What has your energy bill increased to? ☹️🤬

[OhPeeQueue]

Received an email last night that my energy bill was increasing. Gas-£109 a month. Electric-£79 a month. To think we were only paying around £120 a month a year or two ago, they’ve steadily increased the price.

I was working 2 jobs up until a few months ago and stopped due to stress. Wish I hadn’t now. ☹️.

Mines gone from £70 to £130 too with EDF. My orginal supplier collapsed last year .

However they also sent me a cheque for £50 as I’d over paid. Costs are going up so I’m trying to get a smart meter and then I’ll know if it’s me or just the price that’s the problem.

It’s definitely the price. I’ve been using my heating like this for years and actually up until 3 years ago I was always at home during the day so heating was on most cold days in winter.

Are electric blankets really energy efficient? I’m thinking of buying hot water bottles for everyone.

[quote OhPeeQueue]@mogsrus do you install it yourself or do you have to get a corgi person (dunno name) to fit it? Also please send me auction site. Not sure I can spend £300+ for something like that yet. Thanks[/quote]
E bay. Is the auction site, but always read the text as some units are only for commercial boilers. The 2 I have mentioned are for domestic use. I fitted it myself as it only needs wiring into the boiler.it took me the whole install less than 45 mins I would think. My unit was offered for 200£ I got it for 160£. Thanks for actually asking about them, I cannot believe people just keep whining about the cost of power and when someone offers genuine concrete advice about a technology that WILL do something for them, they don’t seem to like it, this little box has been around for a long time for businesses but not readily available for domestic, it is now & I will do anything in my house to save cash.

It's not gas that's my largest bill, its the electricity so I'm not sure a boiler manager would be any use.

Maybe we don't just accept a random's assertion on the internet about a product and what it does, @mogsrus. You've not explained it clearly, and the manufacturers' websites all look so aren't very clear.

I would have expected there to be more song and dance about this amazing gadget if it really was as good as you claim it is.

Arghh, garbled, the manufacturers' websites aren't very clear either.

@sHREDDIES19

I’m not sure how but Octopus are keeping ours at the same amount it was with AVRO. It’s £45 p/m dual fuel. We do live in a newish house so it’s well insulated but I’m still shocked in a very good way.

We're in the same position. We've moved over with a credit of around £100, but I'm expecting them to put up the DD in the next 2/3 months as we go through winter and use G&E at the new higher cost - we were coming to the end of what was probably a much cheaper fix.

It was only yesterday as it happens that I got the email to say that the transfer and billing had been completed and we actually missed a month's payment because I cancelled the Avro DD and the Octopus DD doesn't start coming out until next week.

We were paying £94 pm, and it was in the right ballpark for our usage, so it will probably go up to at least £120/130.

On the matter of monthly payment vs unit rates and daily standing charges, there's so many comments on this thread that indicate that many people don't understand that these are different.

When a utility company tells you that they're charging you £X pm, that's not necessarily based on your actual usage, it's an estimate and you need to keep an eye on your account to make sure you're not getting into debt, or building up a big credit, subject to normal seasonal variations of course, it's normal and probably a good thing to be in credit in summer and autumn, otherwise you'll get to the end of winter with a big debt.

Best thing to do is use your annual usage and rates to calculate how much what you use in a year costs, and divide that by 12 to work out what your monthly DD should be. If it's a long way from that, you can get it changed, otherwise you might be getting into debt, which could make life difficult later on when they increase the DD to match your usage and claw back the debt that's built up.

When I get quotes to change utility company, I always put my actual usage from the year before into the comparison site to - hopefully - get an accurate monthly figure from the start.

We moved house in Oct from a house with a pre-payment meter to one with a standard meter, so we couldn’t stick with our current energy contract. The new energy company put us on their newest fixed rate tariff, and we spent £190 in the first 3 weeks! I’ve now switched to their variable, which is significantly less, but still around £150 a month.

Because we’ve only just changed from pre-payment, we haven’t built up any credit over the summer or anything. I think I’m basically just going to keep an eye on it and increase direct debits as needed.

My concern is that when the next price cap review happens, costs will go up even more though. I just wish I had a clue by how much

They tried to change mine from £55 to £66 this month (no has just electricity) when my tariff ended at the end of last month. I have £200 credit (and £140 warm home discount due to also go in) that I changed it back down to £55 to use up some credit.

I can't afford to run ANY of my electric heaters (bill went from £35 to £139 a month just by using them 2 winters ago) so I bought my son and me an Oodie each to keep us lovely and warm!

