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My dual fuel energy bill for the year ending 31 December was £1,200.
I’m now paying £250 per month to meet an anticipated bill of £3,000 for the year although I fear this may not be enough. . Ovo’s cheapest fixed plan on offer is a one year fix for £375 per month
I guess most on here will manage but this is going to tip a lot of people over the edge financially.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 10 Aug 22 at 13:11
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That, plus inflation (which feels higher than the stats say) plus additional fuel costs which hurt in themselves and also will cause further inflation.
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Don't ask for a big pay rise though or you'll hurt the economy.
Bwahahahaaaaaa.....
Led by donkeys/monkeys/morons
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Sadly big pay rise or pension increase just leads to more inflation - no problem short term, but not a fix.
Real fix is some mixture of (a) work harder, (b) drill for more cheap energy (fracking etc) (c) consume less, (d) buy a woolly jumper etc.
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>> Real fix is some mixture of (a) work harder, (b) drill for more cheap energy
>> (fracking etc) (c) consume less, (d) buy a woolly jumper etc.
(e) Smaller population.
Last edited by: Duncan on Sun 6 Mar 22 at 09:11
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I reckon the average household is going to have to find around another £5000 a year to break even.
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>> I reckon the average household is going to have to find around another £5000 a
>> year to break even.
>>
May as well be £50,000 for many.
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>> I reckon the average household is going to have to find around another £5000 a
>> year to break even.
I used to be with, er Ovo? Avro? I dunno, any road, they folded and I/we are now with Octopus? Still paying less than £100 a month for lec and gas. I have read that the wisest move is to do nothing and just let things run. Does this mean that I will get a massive bill sometime in the future?
The prospect of going round to Zero's surrey residence with begging bowl in hand does not appeal.
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>> The prospect of going round to Zero's surrey residence with begging bowl in hand does
>> not appeal.
There are lots of empty Russian oligarchs houses in St Georges hills you can camp out in.
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>> The prospect of going round to Zero's surrey residence with begging bowl in hand does
>> not appeal.
>>
Nor mine. I’m currently away. And when I return I’ll be assisting the local hospitality industry most evenings.
I can let you have a nice surplus double bedroom en suite in our current villa rental if you wish. £25 per night...includes Gas CH and electricity. No deposit required.
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>> I used to be with, er Ovo? Avro? I dunno, any road, they folded and
>> I/we are now with Octopus? Still paying less than £100 a month for lec and
>> gas. I have read that the wisest move is to do nothing and just let
>> things run. Does this mean that I will get a massive bill sometime in the
>> future?
OK. Own up. Who told Octopus? Or do they monitor this forum?
Today I had an email from Octopussy telling me that I am several hundred pounds in debt, but, but, but, they said 'you don't have to do anything Duncan'. What's that all about?
Anybody else had this?
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I think my estimated bill in Jan for the upcoming year was 800 for dual fuel. I'll see how accurate that turns out to be.
Be handy if my supplier gave an end of year summary.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Sun 6 Mar 22 at 09:34
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£800 for a years dual fuel? I wouldn't budget for that amount if i were you.
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£800 - most likely the monthly Direct Debit?
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My current monthly DD with Octopussy is £60. Covers it over the year in a 4 bed stone detached...
But I try to be away for the worst of the winter months, which costs more than £60 pcm, and when I do I turn off the heating as being a 20yo house it retains some solar heat so don’t see the point in leaving CH on even a frost setting. It’s never felt damp, even after 10 weeks away in winter.
I’m expecting that £60 to increase to possibly nearer £100 per month. Lots of free wood, and a decent Morso multi fuel stove, keep the heating bills down.
As does going out to the pub a lot.
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>> I try to be away for the worst of the winter months, which costs more than £60 pcm, and when I do I turn off the heating as being a 20yo house it retains some solar heat so don’t see the point in leaving CH on even a frost setting. It’s never felt damp, even after 10 weeks away in winter.
Have you read your household insurance policy? Mine says the heating has to be set to 15c when the property's empty.
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Some are quite restrictive on days away as well. 30 days i think is standard. I know when i had to get unoccupied household insurance, it's double/triple what normal insurance costs.
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>> Some are quite restrictive on days away as well. 30 days i think is standard.
>> I know when i had to get unoccupied household insurance, it's double/triple what normal insurance
>> costs.
>>
When my mum went into a care home, we kept the house until it might be needed for fees. After three years, we still had the house.
I told the insurers (LV) when she moved out. They tagged the policy as "property unoccupied" with no increase in premium for the remaining months. Subsequent renewals went through just the same, no noticeable increases in premiums from previous years. The policy documents always said the house was unoccupied, so they clearly knew about it.
They stipulated that someone must visit once every two weeks, and that heating was set no lower than 10C, otherwise, no other penalties or costs.
We were very pleased with that.
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Perhaps it was different as we never lived in the property before having to go for unoccupied home insurance.
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>> Some are quite restrictive on days away as well. 30 days i think is standard.
For the past several years my HH insurance has covered me for 90 days away. Last October- December 2020 was only 70 days so well inside the limit, and only 45 days Oct- Dec 2021.
Premiums cheapest this year than past 5.
It’s barely 15C when I’m in residence. Apart from one room with the stove. Having camped a lot in snow it doesn’t bother me. Honestly !
Last edited by: legacylad on Mon 7 Mar 22 at 19:39
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My monthly payments to Peoples Energy were £97.
My monthly payments to British Gas for the same amount of energy is £210
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>> My monthly payments to Peoples Energy were £97.
>> My monthly payments to British Gas for the same amount of energy is £210
And there - in a nutshell - you can see why the energy brokers failed.
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I had a wood burning stove installed nearly two weeks ago as my gas bill was going to increase to almost £3,000 per annum. The cental heating comes on for two hours in the morning and stays off all day. Usually, it stays on for most of the day during the winter months as I am retired.
I bought three cubic metres of kiln dried ash logs for £326 and on the basis of use in the past two weeks it should last me well into next winter.
I light the stove after my breakfast and it stays lit until I go to bed at about 11.00PM. The lounge stays toasty warm at 74F and the rest of downstairs remains at 70 F. The lounge doors remain open so the warm air circulates. The stove fan helps this. Upstairs is 67F.
The chimney in the lounge is in the centre of the house so the chimney breast protrudes into the hall and gets slightly warm.
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Currently paying dual fuel £1300 with EDF, just advised from April 1st a projected increase of £700 per annum.
I can live with that but can see how others will be desparate.
The reason that I will pay for central heating whatever it costs is that I grew up in houses on the moors of Northumberland with no central heating or hot water where coal or wood fires were the only source of heat and in winter we had frost on the inside of windows. ......and I don't want to go back to that!
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>..I grew up in houses on the moors of Northumberland with no central
>heating or hot water where coal or wood fires were the only source of
>heat and in winter we had frost on the inside of windows..
You were lucky!
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>> >..I grew up in houses on the moors of Northumberland with no central
>> >heating or hot water where coal or wood fires were the only source of
>> >heat and in winter we had frost on the inside of windows..
We had frost inside the windows, no heating or hot water, and the only source of heat was the steam trains passing by the end of the yard......
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We had the luxury of a coke fired boiler supplying hot water in the kitchen. This sort of thing:
www.1900s.org.uk/1940s50s-boiler.htm
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>> I had a wood burning stove installed nearly two weeks ago
I’m just curious as to your decision to buy a wood burner rather than a multi fuel. 20 years ago I installed a Morso Badger, a small traditional looking stove built into a stone fireplace.
Friends have installed contemporary steel wood burning stoves, cylindrical shaped jobs which look very nice, but you can’t fit decent sized logs in them. Look great in a bungalow with the pipe going up though t’roof at the side of the room.
Coal burns hotter, and I burn a mix of that plus free seasoned logs.
I wouldn’t be without one, although my previous 1913 built gaff had two open fires which although lovely on a dark winters night weren’t heat efficient.
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Based on the temperature a wood burning fire (one of those open fronted cassette type log burners) made our Edwardian single glazed house, I’m not sure I’d want it burning hotter…!
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Most logs are a standard ten inches and I can fit three in my stove. It's a Charnwood Aire 5kw.
I live in a conservation area and a smokeless zone so I would have to source smokeless fuel.
The stove is more than adequate for my house which, is detached, and the lounge is thirty-two feet long. The stove is 85% efficient. www.charnwood.com/all-stoves/room-heating-stoves/aire/aire/ It is this stove in pewter.
Last edited by: Robbie34 on Mon 7 Mar 22 at 11:42
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A couple of weeks ago I bought ~1200 litres of heating oil at £0.65 per litre, getting on for £800. This should last me until autumn.
According to the Boilerjuice website the current price of heating oil is ~£1.17, getting on for twice the price.
Last edited by: Arctophile on Mon 7 Mar 22 at 11:45
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I paid £ 1.54 per litre this morning for petrol. Looks set to rise to around £1.75 within a week or so.
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Tank almost empty after a trip to the Midlands to see family at the weekend. Managed to fill up (E10) this morning for £1.449/litre. A short distance away, it was £1.679.
I'm more or less resigned to the likelihood of it rising to £2/litre fairly soon. Just as well my car use is a fraction of what it was pre-pandemic.
Last edited by: James Loveless on Mon 7 Mar 22 at 16:07
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I saw 1.77 for diesel the other day.
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>> I saw 1.77 for diesel the other day.
Pease Pottage Services, last Saturday. Bog standard unleaded petrol, £1.80.
Didn't need any. But going to Scotland and back next weekend, so will need a tankful at whatever price.
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£1.60 odd for diesel on Thursday on the south coast.
To be honest, my shares have been decimated by this, fuel bills are out of control, I expect out gas and electricity bill to be £4k a year.
Ban Russian oil and gas. It's going to hurt whenever it's done, do it now.
I have stopped buying Coca Cola, Pepsi and McDonalds because they remain in Russia and will not fill up with Shell as they are still buying oil from the Ruskies.
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Crankcase, if you travel two miles down the A23 from Pease Pottage into Sainsburys in West Green Crawley you will find the petrol much cheaper as they vie with Applegreen and Tescos for business.
I cannot access my Petrol price app as I am currently in Tenerife but Sainsburys have been consistently the cheapest for fuel over the last 6 months to the extent it is worth me driving there fron Horsham to fill up with diesel saving around 10p a litre on prices and giving me around a £5 saving .
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A mate text from Cardigan on Saturday, Tesco 142.9 for unleaded. Round here it is 156.9 and at Pont Abram services at the end of the M4 it is apparently 184.9.
Mrs O'Reliant has been warned that she had better get the heavy jumpers out of storage soon and she can forget boosting the heat before she gets in the shower because "I like a warm towel".
Plus a lecture on leaving frigging lights on all over the house.
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A kind thought, helicopter, but I baint be from round those parts. My sister lives in Upper Beeding so I sometimes do the run down there from Cambridge. So Pease Pottage is just a comfort stop.
I last filled the day before that run here, at a more acceptable 1.53, and having done 250 miles odd since then, will need to again in about another 275. Which will probably by coincidence also be the cost per litre.
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Filled up on Costa Blanca today. €1.88 litre for petrol. Diesel is 10cents litre cheaper.
My 17yo renter only does about 30 mpg. Less in the mountains. But the wine is dirt cheap @ €2.19 bottle in Lidl.
And a good 4 course Menu del Dia lunch, including a pint of Cruz Campo lager today in Calp was €11. We were the only non Spanish in the place.
The locals are up in arms about the cost of leccy and bottled gas.
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Esso, Abingdon, just off the A34.
Saturday evening, diesel was 170.9p a litre.
50 yards around the corner, Tesco Diesel was 155.9p.
I wonder how many fuelish people filled up at Esso, thinking they were getting better fuel.
The BP garage at Milton (approx 4 miles further down the A34) was 160.9p for diesel.
