electricity goes on cooking, washing clothes and showers.
Must teach the dog to shut the back door when he lets himself in.

Well, we have our energy email now. I expected our increase to be around the same as Belle’s (£75 pm) and we have been informed that our increase will be £101 pm which works out around an increase of around 70%.

I suspect the company is hedging its bets and gambling on bills rising by 70% by March 2023 but as it has more money in its coffers than we have, and considering we had overpaid by £190 in January, I shall not be altering our DD by 70%; likely it will be 50% - and we won’t have the heating on for as long as we do at the moment.

I shall also look around for better deals - but I suspect they will all be much of a muchness and any firm that offers us a very low monthly payment at the moment will present us with a hefty bill by the end of the year.

Hubby does not seem overly concerned but he is the one who wanted to ‘stay in this house until he drops,’ as he put it when I tried to persuade him to look for a nearby two/three bedroomed bungalow in 2010!

JL
It might be worth looking at the last Martin Lewis money show on iplayer.

He reckoned that we would get the same rise as we now have again in October.
His chart of the oil price rises was frightening.

Heating Oil has gone up in price in the past 2 weeks.
We topped up out tank 2 weeks ago at a cost of 59p per litre, our daughter topped her tank up this week at a cost of 90pence per litre, & depending on which oil company one uses here some are charging well over a £ per litre, the price is going UP on a daily basis!

Our daughters bill came in at just short of a £1000, & the tank isn't full, & that's only 1 fill, we both need at least 2 fills per year, it's frightening, & VERY worrying, then there is the extra we have to find for our electricty!
No gas for us living in a rural area!!!

Joan.

Thanks Names. I’ve taken a quick look for now.

We were on a fixed rate until end of Jan 2021. We were on a variable rate, paying the same amount for the following year and we’d paid the same in February this year when we decided to check fixed and variable rates again after discovering we were £190 in credit. If only I’d fixed the rate early-to mid- February instead of waiting until late-Feb, before our March payment was due! My bad luck for waiting until the last moment. (I have always paid bills just before they’re due - it’s a habit to hold onto my money as long as possible!)

The Ukrainian invasion had just begun and the company wanted to fix the rate at just over three times our previous monthly payment which was still much more than the 70% the firm is asking us to pay now!

I shall, of course, look around but most fixed rates offered will err on the side of companies’ profit - after all they’re in business to squeeze out every last penny they can. It would be good to fix the rate no higher than what we are being asked to pay now but, being the suspicious type, it would not surprise me if other energy firms wanted to fix it even higher.

People, niggling away in the back of my mind is the fact that meter readings may be available to all energy companies so the ending of a low fixed rate could result in a massive increase in the next fixed rate.

Since we only get between 5 and 7% of our oil supply from Russia, other nations are obviously charging huge amounts for supply of oil - making hay while the sun shines for them but that’s business.

As far as gas is concerned we ourselves produce roughly 50%, the rest coming mainly from Europe (Norway mostly) and about 9% as liquid gas coming mostly from Qatar.

All-in-all, as with most businesses, energy companies are not in the market to run at a loss. It won’t stop me looking around though.

Hi JL
I don’t always watch that programme unless I am aware of something big happening. It was interesting that at one point he didn’t really know what to advise.

I think the cost of oil is down to supply and demand and some of those demanding can offer more money.

We are so grateful that we had to leave our old oil fuelled house and now have both gas and electric.

In my last house I had oil central heating but the shower was electric. In lockdown the price of Kerosene went right down to something like 31p per litre!. But now I am in an all electric house with no oil ,I am better off. I was paying then £100 a month for oil and it was 50p last year a litre. I struggled then and quite often had dressing gown on over my clothes and slept with it on when it was sooo cold.

That was a private rental and the house was built in mid 80's and badly needed up grading etc.

You could work out electric V oil and see what the difference is, however its the heating that the oil is used for. Unless one had the finances to consider a different heating system like I have. Underfloor, pumps water not oil so Eco friendly.

You would have the initial cost of installing it but in the long run I think it would pay.

I am so glad, I don't have oil anymore, I simply could not afford it.

Florence in the hebrides

Our regional tv had a piece about how a village had banded together to get a better deal with their oil. Can’t remember how much it was but possibly well over £. I do remember them saying the company won’t give them a price when they order as by the time it is delivered it will have gone up.

Well, I'm back and I've done a WHICH comparison check. The company I am with is offering the best so I shall do another check then make up my mind.

I know that I have used less than they originally thought I would - they gave me just over £100 in summer 2021 and in January this year I was £190 in credit. If I end up staying with them I shall alter my monthly - but not to the amount that they suggest.

As I mentioned at the outset, I'm with the same energy supplier for both gas and electricity. Although on the standard variable rate (SVR) I was on a Plan that finished in October each year. At that time the Company would always send me a letter telling me what the fixed rate annual amount would be so that I could make an informed choice as to whether to fix it or stay on the SVR. For the last two years I have compared the two and it was always cheaper for me to stay on the SVR I think it's because it is just me in the household; if it was a family of four it might have been worth my while :-)
I expect the fixed rates have now gone up accordingly, so SVR is still most probably the cheapest for me although fixed rates do give you peace of mind :-)

Yes, Belle, we, too, buy gas and electricity from the same supplier and I'm not sure that I can be bothered dealing with two different energy companies anyway. (Perhaps I ought to check though.)

I've done a second comparison and our current supplier is still coming out on top for dual fuel so I am about to sort check the cost of separating gas and electricity. If the costs are similar I shall stay our current supplier although I shall not alter my DD to exactly what was suggested because of receiving £100 back in the summer and being £190 overpaid in January.

OH and I will discuss it this weekend - as he is hard of hearing, I am usually the one who deals with everything in case there is a phone call.

Sorry if I am misunderstanding, but you can't do anything about your DD without asking the power provider to do it for you.

You are right, Names. I don’t pay by bankers’/standing order, so what I ought to have written is that I set my monthly payment online then the provider asks for that amount from the bank. It is still set for the monthly amount I have paid until now.

Interesting article in MOS which also seems to say that either staying on the variable rate or fixing is a gamble either way.

The fixed rate deals they quoted go from about £3200 to £4447. I expect they’ve already changed.

..........and now the Council tax notification letter has arrived :-(

Gwyn, mine came last week and I notice the £150 had been credited against the balance. Also mine doesn't start until May, so this next bill is over 9 months instead of 10 but....mine has gone up by £18 and that includes our water & sewerage as we dont get separate bills. In all its not too bad for me. I am in Band B

Florence in the hebrides

help please
now got a breakdown that means nothing to me
however they have said my last meter reading was 30/9/2021 39202
meter reading in15/02/22 42330
kwh charged 3128 at 19,695
how does that equate to a bill of £1979.42

thank you
maddie

I have a partial Electric statement for 40 days of 360kWh at 19.695p (£0.19695) per kWh = £70.90 on the bill - and also me using a calculator. The standing charge for 40 days was an additional £9.18 (40 days at 22.964p per day or £0.22964)

So you have 42330 - 39202 = 3128 kWh x 19.695p per kWh

3128kWh x 0.19695 per kWh = £616.05

Then Standing charge for 138 days at (lets use my cost as I don't know yours)

138 days x 0.22964p per day = £31.69

Total 616.05 + 31.69 = £647.74

Even Tripling that for whatever reason doesn't make your total, only £1943.22 !!!!!!!!

Am I wrong? Maybe my Maths is a far too distant memory?

no i came to something like that and thought i was going doolally
i asked them for a break down of their calculatons so we shall see
thank you for your help, im not going mad
maddie