Bigger house, bigger bills?

[LizLemonsGlasses]

Just wondering if there's a way we can figure out roughly how much extra we'd be likely to pay in household bills if we move from a 3 bed semi to a 4 bed detached. The property we have in mind is a good bit bigger, but similar age to our current home (60s-ish) although not terribly energy efficient (epc rating E) which hopefully we could tackle in due course with better insulation etc. and it would fairly soon need a new boiler which might help I guess?

Obviously we can do the sums to include the rise in mortgage payments and should be able to get council tax details online - but I'm not sure how much extra to expect to pay for energy bills etc.

Has anyone moved to a bigger home and noticed a huge leap in their household bills? Should I figure a rise into our calculations? We like this house a lot so we're doing lots of sums to see how much we can afford to offer!

We moved from a 3 bed semi to a 5 bed detached Georgian house and the fuel bills have risen by a staggering amount!

Water, electricity much higher too.

insulation, construction, orientation. Does it get sun? Is it in a rain or frost pocket? Which way do the main windows face? Double-glazing? Detached means all walls exposed, no extra insulation from your neighbours.

then habit: water use is personal to the inhabitants. More rooms mean more lightbulbs, but that's a minor thing.

it is heat that is the big one.

Just wanted to add its not just utilities, insurance will go up (buildings and content), life insurance, maintenance costs (if its similar age etc).

we only moved last autumn from 3 bed detached to 4 double bed detached with loads more downstairs space-study, kids/teen room, utility, huge kitchen diner-all extra to heat.

water stayed almost the same as we only use the same amount.
gas and elec went up by £10 per month- because of extra rooms, but this is better insulated than our old house, so not as bad as we thought. and we have heating on a lot as I work from home.
plus this house had a brand new boiler.
so not a huge leap.

definitely shop around as we got a better deal on house insurance so ours went down .

Thanks for the responses - mrsjohndeere am quite about your Georgian 5 bedder

Mandy those are the things I'm finding it hard to estimate - insurance etc. although as foxdongle says I already know I need to shop around for a new deal on home insurance as I haven't switched ours for ages, so I'm hopeful that might not change too much (maybe even be less than currently?!)

I guess with heating, lights etc it's hard to tell how it'll be until you're living in it...

We went from a mid-sized terrace to a large semi - one Edwardian the other Victorian & had a huge jump in energy bills.
It's hard to tell you exactly how much as since we moved in we've done a huge amount of renovation which has greatly improved its energy efficiency - new timber double glazing, insulated roof space, new boiler, new HW cylinder, new electrics, draught proofing and energy efficient lights replacing the 5-10 bulb chandeliers that were in every room.

We need to be here longer to work the real effect, especially as now it's summer we don't have the heating/lights on as much but it feels warmer and the drafts have gone.
Detached will have more heat losses than a semi, a semi more than a terrace etc just due to the external walls.
Water wasn't too bad as we went from rateable value to a house with a water meter so it's actually a tiny bit cheaper (big house but only 3 of us)

We've recently moved from a 3 bed semi to a 4 bed detached and so far the utilities are about the same which was a surprise! Contents insurance an extra £15 per year (renting so no buildings). The biggest increase has been council tax, we've gone from a band B to an E resulting in an extra £100 per month.

Water not so much of an issue here as we are in Scotland. As for the detached/semi detached thing, we are in a long bungalow, so it feels like quite a lot of the house is already 'exposed'.

I guess the sensible thing to do is to make sure we don't max out our budget and leave no wiggle room for higher bills etc.

Fuckalella that's encouraging - although yikes to the higher council tax! I'll check that online as I think our bands would jump up in a similar way to yours.

Our gas bill has come down we went from a 3 bed to a 4 bed but in our 3 bed the stairs were directly off the lounge meaning there was no way to stop the heat from both the lounge and dining room going up the stairs, requiring more heat downstairs.

This house is also better insulated so our gas bills have come down a bit despite 3 more rooms, council tax has increased one band, insurance is about the same weirdly and our electric has increased but not by a huge amount.

It is probably the children's ages rather than the house (more computer stuff) but we have also made changes from normal bulbs to LEDs in some of the rooms.

Probably not much help here.
We moved from a 1 bed poky flat in a block to a 3 bed semi.
Council tax has gone up
Water on meter and is less than we were paying before
Gas/Electric are the same.
Insurance is slightly higher as is car cover, but it's only a few quid difference.

Like Contented we've tried to reduce energy and have switched to LEDs, we've also got a proper 'off' switch for the PC so it's not on standby overnight.

We are moving from a 3 bed flat to a 4 bed detached house so we're in a similar position. We asked for quotes for the buildings/ contents insurance for the new house before we'd got to exchange, so that we knew exactly how much we'd be paying. Our insurance is going to be cheaper for the bigger place.
One thing that might make a difference to the energy costs is the fact that your new place is detached - our current downstairs neighbours like to keep the heating at a toasty 28... makes our flat pretty toasty too!

laline good idea to ask for a quote - I'd not even thought of that.

As I said, I'm pretty sure the house in question that we like would need a new boiler pretty quickly - perhaps there's a good opportunity there to put in a system that's green/super efficient?

I'd also be very keen to persuade dh to put in a wood burner, which I believe can be helpful for heating living areas and spreading warmth around the rest of the house too. We have a coal fire in our current home and it's been great every winter for heating in the evenings

If it is a 60s house, does it have a chimney because putting in a flue for a wood burner could be expensive. You might be spending a lot for not much saving. If you have a working fireplace, do it, as heat will escape up the chimney. A new boiler will make a lot of difference and so will wall insulation, because you will have cavity walls, and loft insulation up to current standards. Thick curtains are a consideration rather than double glazing if the glazing is not already installed. Are the windows in good repair if they are wood? If not you could replace them with double glazed units.

As the new house is not a period house, you should find it is not that expensive to heat. Our house was costing us £4000+ a year in oil bills so if you are gas, it will be a lot cheaper than that. We now have air source heat pumps but you have to weigh up the cost/savings benefit of anything you do. Check out the green deal, it could work for you. There is no point spending thousands if you will not get the money back in a reasonable time. Although if you plan to stay there for 30 years you might! Generally speaking, older houses are much more expensive to heat and well insulated modern ones are cheaper to heat.

The Council tax could be quite a hike and any maintenance is more due to size. Insurance will depend on construction of the house as well as size. If it is a bog standard 60s house with good access, it will not cost as much to replace as, say, a Georgian house in a conservation area, or a thatched cottage. As for contents, a few extra bits of furniture is negligible. You probably will not use much more water or electricity. You are still the same people doing the same number of washes, baths, cooking etc. Just don't put in an AGA!!

Just double checked, it was built 1970s. The windows are double glazed but are aluminium, so not the prettiest, but at least they are glazed. MillyMolly your advice re energy bills and insurance sounds sensible - it seems like the council tax and maybe insurance might be the main increases, worth factoring into the total cost.

Of course all this may be irrelevant if we don't get this particular house...I think we may know more in the next couple of days.

I didn't realise AGAs were such an expense energy-wise!