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 7 Mar 22 at 22:07
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I hope you’re out by a factor of 100 Vx, otherwise the 70 litres I filled up with at Milford (A3) at £1.609 would have cost just under £12k ;)
But, in real terms I’m sure it was more 10 years ago - petrol hovered around £1.30 to £1.40 a litre in 20012 ish for a few years I think. That’s around £1.70 in todays money according to the BoE
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>> I hope you’re out by a factor of 100 Vx
lol. Well spotted. Now corrected.
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I wonder how many fuelish people filled up at Esso, thinking they were getting better
>> fuel.
>>
>
What's fuelish people mean?
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>> What's fuelish people mean?
Foolish people. I'm surprised I had to explain that.
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>> >> What's fuelish people mean?
>>
>> Foolish people. I'm surprised I had to explain that.
>>
On here i find it's best to ask. There's all manner of odd/unusual phrases.
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>> Crankcase, if you travel two miles down the A23 from Pease Pottage into Sainsburys in
>> West Green Crawley you will find the petrol much cheaper
I filled up at Sainsbury's in Cobham an hour ago. 149.9p for unleaded. In today's climate, that's not bad.
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>> To be honest, my shares have been decimated by this, fuel bills are out of
>> control, I expect out gas and electricity bill to be £4k a year.
To be honest, I think you are using the word 'decimate' incorrectly.
Your shares are down by 90%? Well, I am surprised.
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Down by 10% I think you mean.
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>>Your shares are down....
Were 55p now 40p give or take. Largest pot of my shares from a heritage employer. Ok not 90% but still a big drop that I could do without as I was hoping to sell them this year.
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I assume you need to be about all day to keep feeding the fire? Can't set it to come on and heat the house for you coming in!
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I am on a dual fuel fixed tarriff with British gas. Ends 31 March so assume I will go onto the new higher rate cap from 1 April.
Noticed Martin Lewis tweeting last week there was one provider, can't remember which one, who was offering customers fixed deals that were better than the cap but they were only for existing customers and the offer lasted a matter of hours!
Did a rough calculation on my Gas usage from Nov to today
1. On fixed tarriff I am on it will be £302
2. If I was on current capped rate it would be £373
3. This same usage on the new cap from 1 April will be £655.
Electicity is £335 / £392 / £550 respectively
So overall, it looks like I will be effectively doubling my costs. Annoying thing is there really sin't much I can do to reduce this going forward. I work from home and so does my son and we have the heating on every day in winter. Yes we could layer up and switch heating off but I do want a bit of comfort! And I am sure there is still a benefit of having the heating on permanently at 18 degrees that letting it drop to 12 and then flicking the boiler on?
My ongoing summer DIY project is converting my mancave out the back into a more pleasant environment by sheeting insulating etc. I already have a wood burning stove out there. Maybe next winter I will take my laptop and two monitors out there and work from there with the free wood burning heat instead!
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>> I am sure there is still a benefit of having the heating on permanently at 18 degrees that letting it drop to 12 and then flicking the boiler on
The only benefit is to comfort, there's no financial saving in doing so.
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>> >> I am sure there is still a benefit of having the heating on permanently
>> at 18 degrees that letting it drop to 12 and then flicking the boiler on
>>
>> The only benefit is to comfort, there's no financial saving in doing so.
My father insisted that keeping the house warm was cheaper than letting it cool and topping up the temperature as necessary. Of course that is what a thermostat does so what he really meant was just setting the thermostat and leaving it vs. allowing larger temperature drops.
Physics says differently, because heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference between inside and outside.
But what of efficiency? If the heating system is more efficient when running more or less constantly then there might be a benefit, but it's hard to see the efficiency variation being so large.
My project manager and the heating installer have both advised me to "set and forget" the system and leave it running 24/7. This I have done for the last 3 weeks, albeit at a lowish temperature (the house is still empty). A consideration is that neither UFH (underfloor heating) or heat pumps are good at fast heat.
However another moving part is the dozen or so thermostats in the new house. At least I can set the bedrooms to say 18, the kitchen to 20, and the sitting room to 21. I'm not sure how well that will work as the ventilation system ensures that air circulates between rooms - living rooms have supply vents, kitchen, utility room and bathrooms have extract vents. There is also a heat exchanger between supply and extract that allegedly recovers at least 80% of the heat from the exhausted air. It all sounds about as precise as as having separate temperature controls for driver and passenger in a car.
AT the moment it appears to be costing around £4 a day to heat a 200 square metre house to 17.5 degrees. That's at 20p per kWh. I can't work out whether that is good or bad.
I think the major saving opportunities are in insulation, sealing and not having the house too hot.
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>> And I am sure there is still a benefit of having the
>> heating on permanently at 18 degrees that letting it drop to 12 and then flicking
>> the boiler on?
What does that mean?
Are you suggesting that less fuel is used by (A) keeping the temperature at a constant 18 degrees, rather than (B) letting the temp drop to 12 degrees and then turning the temperature up to 18 degrees when required?
Then I suggest that you are wrong. Always assuming that the outside air temperature is lower than 12 degrees.
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Just had an email from Octopus. My annual electricity bill will increase by just under £30 a month from April. I can stand that easily enough, now let's see what happens with the gas mob.
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Octopus gas for me is going from ~3.7p/unit to ~7.3p/unit.
More jumpers and leccy blankets for the family.
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My Octopus gas is going up to 7.4p - more expensive region I imagine. Apparently the tracker cap is still 6p if you switch now, but that will no doubt shoot up when they announce the new cap.
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Exact figure is 3.780p up to 7.329p/unit of gas.
Standing charge goes from 23.8455p to 27.2160p/day.
Leccy goes from 19.8p to 27.8p, with s/c from 24.864p to 49.3815p/day.
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Pretty much identical figures from Bulb:
From 1 April, our prices will be increasing
We're increasing our electricity unit rate from 20.382p to 27.838p per kWh and electricity standing charge from 24.856p to 49.646p per day.
We're increasing our gas unit rate from 4.010p to 7.335p per kWh and standing charge from 26.112p to 27.219p per day.
Story on the Beeb yesterday saying that they hadn't found a buyer for Bulb, and were going to have to keep supporting it. Which suggests that this is not actually covering the costs. I am expecting another 30% hike in October, or maybe more since the UK and EU now say they are going to cut Russian gas off....
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How can they justify an increase in the standing charge? In an environment where 'saving' energy is promoted, this would appear to be counterproductive?
Almost worth ditching the elect and installing a gas engine/generator set :)
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>> How can they justify an increase in the standing charge? In an environment where 'saving'
>> energy is promoted, this would appear to be counterproductive?
This came up on the BBC in last few days, possibly on Money Box. Apparently the increase in Standing Charge is down to the costs of rescuing the failed suppliers.
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So we are paying over £1000 pa extra just to cover the costs of cowboy suppliers who gambled on prices - I bet that it will not go down when the costs are paid!
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Err check your maths.
And of course it depends if you were on of the dodgy dealers customers or not.
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>> Err check your maths.
Standing charges for us, SO energy, were both approx 21p/day. From April it will br 27.21 for gas and 44.83 for Electricity. About £260/year.
That's the capped SO Flex rate as my fixie ended in January.
>> And of course it depends if you were on of the dodgy dealers customers or
>> not.
Does that make any difference? Except for Bulb I thought you were simply placed on the 'lifeboat' company's SVR.
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It's likely that my energy bills are going to double, not to mention the amount that I am in arrears.
What should I do? Play dumb, act stupid (no, not difficult) and do nothing until the energy co. starts demanding money?
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>> Move to Whitely village
>>
For certain classes of residence in WV they check on one's finances rather carefully.
Know what I mean?
Last edited by: Duncan on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 10:12
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My personal choice was to increase my monthly payments immediately to £250 per month with the realisation tha may need a further increase in October.
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>> It's likely that my energy bills are going to double, not to mention the amount
>> that I am in arrears.
>> What should I do? Play dumb, act stupid (no, not difficult) and do nothing until
>> the energy co. starts demanding money?
Were you with a failed company where a credit balance will be returned in due course?
Can you afford to clear the arrears when the supplier comes knocking on your door?
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>> Were you with a failed company where a credit balance will be returned in due
>> course?
Yes, but no, a debit balance.
>> Can you afford to clear the arrears when the supplier comes knocking on your door?
Do me a favour/are you avin a laugh?
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>> Do me a favour/are you avin a laugh?
Had professional hat on. If someone is going to struggle to pay then engage early is usual advice.
If you're just wanting to hang on and keep the money with you then 'play dumb'.
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>> If you're just wanting to hang on and keep the money with you then 'play
>> dumb'.
Thank you, Brompy.
I think I should stop posting about my energy bills on here, because I think my energy company is reading and responding to this thread!
I had just had notification that my energy is estimated to rise to something over £4,000 a year. Previously I was paying less than £100 a month.
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>> Do me a favour/are you avin a laugh?
Of course those of us in neighbouring Runnymede living in D banded properties are getting a £150 rebate shortly.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 14:36
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>
>> Of course those of us in neighbouring Runnymede living in D banded properties are getting
>> a £150 rebate shortly.
>>
You are also getting a £179:council tax rise. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
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>> You are also getting a £179:council tax rise. It’s all smoke and mirrors.
Ah. but offset by my 150 quid winter fuel allowance. (and I wont have increased NI)
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 14:37
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>>
>> Ah. but offset by my 150 quid winter fuel allowance. (and I wont have increased
>> NI)
>>
Unfortunately more than offset by the freezing of tax thresholds for next four years.
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Ok - thats the river - I fold.
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 14:31
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>> Of course those of us in neighbouring Runnymede living >>in D banded properties are getting a £150 rebate >>shortly.
No wonder you can afford an expensive 5 series, and a 15k driveway to keep it on...
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>> No wonder you can afford an expensive 5 series, and a 15k driveway to keep it on...
Next to the 16k crossover camping vehicle. (which, being cheaper to heat, is where we will be living)
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 14:36
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OMG they allow you to park caravans on your drive round your way? :-)
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>> OMG they allow you to park caravans on your drive round your way? :-)
Yeah, its not a Berkshire council estate.
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>> >> No wonder you can afford an expensive 5 series, and a 15k driveway to
>> keep it on...
>>
>> Next to the 16k crossover camping vehicle. (which, being cheaper to heat, is where we
>> will be living)
>>
There is a win-win-win opportunity around crossover camping vehicles surely, in light of the current conflict? They could be used to house Ukrainian refugees, solving one problem. They’re then not on the road, solving another. And it saves the owner the 40p a mile it costs to tow the thing around. In fact, if you count the CO2 reduction it might even be a win-win-win-win ;)
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Peter, have you thought about a political career?
You'd get my vote.
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>> on the road, solving another. And it saves the owner the 40p a mile it
>> costs to tow the thing around.
at 18mpg, with my fixed costs and fule at £1.50 a litre, I am on about about 42p a mile.
Multiply that pro rata as fule goes up, maybe we are promised £2.00 a litre
Last edited by: Zero on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 16:57
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>> Multiply that pro rata as fule goes up, maybe we are promised £2.00 a litre
£2.50 a litre being bandied around now, in the frenzy. £1.629 at Sainsburys’ in Chichester yesterday, which is annoying when paying at the pump as cuts out at £100, which is before the tank is full. Annoying on two levels actually! :(
One the electricity front, is there any way of declining this £200 loan against bills? My electricity rate is fixed until late next year anyway, and I’m happy with the cost. It could well be more when it comes up for renewal in 2023, and I’ll deal with that when it comes. I don’t need it be less now, and I certainly don’t want artificially make it higher next year so it can be cheaper now!
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 15 Mar 22 at 13:24
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>> One the electricity front, is there any way of declining this £200 loan against bills?
>>
Unfortunately not.
There are some aspects of this that seem to be very unfair.
For example, a person living at home with parents now and not benefiting from the loan directly will have to pay the increased standing charge if they get their own place.
Conversely two single people who each benefit now and move in together will only repay one loan.
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>> Conversely two single people who each benefit now and move in together will only repay
>> one loan.
