To have buried my head re energy costs?

[itsthesound]

So obviously I've seen the news articles floating around, but tried to ignore what was happening re energy costs.
We currently pay £200 per month for gas and electricity combined.
My provider emailed today to say our fixed term is coming to an end.
If I want another 12 months fixed then it's £409 a month.
I've checked other suppliers and they range from £450-£600 per month on a 12 month fixed deal.
If I stay on variable then it's £210 per month.
How are we actually going to cope?
Are people sticking with variable and hoping for the best? Or going with a fixed term for a horrendous amount per month?
How can they double the cost of something overnight?

This thread may be useful

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4617902-aibu-to-ask-is-anyone-actually-fixing-their-fuel-prices?page=4&reply=119461702

Don’t fix if the unit prices offered are more than the price predictions below -

We can’t afford the fix being offered either. We pay £250 a month and can’t afford any more than that. I don’t know what we are going to do to be honest! Get into debt I guess!

Well it hasn't doubled overnight, the wholesale price has been increasing steadily for a long time, your supplier has just been stuck with your fixed rate and has had to sell it to you at a loss. Now that your fixed rate is over they can increase it and start making a profit. A new fix will be a massive jump because they have to hedge their bets about how much the wholesale cost might go up during the fixed term otherwise they will end up supplying at a loss again by the time it finishes. You therefore need to gamble, either take the fix and hope they've underestimated the increases, or stay on variable and hope that the market settles/the government act.

I'm the same OP and trying to get my head around it

It hasn't doubled overnight but over a year.

First steps: what is your usage in kWh for gas and power last year? What size house are you in and how many people?

Unless you are in an enormous home, based on your current direct debit, it looks like you use a more energy than the average home.

So it seems likely you can get your usage down - what is your heating system? If it's a combi boiler: www.theheatinghub.co.uk/articles/turn-down-the-boiler-flow-temperature

Do you use a thermostat? A timer system on your boiler?

Have you got decent insulation in the loft? Do you have draughts coming in somewhere you can tackle with some expanding foam?

Are you running anything like a hot tub/sex pond or a tumble dryer every day?

I'm staying on standard variable for the time being on the assumption that the Government will finally fix the rate at an "affordable" level and sink 100 billion into sorting out the estimated increases.
It will become under enormous pressure to finally do something after Johnson has finally buggered off.
I'm certainly not fixing at £450 a month only to find that after Government intervention the price cap gets fixed at well below market rate.

It's a 6 bed house. We aren't minted honestly, was a doer upper that we've not actually done much on.
It's not very energy efficient to be honest. Windows are blown and radiators don't seem to get very warm despite having a new Combi boiler (the only thing we have done to the house!) , most likely because pipes are old. Some radiators don't work at all.
Loft insulation is crap, but we don't have the money to do much right now.
House is 40 years old. New builds we've had previously have been much warmer.

I think the main issue is our crap heating system. We need to crank the heating up to 32 degrees to even get the rooms to 18 degrees. If we put it on 18 degrees then the rooms never get warm.
We have bedrooms on top of a garage conversion too that I don't think are insulated properly as they're freezing.

That'll be why your getting such high quotes. You need to bring down your usage before getting new quotes. Sounds like quite a difficult one though if your lacking insulation/have crap heating.
Mind you I've seen people getting quotes as high as £1,000 a month so who even knows anymore.

I'm sticking my head in the sand too. I am not on a fixed rate but have increased my monthly payments slightly recently, and am in credit. I am hoping 'somebody does something' because I can't afford the figures being talked about in the media. If not, I'll be very cold.

I literally don't know what we are going to do. Husband says it's too risky to stay on variable, but we don't physically have an extra £200 per month.

Might be worth getting your radiators cleaned out.

I’m not fixing, staying on variable.

Do you know your annual usage? It seems unlikely that you came off a fix and onto the svr for only an additional £10. And on the svr your unit rates will increase by 80% ish in October (exact amount to be announced on Friday).

Move to a smaller house? If you’ve bought it to do it up and you can’t afford that or to heat it then you surely need to downsize. I presume your financial position has changed from when you bought it?

The best thing you can do is to sort out your energy efficiency.

some mortgage lenders will offer good remortgage options for energy improvements so as a matter of urgency you should be looking at your windows and insulation. Even if you could replace one window in one room, that would mean that room would be better placed to reduce your heating bill. or you could try replacing some of the radiators to see if that helps you? You shouldn’t have to be at 32 degrees just to get to 18 degrees - that’s not right!

Head in the sand here also. I can't fix, there are no fixes on offer with my provider and the offers from other providers are so much more that there's no point. It's out of my control so we'll just have to wait and see what happens. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Moving wouldn't help. For the price we bought this house 3 years ago you can buy a 3 bed in this area now as house prices have increased so much. Then solicitors fees and stamp duty.
I think we'll just have to economise. Our plan was to always do this house up over 5-10 years. But the cost of living has increased, so we've done bits and pieces cosmetically, but could really do with new windows and insulation.
Maybe I could insulate the loft myself.

How about moving to another house. One thing about high energy costs is people might conserve energy/help the environment.

Not much point in heating a house for the energy to literally go out of the windows.

I'm surprised you've had a new boiler fitted but the rads aren't heating up. Was this checked at installation as to me that sounds like a very poor job. Does the system need balancing? People will say you need a power flush but this should have been done when the new boiler went in or at least the system totally drained and refilled with chemicals to keep the system clean.

Your heating is set to 32c?! Is this at the thermostat? Tbh, no wonder your bill is high. You must be pumping so much heating outside.

Do you occupy all 6 bedrooms?

They took vat off insulation products earlier this year so that made them a bit cheaper. Loft insulation is not expensive and can often be easily done DIY.

The rads do heat up, well 70% of them!
It's been balanced a few times and works for a while and then starts being dodgy again.
When they extended the house they didn't extend the pipe work very efficiently apparently? So the hot water has a long way to go to reach all of the rooms?
But I think because the house is poorly insulated a lot of heat escapes, so the only way the rooms get to room temperature is to turn the thermostat up to 35 degrees?

I'm going to shut off a couple of rooms this year.
But we have young children so really need the house at a minimum of 18 degrees.
Yep the thermostat is turned that high in order for the rooms to get to room temperature.
Upstairs is colder than downstairs too.
And the hallway is absolutely freezing. And the kitchen.

So you don't need 6 beds if you can close some rooms off?

Sell the place and buy the 3 bed with decent windows and insulation

Energy prices are going to remain high (not quite this high but higher than they have been) for five years as the world adjusts to no Russian gas and new supplies slowly get built.

Honest advice: unless you can spend money on the necessary works, then move to a smaller place. You can't afford to run this house without improving it and you can't afford to improve it.

Octopus have a crystal ball tool that suggests on previous usage our energy on a 3 bed semi will go from 118 now to 690 in Jan on their variable tariff based on what they expect to happen. Insulating will pay for itself by the end of the winter

You definitely could insulate the loft yourself. My husband added more to ours, just by buying the insulation and laying it down. I’m sure a professional could have done a better job, but diy was cheap and it seems to have helped