6 Bed Vicotorian House BILLS!!

[CollegeDoctor86]

DH and I have just moved into our dream home, 6 bed, 2 bath, 3 story late 1800 Victorian house. Move from a 2 bed, 2 bath new build flat in London.

I can honestly say for the 7 years we live in the flat I was lucky enough to never even have to think about looking at the smart meter. Bills were usually the same.

However, shocked to see the daily spend on energy in the new home,
smart meter is clocking up £10 a day. We have a smart thermostat, a new 40kw boiler wochester bosch, 12 new type 22 convection radiators and at the moment 1 bathroom and 1 shower room.
Temperature-wise it takes about 4 hrs to get up to 18 degrees but struggles to get above that.( i know we are having a cold snap at the moment 5 degrees outside)
We have OLD double glazing, not great but certainly better than single, and husband has silconed around the windows to make sure there are no leaks.

Just wanted to find out if anyone else spends this much on heating and electricity also shocked that victorian properties are so expensive to run talkless of buy.

The in laws have an old draughty house and a need to keep bills as low as possible:

Moshulu slippers, they've got good thick soles that stop the cold coming through my feet from the kitchen quarry tiles. A cut down carpet sample used as in insole does the same thing for wellies/boots if you're working outside.
Draught excluders at the base of doors and thick lined velvet curtains over the worst offenders.
Space heater to blast the chill off for a minute or two if you need to use a room without heating.
Hot water bottles.
Hideous but effective plastic stick on membrane draught proofing over the inside window frames of coldest windows that face prevailing wind during winter. Double glazing not allowed for the house. This doesn't make the room damp or unaired due to multiple draughts from other areas.
Gilets, they might not be chic but they work.

Oh how we laugh at Country Living Magazine and all the people lounging about in lacy vests.

This is why we moved out of our 3 storey draughty cold Victorian house. The bills were horrific

Things that helped in our 3 bed edwardian semi;

• Loft insulation (& if you store stuff up there, you need to use something like loft legs to raise the boards, not just put them on the insulation. Squashed insulation is far far less effective).

• New double glazing

• Shutters / window coverings - the shutters helped massively with keeping it cooler in summer too. You may want to consider heavy curtains if not reglazing.

• Flooring & insulation - we considered stripping the original boards but it would have been incredibly draughty (judging by the time we spent without carpets) & they weren't in v good condition, so we have top quality insulation under good quality laminate. Another option is insulation under floorboards or little strips of wood to fill every gap.

Right six floor Georgian terrace here. It's listed as well so we can only have single glazing. This is what I have learnt:

• search out draughts and seal them if you can, e.g. brushes over the letterbox, brushes on the windows, have the sashses looked at so they fit well *shut every door *curtain over the front door and draught excluders everywhere
• thick curtains are amazing, curtains and shutters (if you have them) are better than triple glazing *check the chimneys for draughts, think about woodburners instead *look at your insulation, we swapped our crappy rockwool for Cellotex in the attic and it went up by abut 4 degrees! *heat the room you're in, not the whole house *if you have fires, use them, significantly cheaper than heating at the moment, woodburners are the best and there are some amazing eco ones now. *invest in some proper winter clothing: merino baselayers, Uniqlo Heattech and thick guernseys from Le Tricoteur are amazing *don't fight it, it is winter, it's meant to be a bit colder I find I can't sleep in other people's warm houses and hotels just suffocate me!

Finally, get an Aga!!!!

Im in a Victorian Terrace and find this house quite warm....im currently paying £84 a month for gas and electric...its a lot cheaper than my last house.

It's certainly an art!

8 bed Victorian semi here with three levels plus a basement and almost completely single glazed. Bills are £230 a month for utilities.

We have 2 boilers. One is the same make as yours and does the upper floors' heating. The other (Ideal) does all the hot water (bathroom, shower room) and the downstairs heat. Downstairs heating is on a low thermostat at 14 degrees and we turn it up when we go downstairs for a while. Our upstairs heating runs from 7-11am and 5-11pm. We have living space on the first floor where we tend to hang out because it is warmer than downstairs with its mahoosive bay windows and French doors.

We have insulation on all the windows...that foam roll that goes along the joints. It's almost invisible. All the curtains are lined, and we have them at the front door, back door and cellar door too.

We've come to dress for the conditions. At the moment I am wearing a thermal layer, a big jumper and leggings. You get used to it. And it's fabulous in a heatwave...

We pay about £400 a month gas and electric in the winter, and that’s with a woodburner going any time we are home.

We’ve done all of the energy saving, heat storing tips on here, and finally just accepted that to be comfortably warm and not walking around like the Michelin man with 7 layers on in our own home, that’s what it costs.

How much do you actually consume in kWh? Look at your bill.

People pay different prices for energy, particularly at the moment so you really need to compare consumption levels. If you are consuming a lot more than other people then you need foremost to cut consumption.

Your main heat losses will be (in order):
Roof/loft
Windows
Walls
Floor

If you are planning on renovating your dream home, put energy efficiency top of the list and above lovely tiles or handmade cabinets.

I'm sitting here freezing in a big old house, and expect to warm up while dog walking. I'll light the stove when I get home.

We've gradually improved the efficiency of this house, but there is a limit to what we can do without taking down attic ceilings. We don't even bother to heat our bedroom, but the bathroom is warm morning and evening.

Top tip: dogs make excellent hot water bottles on the sofa in the evening.

We downsized from a big Victorian semi (not as big as OPs) to a smaller mid terraced Victorian house. I miss a lot of things about our lovely house, but am happy not to have the energy bills and the maintenance to worry about.

I made thermal lined floor length curtains for every room apart from kitchen and bathrooms. In the winter, we had a curtain across the porch door too. Huge thick rugs over floor boards and carpets in rooms where floorboard weren't an option. The house we are in now had carpets - certainly noticed a difference when we ripped those up. As much loft insulation as you can manage.

Dress in layers - lots. Kids uses to wear two pairs of socks and layers over PJs in evenings. Hot drinks make you feel warmer. Live in one room as much as you can on colder days. Sit under blankets in the evenings and keep moving when you can during the day. Cook more while you have oven on. Air dry or line dry clothes before finishing in tumble drier. Shit down/turn off anything plugged in not being used. Address the big hitters, but think about the little things too - they all add up. Work out how many units you can afford to use - keep a record of monthly use, so you know next year what you'll be spending when rates go up (again).

I think I need to make notes from this thread! Our house is freezing and I am getting very worried about the way energy prices are heading

I have made notes from this thread! We live in a midterrace 5 bed Georgian house and we are lucky I fixed the energy bill till Oct 2022 so our costs are held down but after October it will be dire. Replacing our Ideal gas CH by an air sourced heat pump is not economic whatever the eco people claim (I had a survey) and Mr Putin is likely to add to our problems on top of the gas price rise. Government ought to get a grip on this.