It does seem crazy…and, unlike the Coronavirus Support Package which needed to be formulated, documented and announced in a matter of hours, there wasn’t *that* much urgency to it. I think Rishi did a a good job when the s*** hit the fan in March 2020, and have little time for those looking at it though the lens of hindsight saying oh, we could have done it differently blah blah blah. I’m sure if he’d had more time he’d have done things differently as well. But he didn’t, and I’m not going to judge hi for that. But for energy bills, what was the urgency to announce something so ill thought through so quickly? I’m happy to judge him for that ;)
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 15 Mar 22 at 20:27
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>> I think Rishi did a a good job when the s*** hit the fan in March
>> 2020, and have little time for those looking at it though the lens of hindsight
>> saying oh, we could have done it differently blah blah blah. I’m sure if he’d
>> had more time he’d have done things differently as well. But he didn’t, and I’m
>> not going to judge hi for that. But for energy bills, what was the urgency
>> to announce something so ill thought through so quickly? I’m happy to judge him for
>> that ;)
The Furlough scheme, the £20 uplift to UC and the revalorisation of LHA (Private Sector rent limits for benefits) were good things.
I don't think it is wholly hindsight, though that amplifies the argument, to say the £20 should have been left in place and added to legacy benefits too.
LHA however, being returned to a CPI link, is an act of cruelty.
It should, as statute provides, set at the 30th centile for the relevant rental market area which will incentivise people to the cheaper areas of town. The tenant has no leverage to reduce rents below market levels and they end up paying money to the landlord, who is mostly accumulating both income and capital, that should be covering living costs.
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>> Does that make any difference?
Yes because you were getting your energy at an artificially low and clearly unsustainable price, and have no complaints when dragged kicking and screaming into the real world.
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 14:37
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Maths ok finger control fail £100!
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>> This came up on the BBC in last few days, possibly on Money Box. Apparently
>> the increase in Standing Charge is down to the costs of rescuing the failed suppliers.
Indeed, we have Martin Lewis to thank for that. Encouraging people to shift to unsustainable business, encouraging churn and pumping up the value of his website before selling it ;)
The standing charge is a red herring - it’s a mere rounding in the great scheme of things. Even a 30p per day increase is only £100 or so across the year. We need to het used to using less energy - with the added benefit of reducing our emissions
Last edited by: VxFan on Wed 9 Mar 22 at 14:36
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I have been busy reviewing client's new cashflows as increased costs puts pressure on their businesses to increase prices.
Many loans and overdrafts are being increase or more heavily utilised.
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Working capital requirements are being stretched in some of the agri businesses I advise. Inputs like fertiliser and chemicals are up from around £250 / T to almost £1,000 in some cases, and with that being tied up until at least harvest in 5 or 6 months time it’s a challenge. Milling wheat is trading around £300 /T when it was half that a year ago…so the profit will be there, but there’s a lot of cash to tie up in the mean time. Interesting times!
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>> Working capital requirements are being stretched in some of the agri businesses I advise. Inputs
>> like fertiliser and chemicals are up from around £250 / T to almost £1,000 in
>> some cases, and with that being tied up until at least harvest in 5 or
>> 6 months time it’s a challenge.
I have a little experience in that sector with a couple of agronomists, maltsters (for the whiskey industry), grain and grain commodity suppliers on my books.
Some have switched to taking ownership of the crops so they get the proceeds when sold and return fees to the farmers all at a cost / fee of course. We have been asked to value crops in the field, which we have no experience of and have to use specialists that cost £££.
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60680787
Hopefully this will help a bit. I suppose the price/stability of oil, in the grand scheme of things, depends on what the saudis want in return from the americans.
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The problem the US has, as does the UK & Europe, is getting a hold of the right mix of crude oil.
Even when the UK produced enough North Sea oil tonnage we imported oil from West Africa, South America etc to blend with the lighter North Sea oil.
The blend of heavy & light oils is needed by the refineries to produce the range of products they sell. Shell bought some Russian heavy crude last week as it was needed to balance the requirements of their Rotterdam plant.
North Sea oil arrives in Grangemouth from Aberdeenshire by pipeline and a lot of it is then pumped to Hound Point (near Forth Bridge) for onward shipment to Holland/Germany etc.
The heavy crude oil is shipped into the West Coast of Scotland (Finnart Terminal) , off-loaded and piped to the Grangemouth refinery.
In the last few years the mix of oil/gas available to Grangemouth has been wrong - tankers now bring in the LNG from the USA to Grangemouth to use in the plastics manufacture.
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Oil price has fallen to $98 a barrel. Maybe a dead cat bounce but hopefully the end of an ever rising cost.
I doubt we'll see fuel prices fall as quickly as they rose, though.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60737256
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Tue 15 Mar 22 at 16:32
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My new gas and electricity direct debit is £430 and a few pence!
&F!"£$%^&*(*&^$%$% £$$£%£^$^$%^ $^%^$ (blue language :-) )
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>>&F!"£$%^&*(*&^$%$% £$$£%£^$^$%^ $^%^$
I put that into Google Trans L8, and it came up with Fracking Hell.
:o}
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DEARY ME! thats over 5 grand a year!
JMJ&THWLD! Where did they come from? mine new DD from April is £279
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 21 Mar 22 at 20:16
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>> DEARY ME! thats over 5 grand a year!
>>
>> JMJ&THWLD! Where did they come from? mine new DD from April is £279
>>
It was AVRO now Octopussy.
We have some big open spaces - the lounge and dining rooms have 15 lights each, not counting floor lamps. The living room is 19' x 13' and the dinning room is 15' x 12' they all run through to each other.
There are over 40 bulbs in the hall, 12 in the kitchen and 9 in our bedroom.
All are being changed over to LED during the Easter break!!!
Mrs Z has the hot water on 24/7, that's going to stop - it's gas only but I reckon 7 till 9 and 16 to 18 should suffice.
I am also going to put solid block insultation in the loft.
I'm retraining everyone not to leave lights on!!!
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 21 Mar 22 at 20:16
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The DD bears no resemblance to usage that I can see. I've said before I don't do that, just pay for what I've used.
Last couple of years I've paid about 800 a year electricity. As my rates are fixed for another year yet, it will be about the same. However, if I were to swap to direct debit, they would change it 250 odd a month, even with same costs per unit.
Three grand a year for 800 quids worth of power.
Not gonna happen, EDF, sticking with pay quarterly for exactly what I've used.
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Most energy companies let you adjust the monthly payment to an amount of your choosing I believe. And anyway it all evens out in the end.
I'm running a £570+ surplus with Octopus at the moment because SWMBO likes to be generous with our money but I can see that soon being whittled away as the new rates come in. TBH te amount of interest we'd get on £500 over a year isn't worth worrying about.
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If I had my £500 in their bank and not mine, I'd have to jump through whatever hoops to get it back in order to book a week away in a cottage somewhere tomorrow.
Why would I want to do that? I don't pay Tesco or Amazon or anyone else a few quid extra every time I shop and say I can get it back at some point by filling in a form and waiting for it if I want.
Just seems odd to me. I guess I'm old fashioned.
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I find that if pay the recommended amount the company’s estimates are remarkably accurate and I end up at virtually break even at the end of the year. The benefit of paying monthly is both at your payments are smoothed out so you overpay in the summer and underpay in the winter.
The fact that the energy company are holding my money for a few months in the summer doesn’t really worry me. It’s not really money I could spend, it’s destined to pay the energy bill whether I hold it or they do. Actually it’s better if they do as OVO pay interest on credit balances whereAs my bank doesn’t.
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>> I The benefit
>> of paying monthly is both at your payments are smoothed out so you overpay in
>> the summer and underpay in the winter.
>> The fact that the energy company are holding my money for a few months in
>> the summer doesn’t really worry me. It’s not really money I could spend, it’s destined
>> to pay the energy bill whether I hold it or they do.
>>
That's exactly how I see it. Monthly payments make budgeting easy and avoids any nasty surprises because you've forgotten something is due.
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Now we're through the worst of the winter (well, less so out here in Portugal, where it's been distinctly cool!!) the £500 is a bit excessive but it's built up over time mainly through nice people using my link for referrals, for which they and I get £50.
This one :-)
share.octopus.energy/open-camel-464
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You have a lot of lights Zippy, I'm surprised you never thought about LEDs before!!
Coincidentally there is a new post on another forum I frequent, where someone was asked to go and look at their friends house to see why their leccy bills are so high, Here is an edited version of their "report". It'll maybe spur you into action!!
The Lounge ( 4X4 metre approx ) 6 100W incandescent bulbs in a central fitting and 2 wall lights with 60 Watt Bulbs - all replaced with 6W LED
The Kitchen had 15 50W halogens and the admit to leaving it on most of the day - replaced with a mix of 5W and 3W LED
My rough calculation is They will save 8kWh a day ! just on those 2 rooms, even at 25pkWh thats £2 a day.
Cost 8 6W B22 LEDS £20
15 GU10 LEDS £30
So should pay for itself in 1 month.
Last edited by: smokie on Mon 21 Mar 22 at 19:23
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>>So should pay for itself in 1 month.
Scary. 8kWh what my heating in the new house has been consuming for the last few days.
Most of their 8kWh would be converted to heat of course so they might use an extra 8kWh of gas for the central heating. But that's only about 60p even after 1 April.
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I have a tropical fish aquarium nothing grand, The average cost of electricity per kWh is 22p (March 2022,) meaning that I pay 22 pence for every 1000 watts I use, every hour. So at an average of 152 watts, my aquarium costs 3.34p per hour to run or 80p a day and £292.93 per year.
So my aquarium is the most costly thing to run in my house.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Mon 21 Mar 22 at 22:00
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>>So my aquarium is the most costly thing to run in my house.
Not married then?
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I just bought one of those power measuring things that also calculates the cost. Out of interest I started by measuring the draw of a smart plug doing nothing but sitting there. Half a watt. I have a few of those; about a fiver a year in total for the lot.
Little table lamp - with the usage it gets, about a tenner a year.
I plan on logging everything in the house I can, because I have no life.
I'll try the tumble dryer next week, which will undoubtedly be a fiver a minute.
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>> I just bought one of those power measuring things that also calculates the cost.
Where? What? How much?
Link!!
We must have a link!
We cannot function without a link.
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There's a few, but they are much the same. Depends if you want a backlight (I did, for dark corners). A bit cheaper without that, but not much.
This is the one I got. Assuming it's telling me the truth, and I think it is, it works fine for what I wanted. Just put in the price you pay per unit and it shows the cost mounting up of whatever you've plugged into it.
I suspect our ancient fridge is going to measure as expensive to run, so it will help guide me as to whether it's worth replacing with a more efficient one, and what the payback might be, if ever, for example.
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B085S7Q1T4/
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>> This is the one I got.
>> www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B085S7Q1T4/
>>
So I have got to spend £20 in order to save money?
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Waste of time - look at the label on the equipment -see how many hours or minutes it takes to burn 1KWh of electricity.
Cost of running = Cost of 1 unit of electricity / time to burn 1 unit (KWh)
eg Main TV 130 Watts (in my case) 21p/7.5hours - 2.8p per hour
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Obvious I know but for things like the dishwasher and washing machine measure a whole cycle ass usage goes from next to nothing to quite high at various points. Also measure your fridge/freezer over 24 hours (or more) to take account of the compressor turning off and on, and the door being opened and shut.
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Yes, as smokie says, useful if something is variable. Also the label might not be accurate as things get older perhaps?
Anyway, I have to have some sort of spreadsheet to play with in the evenings.
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>
>> We cannot function without a link.
I always knew you were the missing link.
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The aquarium is at least a "baseload" heater for your house in winter.
You'll pay a wee bit less for active heating.
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>> So my aquarium is the most costly thing to run in my house.
Well with the increase in fish prices, I guess you are not going hungry this year. Guppy, Chips and Mushies.
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>> Then I suggest that you are wrong.
There are too many variables at play to be quite so sure.
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In maintaining a higher temperature inside than outside, you are just replacing heat lost. The energy used will be equal to (heat lost)/(efficiency).
The higher the temperature difference (inside - outside) the higher the heat loss, and the bigger the bills, if the cost of energy doesn't vary round the clock.
