So how do you get your gas and electricity disconnected so you don't pay standing charge?

[LaurieFairyCake]

Is literally what a family asked me today

Their standing charges are going to be £40-£50 a month so they want it disconnected

I did not know the answer to that so I've kicked the query to someone else (not my area at all) but I figure someone on here will know

I didn't even think you were allowed to ...

In case it's of any help, my friend (who was already with Octopus) moved onto their Flexible tariff today, which is fixed but only until October.

She is now paying 51p standing charge and 28p per Kwh (electricity only).

Don't pay your bill and obviously attempt to fiddle with the meter. That'll do it, and for free.

I'm semi-joking, but it does get it done.

Which is why I said completely off grid. In our previous village there was no gas so we paid no gas standing charge.

Once you start to look at generating and storing your own electricity the prices charged by the electricity companies look surprisingly good value.

@Nolongera

Thanks. It's not something I ever come across in my line of work. It's something I never get any exposure to because we fit the meters.

When we can afford to move it's something I will look into further.

If you have anything to recommend based on your experience I'd be grateful.

The put a lasagne in a bag in the garden and foxes/rats/cats didn’t get at it?

There is a ton of stuff out there about off-grid living, surely people are aware of this?

We have a Maplins solar suitcase, 12 volt and 13 watts at peak power, it would take about 80 hours to produce 1kwh (price off the mains, 27p) and that's assuming those 80 hours are blazing direct sun. It was ok for charging a leisure battery and running a small tv at our caravan with no mains electricity but there is no way you could make a serious saving.

Full solar with big batteries and a heavy duty pure sine wave inverter is serious ££££££s.

Our big fridge freezer in the garage used 23p of electricity on the hottest day of the year, in the winter that will be down to single figures.

I got a quote from E earlier - no standing charges. First 2 kwh per day of ele @53.77p, anything extra @ 27.12p
Gas is 25.57p for the first 2kwh, anything extra 7.28p
Prepay meters only (if you're on a credit meter they will switch it to prepay)

They'd actually be a couple of quid cheaper a year than my current octopus DD tariff.

No fixed tariffs on offer though, and all prices will change in October etc.

Depends on the house, and on your life style. I rented a place with two woodburners, and weird electric radiator things I dared not turn on. It was a terraced stone house, and I had a 4 year old and was at home all day. It held the heat well, and the child was getting me up early. You could go downstairs, make coffee and re-kindle the fire. Once you’d drunk your coffee in bed, the kitchen had warmed up and you could take your clothes down and get dressed. And keeping it going for the rest of the day was no biggie. A bag of coal kept it in and gave you background heat overnight. No biggie. I would have hated to do it going to and from a job, and it would have been much harder around a 9-5 lifestyle, or in a new house that didn’t hold background heat. You wouldn’t be able to keep the heat low enough. We had baths together, because it was easier, and a hot bath warms the bathroom up nicely. I did have electric hot water.

I’ve also done plenty of summers camping with no electric and it doesn’t bother me much. I miss the dishwasher, and I miss the washing machine. If you aren’t cooking much and can take clothes to a relatives or laundrette, it’s probably doable. Not fun, but doable. We aren’t big users of big appliances, and I think we could probably manage on a solar/battery set up with very low charges most of the year, and then I’d seriously resent the standing change and would likely forgo whatever the export payments are now to disconnect, even if it meant getting a generator for emergencies.

Thank you @Nolongera

I'm going to read up more on this.

Exactly the same occurred to me.

Candles wood and coal are not free.

No gas in our old house.

We were burning £100 a month of coal in the winter supplemented with our own " free" wood, which we cut and dried ourselves. The " free" wood came from our own land which cost us a small fortune.

Last December we used the same amount in gas at the new sky high price, meanwhile coal has also gone up in price.

Try reading a book using a candle.

A low energy 40 watt bulb would burn for 25 hours using 27p worth of electricity at current rates. Fractionally over a penny an hour.

I did a 45 minute 40°C wash for clothes the other day, 19p in electricity. I suppose I could have gone down to the burn and done a hand wash against the rocks.

The energy threads on here are bonkers, I am sure some people omit the cannabis farm they are running in the loft and the permeant swingers hot pool in the garden from their calculations.

Utilita never used to have a standing charge and not sure if that's still the case. They used to knock on my door a lot to try and sign me up.

Im with utilita an no standing charge as such but pay higher for first so mangy kw
Maybe something like that if very low users
But leaving food outside and eating is not safe we don't have fridge temp outside all winter in uk
They will get some of the £400 so therefore could use that towards and of that low income also the £650
I don't understand how they plan to live with neither , even the house would become damp etc

We very rarely have fridge let alone freezer temps in most of UK. Waste in food unless they buy in every day I guess

Our fridge went wrong a few months ago, and unknowingly, it was going up to 12 degrees.
Nothing went bad in it.
Our garage stays at a constant 14 degrees.
If we had to, I would put stuff in garage. Actually dont think it would go bad.

That is my opinion.