3 bed with 3 people. On a 2 year eco fix with octopus which started in May. £139 a month and in credit so far.
I could have saved on the normal tariff but I decided to take the plunge to supporting renewables. Whether I can afford this when my fix ends remains to be seen.

WIKI will explain how these devices work

Not gone up yet but is set to by £200pa next month. Pay around £100pm atm for a 3 bed semi, our house is only 14 years old so fairly efficient.

Our electric is about double what gas is on DD too.

Wiki will explain how they work.

@mogsrus

WIKI will explain how these devices work

No. If you're asserting something, I expect you to explain how they work. Anyone who replies 'Google it' or similar, is usually spouting some form of shit.

I’m with Bulb, we’ve been paying £95 a month for gas and electricity but are £300 in credit. I’ve reduced my DD to £89 as that’s the lowest I could set it to, I want to use up some of that credit before March incase bulb the goes bust. I know credit is protected but I’d rather that was used up a bit! In November our bill was £93 but I expect it’ll be higher for the next few months.

When this arrangement with Bulb ends I dread to think how much our bills will go up by but at least we’ll be past the bulk of the cold weather!

@Roominmyhouse exactly, let's hope we can limp along through winter with bulb. It's a shame as I'd only recently switched to them and loved how straight forward they were. Hopefully the employees will be kept on with the eventual new supplier.

I have a heat recovery system in my house as well, they also help lower fuel bills but are not banded about all over the net.
B E M devices stop boilers doing a thing called : dry cycling : that’s when they call for heat but not actually requiring it & consequently wastes fuel by simply topping up the heat that has literally gone out the flue. They regulate the actual heat going out of the unit & know exactly how much heat is being returned. If the heat starts coming back over a set point, the boiler stops ( saving gas) until the return set point is matched Thermostats cannot do that. Basically that’s how they work. They are NOT new

I googled the device and the first thing I came across was a forum thread about a malfunctioning one, and someone saying that even the manufacturer doesn't know how it works and can't supply information needed to fix it. (Think the manufacturer inherited the product from elsewhere.)

Although I suppose if you are capable of installing it yourself, then you could just install a new one when it goes wrong.

I wonder whether a British Gas engineer would have any knowledge of these, if called out to solve a problem in which it may be implicated.

@RandomLondoner

I googled the device and the first thing I came across was a forum thread about a malfunctioning one, and someone saying that even the manufacturer doesn't know how it works and can't supply information needed to fix it. (Think the manufacturer inherited the product from elsewhere.)

Although I suppose if you are capable of installing it yourself, then you could just install a new one when it goes wrong.

I wonder whether a British Gas engineer would have any knowledge of these, if called out to solve a problem in which it may be implicated.

Had mine for 7 years all it does is monitor the outgoing hot water & the return water stopping the boiler from constant firing this saves gas. No thermostat can do this by there very nature. It’s a small box withal set of wires, one set of wires have sticky patches attached to them, these are attached to outgoing pipe & return pipe the other two attached to thermostat wiring inside boiler and plug it in. That’s all they are, once attached you can turn down the boiler stat because the box takes over. Our boiler is now operating at 64 degrees. Which is seriously low, thereby saving. I really can’t explain it any simpler. One manufacturer did a test, heating a caravan for 7 days using bottled gas the bottle lasted 7 days. When the unit was attached the got nearly 9 days out of it. What more is there to say.......it works. I’ve got one & several places I have worked installed them in boiler plants

[quote userxx]@Roominmyhouse exactly, let's hope we can limp along through winter with bulb. It's a shame as I'd only recently switched to them and loved how straight forward they were. Hopefully the employees will be kept on with the eventual new supplier. [/quote]
It is a shame. I’ve found them easy and straightforward as a supplier. I hope the increase in the price cap being talked about is enough to keep them in business!

Just read that BEM thread. The date is 2011 that’s a long time ago & looking at how it was wired up is not quite how they are done now.
Looking elsewhere on the same page, it looks like they had an outside weather compensator as well, these can be upset by thunderstorms. I would throw in also that a B EM 500 is possibly for commercial Use.

Sadly we're with Bulb so it's gone up from £92 to £165 a month for both both working from home still but we turn heating off apart from to the office during the day and then it's not on all the time. I just layer up in jumpers.

Just read the danfoss 5000 wiring instructions. they are suitable for home use but they do have as I thought previously a weather compensator. These units are wired completely different to the units I am writing about & compensator units can be affected by thunderstorms Our unit sits inside the house on the side of the boiler housing & that’s it.