So, other things being equal, turning it down when you don't need it will cost less.
Comfort is another question.
What have I missed?
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The more electricity costs, the more those LiFePo batteries I had installed a few weeks ago are really going to pay off. They charge at night 2 hours at 7.2Kw - so around 14KWh at Octopus Go tariff @5p/KWh = 70p/day.
Recharge on solar during the day so no more energy needed for the rest of the day. Solar has been enough now since 5 days ago to recharge them completely.
Capital outlay was high - around 7k - and solar hasn't been cheap either, but with feed in tariff these have now paid off.
They are AC batteries BTW so you don't need solar for them to work.
When Octopus Go tariff I'm on (5p/unit at night and 14p/day) ends in a few weeks it will go up to 24p/day. At that point it is worth me going onto Go plus which will allow for 5 hours from a better time than 00:30, hopefully as early as they can go @5.5p/unit.
With petrol/diesel being the cost they are now the EV is certainly paying off.
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The batteries are DC surely, but with built in inverter tech to convert AC? Which then leads me to wonder if you do pair them with solar, do you need another invertor or can one do both?
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You are correct of course. They just have their own inverter/charger on the AC side which is also able to do EPS (emergency power supply). Because each inverter does 3.6KW I have a pair which enables 7.2KW to the EPS. Basically any circuit we want on that got diverted out of the FCU into its own unit, e.g. lighting, garage power points for freezers etc. gas boiler and pump power - and of course the whole office.
So you don't need solar inverters to run these like the first Tesla Powerwall. As I understand it the later Powerwalls don't use the solar inverters but I can stand corrected
They do monitor the solar + main supply input to charge when there is excess solar, but apart from that they are standalone.
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Well done with the batteries, now wishing I'd got them a year ago when I changed my inverter...
Go Plus won't 5.5 a unit now I don't think. I had a quote for 4 hr Go (though I think they call it Go Plus as it's the 20:30 slot, which is no longer available) last week and the cheap rate is up 50% - 5p to 7.5p. Still very cheap for car charging (and whatever other usage I can do in tat winow - washing, tumble drying, dishwasher are favourites).
I gather they are enforcing the EV requirement of the Go tariffs now, if you aren't already on it. you have to provide evidence that you own an EV.
For those with the right makes of vehicle & EVSE they are beta testing a new tariff - Intelligent tariff - which more or less does what Home Assistant did with the Agile tariff - turns the charger on and off when they can give you the cheapest leccy and according to how much charge your car needs and when by. Only certain cars atm and an iPhone might also be a requirement IIRC.
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Woah - they've gone up a lot:
Intellegent Octopus:
Unit rate (23:30 - 05:30): 7.50p/ kWh
Unit rate (05:30 - 23:30): 30.61p/ kWh
Standing Charge: 24.11p/ day
Octopus Go:
Unit rate (00:30 - 04:30): 7.50p/ kWh
Unit rate (04:30 - 00:30): 30.61p/ kWh
Standing Charge: 24.11p/ day
I guess Go Plus died.
On currently on (till July)
00:30 - 04:30 5.00p/ kWh
04:30 - 00:30 15.59p/ kWh
They've doubled the day rate - which is not surprising. I can't see how heat pumps can be worth it even with a 5:1 COP.
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>> They've doubled the day rate - which is not surprising. I can't see how heat
>> pumps can be worth it even with a 5:1 COP.
The gas cap is going up to 7p on 1st April, when the electricity cap goes to 28p, so parity at 4 on running cost alone.
I don't expect that, but there's every possibility that both will go up again in October. Insulation is the best answer.
I have got rid of gas and gone with an air source heat pump in the new house we are about to move into. Decision was taken 2 years ago and of course I have watched in horror as the elec price has shot up, but gas has actually gone up proportionately a bit more.
Insulation is the best answer. I've been running the heating for a month now and and the heat pump has chewed through about 460kWh. Since the weather has warmed up in the last few days it's been about 8kWh per day. The gas ch at the rental property I'm living in still has already used 24kWh of gas today and the house is about 2/3 the size - but it was built in the 60's.
I actually quite fancy building a passive house now. If I wasn't so old I'd do it.
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As Go and its variants aren't fixed tariffs I understand that they are not directly affected by the cap, but obviously they will go up but just at a time of Octopussy's choosing. You do get warning and the opportunity to change tariffs.
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This evenings email from Octopus says my new DD will be £495 a month, less a few pence!
This is based on historical usage and £3.95 to smooth out bills!
This puts me over the previous (not the current) fuel poverty definition by some margin!
Of course it’s not real fuel poverty because I have sufficient residual income, but this is a 3 bed detached house at 146 sq meters (1,600 sq ft), but it does put a big dent in my discretionary income.
I have a SMETS1 smart meter that is now dumb. I would like to see how it can be upgraded to SMETS2, if it is possible?
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Good grief, are you heating it with direct electricity?
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>> Good grief, are you heating it with direct electricity?
>>
Gas central heating.
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>> >> Good grief, are you heating it with direct electricity?
>> >>
>>
>> Gas central heating.
If 'only' £400 of that is gas you must be using 60,000+ kWh per annum. I'd love to see your energy certificate. Our horrible draughty bungalow only used about 25,000 kWh.
That said Octopus have just suggested £295 to me (dual fuel) for the 4 bed semi. No way would we use that much but we are leaving anyway the day before the next DD is due!
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>> This evenings email from Octopus says my new DD will be £495 a month, less
>> a few pence!
>>
>> This is based on historical usage and £3.95 to smooth out bills!
They must be having a session sending out bills.
I got my statement and forecast this evening from Octopus.
£275 for next 12 months, this includes paying off arrears on the old Avro account and £500 of debt on the energy account, then reducing to £220 afterwards.
Gone up from less than £100 a month.
Gas Ch which we have been running from 05.30 to 22.30 every day, so I am not complaining.
Last edited by: Duncan on Tue 22 Mar 22 at 22:26
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With increasing in energy costs I have been doing a little modelling whether PV and batteries are worth installing in a 1980s extended 4 bed detached.
The figures need refinement - but unless there are embedded major errors, spending money on PV/batteries is still marginal. Grid supply will be ~30p KWH from April, selling excess is currently ~5p
Assuming a life of 20 years, a 4KWH PV system generating ~3000KWH pa will cost ~£6k. With maintenance and an inverter replacement cost would be ~£400pa - 13.3p per KWH.
Some energy generated will not be used domestically and sold back to the grid. Worse - energy usage is greater in winter and less in summer. Generation is the reverse. Thus in winter there may be too little generation to meet daytime needs, and in summer output exceeds demand.
So can things be balanced with a battery. The benefit of a battery is to store energy generated to meet night time demand. Some night time demand can be met - but not all. In winter too little energy is generated to meet demand. In summer generation exceeds battery capacity.
The only way to make the numbers work is to buy an EV. Excess energy generated can be used to recharge the car (retired so at home most days). This may be illusory as it ignores the cost of the EV - although at some point one will appear on the wanted list.
Conclusions:
- need to refine assumptions used but probably won't change outcome
- EV purchase would prompt installation but unlikely for 2-5 years
- future energy prices and government policy is big unknown
- energy companies may increasingly vary off peak charges
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Yesterday’s email from Octopus....monthly DD almost doubling from £60 to £114.86.
What a strange amount.
I can see the future....more press ups and star jumps to get the old circulation going.
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I think you may need to do a bit more research Terry, though I am not so hot on all aspects.
I believe my car takes more power than I can generate so "live" charging cannot provide all requirements (from such a small pv array). My car is something over 60 kWh so it'd need a chunky battery array just to charge the car.
Export tariffs can (at the moment) be much higher than your 5p - it has (rarely) been over £1 a unit with Octopus. I know of people with battery banks who charge them at the 5p Go rate and sell it back at more.
I'm not trying to pick holes, just to indicate that it is a very complex set of variables and you cannot be sure that what happens today will continue to happen for the lifetime of your batteries/panels. The tech is getting smarter and smarter all the time.
Having said that, at the moment if you are thinking of changing the car and it fits your requirements I can't see why one wouldn't get an EV.
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Smart meter question.
I have a SMETS1 smart meter that is now dumb.
Should the portable display widget still work or is it supposed to go dumb along with the rest of the meter?
(Mine doesn’t show any data anymore. It switches on, finds the meter but that’s it.)
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I don't know the answer Zippy but why is it dumb? Presume you didn't get it from Octopus?
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>> I don't know the answer Zippy but why is it dumb? Presume you didn't get
>> it from Octopus?
>>
Provided by British Gas in 2019. They go dumb if you change supplier. Only the SMETS2 models work when suppliers are changed.
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>> Provided by British Gas in 2019. They go dumb if you change supplier. Only the
>> SMETS2 models work when suppliers are changed.
>>
Mine is the old version, but they can come back to life again, after a spell of 'dumbness'. It's happened with mine, twice now.
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It probably depends on the brand but my Octopus (a Secure Liberty 100) SMETS1 meter can and will be upgraded to SMETS2 over the air at some stage.
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www.capita.com/our-work/supporting-data-communications-company-digitally-transforming-britains-energy-system
Smets1 are supposed to be revived by the above project linking all meters to all suppliers no matter what meter was installed.
However 2G & 3G mobile signals used by current meters are being shut down in under 10 years.
Here we go again - replacing all meters with new ones at a rough cost of £500 per house - you pay for it through increase electricity unit prices.
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I suspect when smart meters were first specc'd (at least 10 years ago I'd guess) 4G wasn't available or was too expensive. So a 20+ year product lifetime on a tech product isn't too shabby these days IMO.
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They kept pagers going. Might even still be in use?
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>> They kept pagers going. Might even still be in use?
>>
They are!
Miss Z swears by hers when she is rushing around the hospital on call as it picks up a signal where mobiles don’t.
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Seems to be by the time it's all rolled out they'll need replacing again?
How long has the smart meter roll out been going on?
Last edited by: sooty123 on Wed 23 Mar 22 at 12:38
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>> Seems to be by the time it's all rolled out they'll need replacing again?
>>
>> How long has the smart meter roll out been going on?
I did Energy Adviser training in 2015 and I'm pretty sure Smart Meters were part of that.
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I don’t believe you can sell it back to them on the Go tariff. That would be too easy to make money out of them. You have to be on Agile to do that and as you know this isn’t worth it at the moment.
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Yes you're right, my bad, but Agile import is still capped at 35p isn't it? And for sure there were people buying it from Octopus and selling it more or less straight back for a whole lot more. I can't do it because I am on a quite decent FIT rate and would lose that.
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Fuel duty down 5ppl, shame it wasn't stipulated that it had to be passed onto drivers.... let's see how soon it appears at the pump.
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>> Fuel duty down 5ppl, shame it wasn't stipulated that it had to be passed onto
>> drivers.... let's see how soon it appears at the pump.
And even if passed on in full it is not focussed on those in greatest need. The £5billion cost would have provided most of the cost of reinstatement of the UC uplift. Similarly the NI change applies to all not just those in low paid work.
No help at all for the chronically ill, disabled or the poorest pensioners.
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Well yes, but the fuel duty cut is for one year only, and reinstating the covid uplift to benefits would inevitably be an enduring one and £5 billions wouldn’t touch the sides of that. There is £1 billion, up from £500m for councils to support those in need though so not true to say no help. And in a time when the numbers of people seeking work is low, incentivising work over benefits seems sensible, for those that can of course. Using benefits to subsidise employers really needs to change, though of course the plan was always one of dependency and votes ;)
The NI changes are actually also pretty sensible IMO. Everyone under around £40k is better off now then they would have been, and those over £40k pay more. That’s an ongoing position, and also sets the scene for harmonisation of NI and Income tax at some point, significantly simplifying the tax system. It could even form part of an autumn statement launching his leadership campaign :p
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I moan about the increasing costs of energy and that even after the mini budget I will still lose out re NI and don’t qualify for the £150 council tax rebate, but for perspective there are many people worse off and those on the margins have been ignored by today’s announcements.
“Iceland’s boss today saying food bank users are “declining potatoes and root veg because they can't afford the energy to boil them”, are today’s announcements enough to stop us hitting the iceberg?”
What an appalling state of affairs for one of the richest countries in the world!
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>> “Iceland’s boss today saying food bank users are “declining potatoes and root veg because they can't afford the energy to boil them”, are today’s announcements enough to stop us hitting
>> the iceberg?”
>>
>> What an appalling state of affairs for one of the richest countries in the world!
I think you may have a more generous disposition than I.
It seems more likely to me that sloth is the principal reason for food bank users declining potatoes and root vegetables.
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Cheap fast food has a lot to answer for.
My career in low end retail taught me that a whole generation of scuffers have zero interest in turning on the oven, cooking cheap chicken fillets from the likes of Aldi, and roasting, or even microwaving, veg.
Knock off fags and cheap booze will be the last to be given up.
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>> I think you may have a more generous disposition than I.
>>
>> It seems more likely to me that sloth is the principal reason for food bank
>> users declining potatoes and root vegetables.
Not the first time I've said this but you really ought to try volunteering at a food bank.
I also guess it's a long time since you watched the balance on a pre-pay gas or electric meter go full speed downwards when you turn a cooker ring on.
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>> Not the first time I've said this but you really ought to try volunteering at
>> a food bank.
I think it is the first time you have said it - well, certainly directed at me, anyway.
But surely, if the users of the food bank aren't working, they could volunteer themselves?
>> I also guess it's a long time since you watched the balance on a pre-pay
>> gas or electric meter go full speed downwards when you turn a cooker ring on.
You are quite right in that regard. A very long time.
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>> But surely, if the users of the food bank aren't working, they could volunteer themselves?
I was, obviously, thinking of giving you a view of life on the other side of the tracks.
Possible some volunteers are out of work and/or doing it as therapeutic work or to regain confidence and work skills. Regrettably, others needing help have health issues or lack the skills/confidence to do even basic tasks.
Far too many food bank users are working people.
The effect of the cost of living crisis is palpable when speaking to people seeking advice on benefits. An anxious tone is much more common than a few months ago.
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>> I was, obviously, thinking of giving you a view of life on the other side
>> of the tracks.
I do realise that.
I have seen difficult times. One evening there was a ring on the front doorbell of our rented flat when we were first married. It was the bank manager checking that I actually lived where I said I lived to make sure the overdraft had some prospect of being repaid.
After finishing work on a Friday, I used to drive a cab until the early hours of Saturday, then drive Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening until the early hours of Sunday morning, just - obviously - to get some extra money.
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Some of us have been there, not food bank level, but quite boracic nonetheless.
We started out living in a two-room flat. No kitchen or bathroom, we had to go to the public baths, or to my mums for a scrub up.
I well recall taking the bottles back to the off-licence to be able to afford one portion of fish & chips, we agued over it, and I threw 'em in the bin.
I later retrieved them and we both tucked in.
We slept in a single bed at one time, 'til some aunt gave us a double bed.
Now, well, just had the owse valued at £435k, and I drive a 7 year-old Subaru :o)
Work, work, work, work, work - it's still out there in one form or another.
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>>
>> >> Not the first time I've said this but you really ought to try volunteering
>> at
>> >> a food bank.
>>
>> I think it is the first time you have said it - well, certainly directed
>> at me, anyway.
>> But surely, if the users of the food bank aren't working, they could volunteer themselves?
The need is the same round our way Duncan, but the distances and public transport prohibitive, Mrs Z volunteers for a food bank that delivers. The local supermarkets donate past sell by date food stuffs, the local charity sorts and bags it into deliveries - some they cook chill, and the likes of Mrs Z deliver. she has elderlies that have fallen through the social security gaps, mums with housebound disabled kids who get no support, even a volunteer run nursery to be fed.
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>> Well yes, but the fuel duty cut is for one year only, and reinstating the
>> covid uplift to benefits would inevitably be an enduring one and £5 billions wouldn’t touch
>> the sides of that. There is £1 billion, up from £500m for councils to support
>> those in need though so not true to say no help.
I seem to remember that the suspension of the Fuel Duty Escalator after the protests in 2000 it was going to be temporary. I cannot see the government reinstating the cut if, by this time next year, prices are still north of £1.50/litre.
The extra £500m for the Household Support Fund is to allow for crisis grants. I've just referred somebody for one as they'd 'gone to the wire' before trying to claim Universal Credit and were short of cash to top up gas/electric. Historically Crisis funds were a DHSS/DWP thing. Around 2013 they were delegated to top tier Councils but without the cash to fund them. Councils, with the old Northamptonshire County Council in the vanguard, ceased to offer the facility at all. HSF effectively reinstates Crisis Funding nationwide though funding is temporary. The £500m extends a scheme that started in December 21 and was due to end 31-03-22
Not even a sticking plaster for the cost of living crisis.
I entirely agree that where work is an option then claimants should be incentivised to take it. Pretty much every Universal Credit claimant who works will be better off. Unemployment though is very low, people who have opted out of work post pandemic are, for the most part, not on benefits. My concern is that nothing in the mini budget did anything for those for whom work is not a possibility because of health, caring responsibility etc.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 24 Mar 22 at 12:33
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The accepted wisdom has up to now been
to stick with the variable rate. Now being offered a fixed two year plan for £310 per month which beginning to think might be a good idea. Anyone else accepted a fixed rate?
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Charges for fixed plan are 36.52 per Kw hour for electricity and 10.92 for gas
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That's about 33% / 50% higher than current variable rates. So over a year, you are still losing out if cap goes up 50% in Oct. Over 2 years you might be on the up side if the variable rate goes up again. Looks like the power co is hedging for prices to come back down next year, but not sure how likely that is with current Russia / Europe gas stand off over Roubles!
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>> Charges for fixed plan are 36.52 per Kw hour for electricity and 10.92 for gas
The price caps for variable tariffs are now 28p (was 21p) and 7p (was 4p), so for 6 months your fix will cost you +30% on electric and + 50% for gas. That said 3/4 of your next 12 months use is probably October-March.
I'll take my chance on the variable I think. But I might work out the breakeven when I get chance. Current prices for October onwards suggest some more very high rises in the caps then.
Check the standing charges. Electric standing charge cap has just gone up by 20p/day
www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/check-if-energy-price-cap-affects-you
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Scotpower
Currently paying £170 per month on fixed until December 2022 with an annual consumption of about 23kwh+3kwh gas+elect.
Out of interest 2 days ago I looked at what they were offering for a transfer to a fixed 12month deal - £553 per month!
A rethink on how we use energy is required - and some education for SWMBO!
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Octopus former Avro.
The exchange of emails is in progress. If I take their figures for the year, add the debit balance, divide by 12, that should be the monthly figure. No?
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Id be checking my actual historical usage matched their estimate as they are sometimes far apart.
Though at the end of the day either they'll owe you or you'll owe them, a greater or lesser amount depending on your future usage...
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>> Octopus former Avro.
>>
>> The exchange of emails is in progress. If I take their figures for the year,
>> add the debit balance, divide by 12, that should be the monthly figure. No?
Yes.
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>> >> The exchange of emails is in progress. If I take their figures for the
>> year,
>> >> add the debit balance, divide by 12, that should be the monthly figure. No?
>>
>> Yes.
And the hot news is that they have agreed with me.
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>> The accepted wisdom has up to now been
>> to stick with the variable rate. Now being offered a fixed two year plan for
>> £310 per month which beginning to think might be a good idea. Anyone else accepted
>> a fixed rate?
No came off my fix at just the wrong time, end feb, and decided to stick with the variable, I dont see how any provider can give you a good fix right now, who the hell knows what the future will be.
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My fixed rate with British Gas finished 31 March……..
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My old mum lives alone, was paying £60 DD pcm until March. Was £40 in arrears.
Correspondence from Octopus informs her that they’re increasing her DD to £160.68 from 18/04. At 94yo she was really worried about this....with Spring around the corner, lighter nights etc her consumption should decrease. I’ve emailed them today requesting her new DD be £100...that should cover the increased cost of gas & leccy.
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I do not know your mum's financial position.
If she has modest pension (s) /savings there is the warm homes discounted electricity charges
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I dont see how any provider can give you a good
>> fix right now, who the hell knows what the future will be.
>>
Isn’t that why a fix might be an attractive proposition? Effectively you are buying certainty.
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In normal times, a modest premium for a fix makes sense, especially if you can fix for 2 years.
Don't forget that the vendor should benefit from certainty too - apart from the chancers who buy short and sell long.
The cap will give you certainty for 6 months, albeit the warm season. The certainty of a fix on offer at the moment is of paying c.50% more than that.
What would perhaps be more helpful is if they offered a fix for October onwards. Having to book that fix now just enables them to ignore the cap when it is much lower than they are charging, which looks opportunistic on their part.
What is scary is that the vendors are presumably setting the 'overcharge' for the next 6 months against the prices they are booking energy for post-September - implying price increases then materially greater than we are getting now.
My shiny new energy certificate says I can heat and light my 87B rated house for £800 a year! I'll be happy if I can keep it under £2,000.
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60935453
Centrica boss wants an informed debate about fracking.
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>> www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60935453
>>
>> Centrica boss wants an informed debate about fracking.
He won't get it.
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We need a rational debate about the UK energy strategy and a clear plan for fast implementation.
Ukraine and energy prices has crystallised a problem we have had for two decades.
We spent the time arguing and responding to every interest group - this is all very worthy, but meant that the UK is still far from energy independence and vulnerable to world events.
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>>Ukraine and energy prices has crystallised a problem we have had for two decades.
Two decades! I'd say over 3?
The problem is that it has been cheaper buying energy from abroad then it has been developing our own infrastructure so I guess whatever happens re energy prices on a global scale, we will be paying for new power stations, wind farms etc for some time to come.
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The CEGB planned and built UK electricity after the war.
Always planned for excess supply allowing for downtime / planned maintenance etc etc
They had short term plans 5-10 years and longer term plans 10+
That was swept away and power generation was put in the hands of large companies who dominate the market. Fortunes were made and lost and the bulk were sold to German, French & Spanish buyers.
Commercial always looks at current position and short term planning - CEGB looked ahead and further ahead.
What has happened in the last 3 decades? Coal power stations have almost disappeared, Nuclear has seen most closed and the remainder with short term life. There was a dash for gas and we have depleted the North Sea reserves - 50%+ of electricity depends on expensive gas -we have next to no gas storage and buy more & more on the spot market as North Sea volumes fall. This endangers the electricity supply and supply of gas for the UK's central heating (80% of UK has gas heating, in some parts there is no mains gas - Cornwall, Highlands & Islands of Scotland)
Why? Recently any money invested in electricity generation has been in wind and when the wind blows (but not too strongly) there is 15GW of supply - they next day it could be 2GW or even zero - like 3 days last week with only 0.1GW .
We need to establish a base load, 24x7 supply and that is Nuclear - not wind power or solar - they can provide power but only when the wind blows and the sun shines.
Announced by the UK government is a dash for more wind. SNP will not allow planning permission for new oil/gas/nuclear sites- England has problems but not as serious as Scotland
It will take megabucks to solve today's problems - power of whatever type is likely to remaining expensive/very expensive for the near future.
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www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61027313
The new energy supply strategy is out.
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Playing to the NIMBY base re onshore wind it seems (the cheapest source of leccy)
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>> Playing to the NIMBY base re onshore wind it seems (the cheapest source of leccy)
Onshore wind OK as long as it's in Scotland according to a (UK) Minister on the radio last Sunday.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 8 Apr 22 at 09:02
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I've been offered a couple of PV's for free from a company called "Happy Energy" (gov. funded)
Not going to get much free leccy from those on my sou'west-facing roof here in godforsaken Cornwall.
And do I want some hairy-assed geezers drilling holes in my 90 year-old slate roof!
I could go with some free loft insulation though, as there's only about 4" up there.
Yes, I know I could DIY it, done that once, and once is enuff TBH.
A new build I'm looking at with a south-east facing roof should have PV's from new, as should all new builds IMO.
Last edited by: Dog on Fri 8 Apr 22 at 08:02
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I feel I definitely need to do something about insulation.
We had the house fire in 2008 and then had an extension built in 2010. I remember the builder was using some sort of “tinfoil” type insulation instead of standard Kingspan boards. They did meet the Council “u” values building standards criteria but I really am not convinced.
However it is certainly easier to do something about loft insulation than it is to start ripping walls apart.
What’s the latest industry thinking on the “inject the foam into the walls” type of insulation? At one time it was the bees knees then there was a lot of negativity about dampness problems it could cause?
I could maybe get crawling under my ground floor and install the insulation that hangs in the netting under the floor. But I have been down there before and it was a bit claustrophobic and add in to the equation, we had the rat problem back in 2020 and although I’m confident we no longer have a live rat issue……..
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I'm not sure all the figures add up in that report, particularly nuclear. Seems a very big increase in nuclear power from 5gw currently to a planned output of 25gw.
I don't get the fuss over wind turbines either, i don't mind them at all.
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>>Windmills
There was an article in the local rag a couple of weeks back, describing 5 windmills on a local hill, which is now effectively a Victorian housing estate.
Bring ‘em back I say. (Obviously they were much smaller than the current ones but I think the new ones look quite majestic and look better than a new power station).
We’ve been spoilt by power generation being placed near their fuel. It’s time they were placed near their users.
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Small energy dilemma.
I was with Avro on a dual fuel tariff before being dumped on a new supplier.
The new supplier has been billing me for electricity but not gas.
AIUI, if they don’t bill you they can only go back a year.
So do I cough up or secretly save an amount for gas in case they do come across my account and hope that they don’t?
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It’s a question of honesty. Only you know if you are honest. You can’t transfer the decision to someone else.
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I have told them.
Not as bad a wait on hold as I thought it might be.
Feel much better now that I have (the 12 odd hours between realising no bills have been received for gas and resolution started to grate on me and I feel less stressed about it already)!
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>> So do I cough up or secretly save an amount for gas in case they
>> do come across my account and hope that they don’t?
You tell em, and get an acknowledgement you have told them. Just once. Then put away the money you would have paid. If you dont tell them, you are acting dishonestly.
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>> AIUI, if they don’t bill you they can only go back a year.
>>
>> So do I cough up or secretly save an amount for gas in case they
>> do come across my account and hope that they don’t?
What do you do for paid employment?
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>>I think the new ones look quite majestic and look better than a new power station
I don't mind 'em at all, and there are loads down here. I think they should be coloured yellow and green to make them look like giant daffodils.
I was stood near a BIG one yesterday while, um, taking a leak, and I couldn't hear it swishing at all.
Mind you, it was windy enough to blow my Subaru baseball cap orf my head :o)
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There's a viewing area near the top of one in Swaffham - that's a hell of a lot of stairs. The whole thing sways every time a blade passes the tower.
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We have been completely deficient in failing to agree and implement an energy strategy for much of the last three decades. Crystallised by the war in Ukraine, we now have a crisis. Costs are high and we are reliant upon imports for energy.
Any proposals have been dogged by objections from sectional interest groups - anti-nuclear, turbines kill birds and spoil the view, coal and oil causes climate change, tidal barrage harms the wildlife etc etc. Worthy but ultimately destructive.
Research in the business world has proven that companies which plan perform better than those which do not - even if the plan is subsequently proven wrong.
On this basis any generally coherent energy strategy is better than no strategy or protracted debate. Just get on and actually do it.
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, tidal barrage harms the
>> wildlife etc etc.
That's something you never see mentioned, I think i read we had some very strong tides in the uk. Yet its never mentioned as anything worth even considering.
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I agree with your first two paras, but..
>On this basis any generally coherent energy strategy is better than no
>strategy or protracted debate. Just get on and actually do it.
Read the published Strategy. It is neither coherent nor a 'plan'. It's a wish-list of "ambitions", "aspirations" and hype.
So yeah. "Stuff the icebergs. Full-steam ahead!"
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>> There's a viewing area near the top of one in Swaffham - that's a hell
>> of a lot of stairs. The whole thing sways every time a blade passes the
>> tower.
I believe that is long since closed, alas.
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Yes closed some years back. The visitor centre at Sizewell B is open though
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Was that the one on the a47 (or just off it)?
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>> Was that the one on the a47 (or just off it)?
>>
Yes near Swaffham
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>> The visitor centre at Sizewell B is open though
>>
In the mid ‘80s I took Mrs Z on a tour of Dungeness B.
I mentioned that it would be a good idea to dress appropriately.
So, in skin tight jeans, white stilettos, Benetton top (phwor ;-) ), she tottered around this huge industrial complex.
At the end they did a quick radiation check and she didn’t pass! The stilettos had picked up too much radioactive dust (pressure from the metal heel cap) and had to be disposed of!
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www.whiteleewindfarm.co.uk/whitelee-windfarm-about-us
This is about a 30 min drive away from me - "Whitelee is the UK's largest onshore windfarm, located on Eaglesham Moor just 20 minutes from central Glasgow. Its 215 turbines generate up to 539 megawatts of electricity, enough to power over 350,000 homes*."
Now, anyone who will have been across the Eaglesham Moor in the old days, will know why this was an ideal location for this windfarm. But, they have turned it into a magnificent tourist attraction. Loads of different walks from 1-12 km, mountain bike tracks, cycle tracks etc. Great for a walk, run or dog walk.
Also has an educational visitor centre and cafe.
Only let down by the parking which fills up very quickly, as a visitor attraction I think it has far exceeded initial expectations. But subliminally, it must also have played its part in convincing many doubters to the benefits of windfarms.
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>>>Its 215 turbines generate up to 539 megawatts of electricity,
Do not confuse plated output - 539MW is the yield only with the optimum wind speed.
Just last week the whole of the UK's thousands of Windmills was producing just over 130MW in total. Just now it is 7GW and yesterday it was 14GW.
Basically wind & solar power cannot produce the power on a reliable basis hence the intension of installing new nuclear and gas will be needed for decades.
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>> Basically wind & solar power cannot produce the power on a reliable basis hence the
>> intension of installing new nuclear and gas will be needed for decades.
>>
When wind power produces excesses (they can be asked to cut generation and in the past were paid to do so), they should store the excess in “giga-batteries”.
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>>they should store the excess in "giga-batteries".
Affordable batteries have yet to come to the market.
Australia paid Megabucks for 10 minutes of cover a few years back - cover to allow coal & gas stations to fire up their reserve power
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"Affordable batteries have yet to come to the market."
There are plenty of batteries sitting on peoples drives. They will eventually come into play I'm sure, the technology is already there as are the incentives in some places.
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Indeed. Test drove a Kia EV6 today - it has the ability to power stuff from a socket by the charge port.
Could be used to boil your kettle in a powercut or something, and indeed I saw a Youtube video of a chap plugging his microwave into it. Great for camping!
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>> Indeed. Test drove a Kia EV6 today - it has the ability to power stuff
>> from a socket by the charge port.
>>
>> Could be used to boil your kettle in a powercut or something, and indeed I
>> saw a Youtube video of a chap plugging his microwave into it. Great for camping!
>>
Limited to 1.9kw I understand, so it's a bit off from running a house at the moment. No doubt higher capacities will follow.
What did you think of it?
(I like the look of its Hyundai twin, the Ionic 5 - and saw one passing me the other day - it looks like a Golf but the size of a Tiguan.)
Last edited by: zippy on Sat 9 Apr 22 at 18:42
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... but thousands of them as an extension to the grid?
octopus.energy/blog/vehicle-to-grid/
Last edited by: smokie on Sun 10 Apr 22 at 00:40
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>> ... but thousands of them as an extension to the grid?
>>
>> octopus.energy/blog/vehicle-to-grid/
>>
I wonder how much difference they make to the grid and the demand on it.
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>> ... but thousands of them as an extension to the grid?
>>
>> octopus.energy/blog/vehicle-to-grid/
Its an irrelevant smokescreen, its not at source generation storage available controllable on demand.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 10 Apr 22 at 08:13
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Oh dear, we'd better tell some of these countries before they waste too much on any more trials then. :-)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle-to-grid#Implementation_by_country
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It's also a really bad thing to do to an EV battery whose life is essentially defined by charge / discharge cycles....
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>> >>they should store the excess in "giga-batteries".
>> Affordable batteries have yet to come to the market.
>>
>>
I think drax looked into it a couple of years ago, not sure how much further they got with it.
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Just last week the whole of the UK's thousands of Windmills was producing just over
>> 130MW in total. Just now it is 7GW and yesterday it was 14GW.
>>
>>
That's what's been sold on the grid at that point, not the maximum that's available from wind power at that point.
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Leaving aside environmental arguments, consumers in the UK are either exposed to world market prices and supply constraints, or need to find an alternative.
The former has been bought into sharp focus by Ukraine with fast increasing prices. At the moment it is price not supply that is the problem. Supply may be a risk in the future.
Nuclear and renewable energy means reduced reliance on world markets and has risks. There is a cost and complexity to reducing risk to an acceptable level. We need to define "acceptable risk". All issues are interrelated - one cannot be analysed in isolation from the others - eg:
- level of overcapacity to be built into solar and wind to reduce risk of outages
- base load of total demand to be provided by nuclear
- level of storage needed, how and dependency on EV batteries
- current turbine coverage is limited - wider distribution would minimise weather variability
- level of gas back up retained for extended outages
It is far too easy, and completely futile, to find reasons why things won't work.
The solution may not deliver all that we are used to - cheap and effectively infinite energy - but "it's all too difficult" does not solve the problem.
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Looks like the Government has succumbed to the view that they need to dole out £10 billion or so in cash to help us all pay our energy bills. I sympathise with those struggling but that’s surely going to further fuel inflation.
It all looks a bit panem et circenses. I suppose we’ve already got the circus
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I do think that the £300 payments to pensioners should be (a) means-tested and (b) caveated by their Brexit vote.
Q. DID YOU VOTE FOR BREXIT IN 2016?
A. YES ---> IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT, DEAL WITH IT.
B. NO ---> HERE'S £300 TO MAKE UP FOR THE 14% INFLATION CAUSED BY THE SHORT-SIGHTED XENOPHOBIC MORONS WHO CAUSED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
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Would have deleted that FF for being a bit offensive - and another mod still might - as we know there are people here who support(ed) Brexit.
However I've left it so we can straighten out the facts - IMO BREXIT has a lot of things to answer for but rising fuel and food costs aren't among them are they?
And I, for one, would prefer that we didn't re-ignite the BREXIT discussion, or, if we really have to, we do it without the name-calling and vitriol that sometimes accompanied it last time around.
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Purely gratuitous insult as I am concerned. Get rid before we descend further into the mire.
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>> Would have deleted that FF for being a bit offensive - and another mod still
>> might - as we know there are people here who support(ed) Brexit.
That's the attitude that lost us Pat and NoFM as contributors.
FF's post isn't offensive; it represents a legitimate point of view. Dog and others who were/are pro Brexit are not shrinking violets.
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>> FF's post isn't offensive; it represents a legitimate point of view. Dog and others who
>> were/are pro Brexit are not shrinking violets.
Perhaps Dog and others are more intelligent than to post inflammatory comments, or to respond in a similar vein!
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>>Perhaps Dog and others are more intelligent than to post inflammatory comments, or to respond in a similar vein!
Or too long in the toof and can't be assed wivvit all now. The others, well, Pat's gorn, stunorthants and Roger no longer post, so (I think) I'm the only Brexit ear left?
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>> so (I think) I'm the only Brexit ear left?
I can assure you that you're not alone dear boy.
And despite everyone and their uncle having it in for Boris, I'm in a minority there too. I just wish all the haters would move on and not keep going over the same stuff again and again.
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>> I can assure you that you're not alone dear boy.
No, he is not.
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>>I can assure you that you're not alone dear boy.
I'm Spartacus.
8o)
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>> >> I can assure you that you're not alone dear boy.
>>
>> No, Certainly not. I expect we shortsighted, xenophobic morons are in plentiful supply !
>>
Ted
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>> >> so (I think) I'm the only Brexit ear left?
>>
>> I can assure you that you're not alone dear boy.
>>
>> And despite everyone and their uncle having it in for Boris, I'm in a minority
>> there too. I just wish all the haters would move on and not keep going
>> over the same stuff again and again.
>>
Well, in fear of going over the same ground again, the man is a hypocrite of the highest order and his latest changes to the ministerial code just underlines this.
I don't hate him, I just think that he is not suited for the job of PM, cares nothing for the electorate and will do anything to avoid accepting the blame for his wrong-doing.
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>> I don't hate him, I just think that he is not suited for the job
>> of PM, cares nothing for the electorate and will do anything to avoid accepting the
>> blame for his wrong-doing.
>>
Which leads to the question - with whom would you replace him?
Tories? -
Rishi Sunak? - possibly.
Labour? -
Well, who leaps off the page at you?
My 'problem' is that I believe that almost Tory polititian is better than almost any Labour polititian, I might make an exeption for Tony Blair, but the Labour supporters don't like him. I wonder why that is?
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>>polititian???
Sorry Duncan, it's Politician.
8o)
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>> >>polititian???
>>
>> Sorry Duncan, it's Politician.
>>
>> 8o)
>>
Funnily enough, I had about three goes at that!
You missed exeption. (exception).
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...well, if we're all piling in, I think there's an "any" or some such missing as well.
It's either old age or (more likely) eleventeen pints of Doom Bar kicking in (shudders!).
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Boris provides clear leadership. He exudes positivity. There is no doubt where he wants to go - whether he gets there is another matter. He is a first class communicator. I have some admiration for his resilience in the face of criticism and adversity (some of his own making).
To balance - he also has great flaws - lack of attention to detail, cavalier behaviours, etc.
I don't find Partygate offensive (foolish yes) but I understand why many would. Covid (furlough etc) and current cost of living support seems almost generous. Not an expected right wing behaviour.
Contrast with the opposition - I read that Sir Kier may publish a book on his thoughts and strategy developed during lockdown. I know what the Tories represent, I haven't a clue about Labour - save a desire to get rid of Boris. They need to do much, much better to be a viable alternative.
The major issue IMHO is his willingness to ride roughshod over fundamental democratic processes. He tried to prorogue Parliament during the Brexit debate. He seems to be attempting the same with the ministerial code for which he is the owner.
His desire to avoid independent scrutiny of decisions involving the prime minister (him) is a fundamental democratic weakness given his overwhelming self-belief, and makes him unfit for PM.
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I'd say there is considerable doubt where he wants to go, or at least where he will want to go next.
His objective was clear until June/July 2019 - to be PM. Now that he is, I don't think there's much certainty about what he will do next. He has always basically told his audience what he thinks they want to hear. So what he said depended on where he thought his interests lay and what that audience wanted. His survival prospects are almost certainly governing his choices now, his most obvious aim is hanging on like grim death. If he had the country's and democracy's interests at heart, he'd go.
Partygate isn't offensive, it's just wrong. It makes the whole of number 10 look like the Bullingdon club, putting up two fingers to the rest of us, including the Queen. That last bit alone should make it a resignation issue for Johnson.
>>His desire to avoid independent scrutiny of decisions involving the prime minister (him) is a fundamental democratic weakness given his overwhelming self-belief, and makes him unfit for PM.
There I can only agree. And I wonder if it goes beyond self-belief, and he thinks he is the only person who can do the job - the Churchill delusion.
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- the Churchill delusion.
>>
At the end of the day when it counted he was the man to do the job.
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>> - the Churchill delusion.
>> >>
>>
>> At the end of the day when it counted he was the man to do
>> the job.
And probably the only real possibility. I don't say Churchill was deluded in that respect. In fact I don't think he was sure that he could do it either.
But he did do it, or at least facilitated it. It's BJ who is probably deluding himself that he is equally capable and essential.
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>> Boris provides clear leadership.
He does what? He provides confusion chaos lack of clarity. Clown of the class merely seeking attention.
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Contrast with the opposition - I read that Sir Kier may publish a book on
>> his thoughts and strategy developed during lockdown. I know what the Tories represent, I haven't
>> a clue about Labour - save a desire to get rid of Boris. They need
>> to do much, much better to be a viable alternative.
I think that's something all opposition parties suffer from, especially so far away from an election. Their push for a windfall tax was an obvious winner and was simply a matter of time before the gov copied it/agreed with it.
Perhaps this is the start of when labour explain what they are about or perhaps not. I suppose we'll see.
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>>Well, who leaps off the page at you?
I'd give Starmer a go, honesty being a fundamental improvement on what we have - and I believe him to have integrity. But I'm not sure he has the right kind of persona to get there, he hasn't the shamelessness or acting talent of Johnson. Make no mistake, Johnson isn't what you see - the amiable tousle-haired clown is a creation. He's a nasty piece of work and an unpredictable one now that he is PM.
>> I believe that almost [any?] Tory politician is better than almost any Labour politician
Do you mean honesty simply doesn't matter? That changing the ministerial code after you've broken it so you don't have to resign is OK?
I have never seen Labour and the Conservatives as two sides of a single coin, or simple alternative solutions to the same problems. Their objectives are at bottom completely different, even if circumstances compel them to overlap in policy in some areas. To me it is more a question of right, and wrong.
Surely the essential concept of socialism ultimately has to be made to work if the human race is to have a long term future? That it is an accepted wisdom among many that it must always fail is a tragedy because it is capitalism that can never succeed, being predicated on exponential economic growth?
And nobody needs to be a billionaire, or should be. Mandelson was completely wrong to be intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich. The idea that they create and therefore deserve their wealth is so transparently wrong that it can only be sustained by a con trick, the illusion that it is possible for anyone (and by implication everyone) to achieve the same with hard work, while in fact the way it operates can only mean that the majority massively subsidises those who control power through disproportionate wealth. For every big winner there are many losers. No amount of actual work can 'earn' more than a few million in a lifetime - to better that, it is necessary to skim a surplus from the efforts of others. They essentially steal their wealth, and the society that really creates it admires them for it.
The greed that drives capitalism is destructive in countless ways. I'm appalled that legal gambling continues to ruin thousands of lives - the highest paid CEO in Britain and one of its most successful active capitalists is the founder and majority shareholder of Bet365, whose salary is over £400 million a year - how can that be described as "earned"?
It's fatal flaw in the species that does not occur elsewhere in nature, and will destroy us and our planet if we don't pre-empt that with nuclear destruction. In nature, we don't find monkeys that hoard more bananas than they could eat in a hundred lifetimes while other monkeys starve (good one that, I saw it on twitbook the other day).
That the group of people who identify as socialists are imperfect doesn't make them wrong, or their opponents right. Neither does being Conservative necessarily make one bad, but I'm pretty sure that the Conservative party exists to create profit (exploitation) opportunities for its clients (donors and future employers).
I realise that people who sincerely and thoughtfully hold the opposite view to me might also be convinced of their rightness. The ones I blame most for our current mess are those who spend less time thinking about it than they do on deciding what to watch on TV, then go and vote for the most plausible charlatan - Boris Johnson's target market presumably.
I'm still ambivalent about Blair because there were achievements. But he is now the owner of a property empire and seems to want to be one of those monkeys with many lifetimes' supply of bananas.
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Socialism is broadly defined as a "political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole"
An idealistic intent, but humans are a competitive breed energised by competition - who can run fastest, score most goals, drive quickest, jump highest, sell most jelly beans, win most quizzes, etc etc. IMHO the socialist ideal is a denial of a fundamental human behaviour.
Money is just a quantifiable measure - no one needs several lifetimes of bananas. Visible evidence of success is clearly important - houses large enough for a dozen families, cars capable of unusable performance levels, jewellery with no function bar a display of wealth.
No where, as far as I am aware, has the socialist intent thrived for an extended period (many generations). The closest may be the initial kibbutz movement in Israel where a common threat and common goals largely subordinated personal ambition.
It is the unsatisfied (and probably unsatisfiable) demand for materials and goods which will lead to the end of humanity as we know it. The alternative is a society in which many need to accept less than the best that can be achieved - this seems unlikely.
Capitalists cannot get rich without customers - maximising wealth can only come through sharing the benefits of wealth generation. This does not solve the future of humanity, but reinforces the need for some balance in wealth distribution.
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>>An idealistic intent
I'll just say it's no less idealistic to think that capitalism and the market can work for the benefit of all, or work sustainably at all.
The human characteristics you mention are the problem with both. But it seems to me that cooperation if it could be achieved would could keep us going longer.
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>>
>> I'm appalled that legal gambling
>> continues to ruin thousands of lives - the highest paid CEO in Britain and one
>> of its most successful active capitalists is the founder and majority shareholder of Bet365, whose
>> salary is over £400 million a year - how can that be described as "earned"?
Should gambling be made illegal?
What about alcohol? Or cigarette smoking? They can all be very harmful. Many people enjoy alcohol, or having a bet. Should we stop them doing that?
Apropos of very little. The only gambling I do nowadays is a £10 bet against England in the Six Nations. My logic is that if England lose, I have got some compensation. If they win, it has cost me ten quid - so what? Unfortunately, I am winning my bets too frequently.
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>> Should gambling be made illegal?
>>
>> What about alcohol? Or cigarette smoking? They can all be very harmful. Many people enjoy
>> alcohol, or having a bet. Should we stop them doing that?
Having a bet on the horses, the football or the rugger is one thing. Various forms of mechanised betting where the house ALWAYS wins are another.
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How do you stop betting on phones/online? Should we as a country?
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>> How do you stop betting on phones/online? Should we as a country?
Its easy enough, America (home of the brave only if you are carrying a gun) has restricted betting for decades.
Gambling should be in person - betting shop, on site (track, event, casino) only.
It's very easy to achieve by applying a restriction on the financial card issuing companies.
Would kill it stone dead. (and at the same time cut a major source of government taxation so you know whats not going to happen)
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 29 May 22 at 10:43
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I hadn't thought it so simple. I wonder if that cats out of the bag now though. I don't really gamble, but it seems very popular now.
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>>Dog and others who were/are pro Brexit are not shrinking violets.
That's one that I haven't got in my *plantsmen garden. I have clematis, camellia, rhododendron, hosta, japonica, primrose, evening primrose, daff, tulip, foxglove, rose, peony, and tooo many others to mention.
*I'm not a 'plantsman' BTW .. mow the lawn a few times a year though :)
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Both of those two were warned plenty of time that their posts were in breach of the guidelines. NoFm in particular stepped way over the limits and was often offensive at a personal level. Neither seemed to think rules applied to them. A more rigorous and application of the rules would have been better for all concerned.
Just Because the person or group that abuse is aimed at does not complain does not give carte blanche to be abusive.
Calling people morons is offensive.by any measure.
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>> Calling people morons is offensive.by any measure.
Indeed it is.
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It was that word which particularly caught my eye.
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>>
>>
>> Calling people morons is offensive.by any measure.
>>
As someone who also voted leave, I couldn't care less. Those sort of terms tended to say more about the poster than those he aimed them at.
Particularly as this poster doesn't seem to understand that that the energy crisis is nothing to do with Brexit.
Last edited by: Robin O'Reliant on Fri 27 May 22 at 13:35
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>> >>
>> As someone who also voted leave, I couldn't care less. Those sort of terms tended
>> to say more about the poster than those he aimed them at.
>> Particularly as this poster doesn't seem to understand that that the energy crisis is nothing
>> to do with Brexit.
That’s not really the point though. Whether one is personally offended or not slinging abuse at others lowers the level of debate and makes the forum a less pleasant place for all and since it is clearly not allowed in the forum rules should not be tolerated.
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>>
>>
>> That’s not really the point though. Whether one is personally offended or not slinging abuse
>> at others lowers the level of debate and makes the forum a less pleasant place
>> for all and since it is clearly not allowed in the forum rules should not
>> be tolerated.
>>
>>
>>
I'll agree with that.
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>> Particularly as this poster doesn't seem to understand that that the energy crisis is nothing
>> to do with Brexit.
True but there is much more other grief already happened and building in the pipeline. Brexit is a long term train crash
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 27 May 22 at 19:28
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Please get back on topic. We're in danger of re-opening old wounds.
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>> Particularly as this poster doesn't seem to understand that that the energy
>> crisis is nothing to do with Brexit.
Energy crisis, no. Raging inflation, yes (according to the former BoE boss).
Bear in mind that for me the direct consequence of Brexit is that my job is directly at risk from European workers because I've lost the right to work in the EU and they have maintained workers rights in the UK.
I could have lived with it if it had gone Norway-style, but our obsession of taking back control we already had meant that we ended up with the disaster that Boris Johnson signed off on - and my personal opinion is that he didn't, or couldn't be bothered to understand, what he'd done. Going into it as if it were a fight ("Brexit Bulldog"...) hardly helped.
But off-topic enough I suspect.
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>> I do think that the £300 payments to pensioners should be (a) means-tested and (b)
>> caveated by their Brexit vote.
>>
>> Q. DID YOU VOTE FOR BREXIT IN 2016?
>>
>> A. YES ---> IT'S YOUR OWN FAULT, DEAL WITH IT. Your bill has been increased by £300
>> B. NO ---> HERE'S £300 TO MAKE UP FOR THE 14% INFLATION CAUSED BY THE
>> SHORT-SIGHTED XENOPHOBIC MORONS WHO CAUSED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Tho to be fair, Its not ALL Brexit, war and covid has a share of the blame.
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I've read that before... quite amazing that we could be swimming in our own home 'grown' gas & oil and the prices would still be sky high, as I heard on the AM business news the petrol pump price is currently not linked to the price of a barrel of oil, the oil price could fall $$$ and there still would be no drop in a litre due to our lack of refining ability.
Again maybe the UK could learn from this and build gas storage as part of an infrastructure plan.
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>> I've read that before... quite amazing that we could be swimming in our own home
>> 'grown' gas & oil
Of no consequence, a: we are not swimming in oil, its on a decline, and Brent crude is not used to make fuel.
>> and the prices would still be sky high, as I heard
>> on the AM business news the petrol pump price is currently not linked to the
>> price of a barrel of oil,
The global cost of l of oil is way over $100 a barrel and volatile to boot. And dont forget your fuel is taxed at over 45%, double taxed at that as VAT is levied on the total price inc duty.
>> Again maybe the UK could learn from this and build gas storage as part of
>> an infrastructure plan.
Fine, and when you have to fill your gas storage when prices are high? We may have natural gas, but it is still a costed as global commodity with a global market price.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 26 May 22 at 15:45
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The business news implied that we (the market) 'could' have as much oil & gas as they liked and the barrel $ drop but that still wouldn't impact the price at the pumps.
Sorry but apparently we are going to start building nuclear power stations and I guess they will all be private money (?) but we should invest in some kind of energy resilience maybe for the future even it's not just to help with the price but to guarantee a level of supply.
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they will all be private money (?) but we should invest in some kind of
>> energy resilience maybe for the future even it's not just to help with the price
>> but to guarantee a level of supply.
I don't think any nuclear plants are built wholly with private money.
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>> The business news implied that we (the market) 'could' have as much oil & gas
>> as they liked and the barrel $ drop but that still wouldn't impact the price
>> at the pumps.
But it does drop, We had a thread on here talking about how far the price had dropped. It goes up it goes down.
The global economy is broken, the supply chain screwed, there are no "simple" answers or explanations.
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One of the joys of a free global market economy is that it abhors excess capacity - it simply soaks up money for no benefit.
The supply of fuel on the forecourt relies upon an infrastructure to transport, refine and deliver fuel from the crude pumped out the ground.
Apply a few shocks to the system - Ukraine, sanctions on Russia, increased demand post Covid, China lockdowns etc - and the outcome is supply shortage.
The increasing cost of fuel at the pumps despite the static or slightly falling price of a barrel, is the market doing what it knows best - competing for limited supply and the price goes up.
The disturbing bit in many ways, is how price insensitive fuel is - we buy it at ever higher prices because we (feel) we can't do without.
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Just checking... are we all getting £400 notes paid into out bank accounts?
I've heard it could be vouchers only redeemable off electricity bills but then I've heard that Rishi is going to donate his to 'charity' so I guess it must be cash?
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"... are we all getting £400 notes paid into out bank accounts?"
I read somewhere it is going to be a discount.
You can just make a donation from your bank account, credit card or whatever. Like all banking transactions, it's all notional - there won't be any notes or coins moving about.
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One thing that seems to have been overlooked is the inflationary pressure pumping this amount of cash into the economy is going to bring. I know it is less than the rise in energy costs but a lot of people,on receiving what they perceive as a windfall are going to go straight out and spend it. I predict there will be bumper Christmas spending this year and a further spike in inflation.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Fri 27 May 22 at 17:12
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... and lots of people asking for more help towards their bills where they pi**ed away the handouts.
People will start to expect Govt handouts and need to realise this can't happen., and they should be reminded that they need to take some personal responsibility, though I completely accept that the rise in energy costs, and inflation in other costs, will be a crippling blow to many.
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>> ... and lots of people asking for more help towards their bills where they pi**ed
>> away the handouts.
Know many of them?
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You don't think that might happen?
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... and now I've had a little think, yes I do know a small handful who might well do that, and one or two others who would if their other half wasn't there to prevent them.
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I know where ours is going = 24 x 20kg bags of Maxibrite and a load of seasoned hardwood logs.
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Nobody will be spending the £400 on anything other than energy, because it's a credit on your bill is all.
The other money I don't know, as we won't get any of it so I stopped reading.
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The £650 additional payment for those in receipt of benefits and the additional heating allowance for pensioners will be paid as a credit to recipients’ bank accounts
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Just taken a look at my account on Energy suppliers website. They are offering me a two year deal at £458 a month or £5512 a year. Last year my energy bill was £1300. A lot of financial pain ahead for many.
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Ouch - when you opened this thread you mentioned Ovo had a one year fix for £375 so that's some increase they are anticipating. I've read elsewhere that the cap will rise dramatically in the autumn.
I'm trying to recall just why the prices have gone up in this way and one thing I thought I recalled is that gas was going to be a temporary (albeit long term) spike, due partly to the Ukraine crisis and global emergence from lockdowns. I suppose they may stabilise at some point but I guess it's reasonable to assume they won't go down significantly at any time.
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>> I'm trying to recall just why the prices have gone up in this way and
>> one thing I thought I recalled is that gas was going to be a temporary
>> (albeit long term) spike, due partly to the Ukraine crisis and global emergence from lockdowns.
>> I suppose they may stabilise at some point but I guess it's reasonable to assume
>> they won't go down significantly at any time.
Cheap Russian gas is gone forever. In fact Russian gas to Western Europe at any price is curtains shortly.
No Western European country is going to rely on it ever again.
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It'll be interesting to see who can scale up fast enough to replace the Russian Gas.
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>> Just taken a look at my account on Energy suppliers website. They are offering me
>> a two year deal at £458 a month or £5512 a year. Last year my
>> energy bill was £1300. A lot of financial pain ahead for many.
Does that bear any relationship to your usage or have they greatly overestimated the kWh?
The electricity cap IIRC is likely to be around 50p.
The pricing does not relate to cost of production. It's based on the highest bid price i.e. the marginal price. This is wholesale of course. This works well for the energy companies at times of overcapacity but the reverse applies when demand is stronger and supply weaker.
I can't seem to get my bill below £120 a month now, even with no heat on. This is my estimate of where it goes, I haven't tried to check all these yet.
We are all-electric.
Load Est kWh
Heat Pump 3.00 (hot water only)
MVHR 1.20 (ventilation system)
Cooking 1.50
Kettle 0.93
Legionella 0.86 (direct electric, heats water to 65C once a week for 2 hours)
F Freezer 0.69
Fridge 0.69
Washer(x1) 0.60
Towel rail 0.60 300W, 2 hour timer to dry towels
DishW(x0.5) 0.45
TV 0.42
Lights 0.36
Garden 0.50
Total 11.81 kWh/day
Last edited by: Manatee on Thu 14 Jul 22 at 14:18
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Electric garden? you could try switching a few plants off, turn down the lawn maybe?
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Good suggestion. There's a fair bit of hedge cutting, brush cutting, mowing going on at the moment - although that is probably an exaggeration. It's the balancing number!
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>A lot of financial pain ahead for many...
A couple of weeks ago one of the EU ministers was quoted as saying that when energy prices have stabilised at a higher level, and the public are used to it, they should remain at those levels.
Can't remember which minister or media outlet but I think it was German.
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>> A couple of weeks ago one of the EU ministers was quoted as saying that
>> when energy prices have stabilised at a higher level, and the public are used to
>> it, they should remain at those levels.
>>
Probably ok if you are wealthy but a bit of a downer if you're on minimum wage and already struggling.
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Or if someone else is paying your fuel bills.
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...what we really need is a cap on the price cap.....
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Just ordered my firewood ready for winter as the place I get it from only deliver once a month in my area using an Eco lorry(?) and I have this gut feeling that I 'may' just not be using as much gas as usual as the prices go up.
I already have one of the large '0.5m³' bags left over from last winter but I thought I'd get two more as the deal is better price wise..
Last year one 0.5m³ bag of kiln dried hardwood was £86 now it's gone up to £95, two bags are now £166 which I've just ordered (delivery is included but the earliest date is mid October).
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I've got 20 x 20kg bags of Maxibrite + 20 nets of hardwood logs stashed away.
I burn the Maxibrite during the week, and the logs at the weekend.
I also have a bulk LPG tank to feed my new Baxi boiler which I thought would be much more expensive than oil, but I'd never go back to smelly expensive oil again.
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4kW solar and 5.2kWh of battery storage going in next week. Oil price finally beginning to fall, but hopefully this places the bulk of electricity use (+ car) onto a 7.5p/kWh tariff. Any excess will do hot water.
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I was trying yesterday to justify batteries but I decided it wasn't easily do-able. My solar isn't huge, and really won't produce enough to be of much use later in the year. The spare already goes to hot water.
I know I average about 12kWh a day in winter and 5kWh in summer, and all the chunky stuff (car, dishwasher etc) only runs during the cheap period anyway, so if I assume I'm only feeding the batteries from the cheap rate it really doesn't seem worth the effort and expenditure.
And the maths made the payback period awfully long, even if electricity prices don't fall significantly at some point in the medium term (which I believe they are expected to).
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It was a hedge against electricity prices remaining high, I admit. I can't see them ever falling back below about 40p/kWh, so that's what I did the maffs on.
One of the most limiting things is assuming that there will always be cheap overnight rates, which will probably be the next thing to go when companies like Octopus realise that with the number of EV owners out there now they can demand a flat rate all day. That is a gamble for them (when they wouldn't give me the split tariff when I got the Tesla I used to charge it at 6pm out of spite).
Payback is probably going to be around 7-10 years, but I'm not that bothered. It provides insulation from future price shocks and since I'd pay extra for a house with solar / batteries / off-grid capability, I assume other people would too. It also bumps it from EPC C to B.
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Have you seen the Intelligent Octopus tariff? I think it works with Teslas.
octopus.energy/intelligent-octopus/
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if you are a high mileage electric car user and charge your car daily that can work for you but since the normal rate is about 50% higher than a standard variable rate if you only charge your car 'a couple of times a week and use the average amount of electricity in your home it may well cost you money.
Last edited by: CGNorwich on Sun 31 Jul 22 at 11:26
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Can't disagree, as I've not done the sums. That daily rate (39.84p) is only about 4p more than my Octopus Go day rate, which I know is higher than the fixed tariffs. On my last count, I manage to get about 50% of my usage into my cheap 4 hour slot. Not sure I can improve much more on that.
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Energy bills - smokie
