What is your daily cost of energy and how are you trying to reduce it?

I do stock up on dried foods, canned foods, cereal, oats. Fresh fruit and veg can last at least 2 or 3 days without the fridge. Cakes, snacks and chocolate don't need to be frozen or chilled. I eat fresh meat on the same day it's bought, prepare it straight away when it arrives home, in my stomach within 1-2 hours.
I was half joking 🙃 as sleeping through winter, staying in bed without needing the heating on would save on the bills.
 
Yesterdays usage! Noticed they had reduced my direct debit to coincide with the £66 reduction in everyone’s bills. I quickly adjusted that back to £166 a month so that will be around £230 a month over the winter months and I’ve already got £311 in credit so fingers crossed I’ll be fine and not need to shell out anymore than I already am.
 

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£622 in credit,.monthly payment of £164. Using about £5/day on average atm depending on if I charge the car & oven (bought an air fryer so hopefully can reduce some electric use)
 
Just been doing my calculations again as Octopus went up to 52p a unit for electricity (26.8p for gas) on Saturday morning when I'd looked, then checked again today and it's down to 42.7p a unit for electricity (10.4p for gas). I should have realised something was off as we're below typical use and it worked out well over £2,500 that often gets quoted. Had the excuse of our eldest's wedding on Saturday though, so I should have left it and not given myself a shock. :blush:

Given the drop my pension pot has suffered lately I'm trying to see if I can leave starting it for a while to recover (so I can draw 25% tax free from a bigger pot). Our energy use worked it out as just under £200 per month based on achieving modest reductions in previous year's use at the rates showing today. If we manage more then that's a bonus. Plus, as usual for this time of year, we're in credit. I'm going to see if I can leave it at the £67 reduced payment to leave me a bit less tight. Hopefully by next summer various pensions and other incomes will come on stream and we'll have solar installed as well.

I put the heating on for Friday and Saturday night due to our baby grandson being with us. It barely kicked in due to being so mild, so looking on the Octopus App it was hardly any more than we normally use for hot water...It's back off again now though. :D
 
Just been doing my calculations again as Octopus went up to 52p a unit for electricity (26.8p for gas) on Saturday morning when I'd looked, then checked again today and it's down to 42.7p a unit for electricity (10.4p for gas). I should have realised something was off as we're below typical use and it worked out well over £2,500 that often gets quoted. Had the excuse of our eldest's wedding on Saturday though, so I should have left it and not given myself a shock. :blush:

Given the drop my pension pot has suffered lately I'm trying to see if I can leave starting it for a while to recover (so I can draw 25% tax free from a bigger pot). Our energy use worked it out as just under £200 per month based on achieving modest reductions in previous year's use at the rates showing today. If we manage more then that's a bonus. Plus, as usual for this time of year, we're in credit. I'm going to see if I can leave it at the £67 reduced payment to leave me a bit less tight. Hopefully by next summer various pensions and other incomes will come on stream and we'll have solar installed as well.

I put the heating on for Friday and Saturday night due to our baby grandson being with us. It barely kicked in due to being so mild, so looking on the Octopus App it was hardly any more than we normally use for hot water...It's back off again now though. :D
Are you getting the standing charges mixed up with unit rate.. It shouldn't be 52p a unit of electricity as there is a cap.
 
Are you getting the standing charges mixed up with unit rate.. It shouldn't be 52p a unit of electricity as there is a cap.
No, I think it was a glitch on their website on Saturday as the standing charges are the same, but the unit prices were wrong/too high. I checked my calculations and had the figures I posted above; I must have got the numbers from somewhere and that's the only site I'd looked at other than here according to my history.


As I said I should have left it due to the wedding, but just thought I'd have a look over my breakfast to check the gas use with the CH on the night before. However, the gas used wasn't showing for the day before, so something wasn't right overall with the site.
 
The next stage in my energy reduction program is the installation of a new control system for the boiler.

From a "dumb" three times a day, seven days a week timer to a smart controller that can be far more flexible. I have currently got 1 digital wall thermostat and 2 digital radiator values, but plan to get another 3. Then I'll be able to set the temperature of each room independently and by time of day.

For example, a bedroom would only be heated early morning and late at night, while the living room only from early evening to late evening.

If I'm going out for several hours, the whole house can be put into 'frost prevention mode' with one click on it's app.

I've no idea how long this will take to pay for itself, but I needed to change the old central heating timer anyway, and thought I'd try an upgrade.
 
I was looking into a new smart thermostat, though it's a bit of a pain because ours is a simple 2 wire one that was previously an old fashioned mechanical 'switch' thermostat.

In the end I just sat and reprogrammed our existing one. Perhaps it's easier as we're both retired now so I didn't need fancy settings for different days, evenings or the weekends. Instead I've set it for 1 hour in the morning (it does a pre-heat thing on top of that, so the room is at the setting by the start of the set time period).

I've gone for a reduced 6-9pm evening setting: Previously it would be 5-10pm weekdays and probably 5-11pm weekends. I thought we'd see how it goes and it's easy enough to walk round the back of the sofa and press the manual one hour boost if it starts to get chilly after 9pm.

I did a test yesterday; we were out in the conservatory most of the day as it was bright and sunny (plus recovering from a busy wedding weekend :D). This passively heated the living room, so we then moved into the living room for the evening and closed the double blinds/curtains and patio/ internal doors. The thermostat read 21 degrees most of the evening and was still 20 degrees this morning at 8:30. I hope this mild weather continues a bit longer as the heating would barely have clicked on last night had it been switched on at the boiler end.
 
thats good low level heat loss, which helps
Some rooms in our house (3 bed semi with garage extension + garage alongside) retain the heat (front room mainly) more than others but the house is a bit open plan. Upstairs is always warm & most rads are set at a low setting. We had (some years ago) the grant for cavity wall & loft insulation so that has helped.
This morning the stat was 16.5 degrees in the extension, moved it to the front room & its 17.5 degrees. Currently 18.5 & 20 for both. One wall of the extension faces the garage so is only single skin hence the temp difference. Depending on outside temp heat loss is the contributing factor to when the boiler kicks in (we have it set to come on at 16 degrees currently but as the outside temp increases we will obviously increase this.
 
Yes, we have cavity wall insulation, but not on the front wall of the house/living room as it has a tiled front. We have considered getting it covered/insulated, but it would be as much from a cosmetic POV as for insulation.

I think having decent double glazing, plus the fact I've doubled up on blinds and curtains in the living room (for home cinema purposes to get it as dark as possible) really helps retain the heat.

It also worked well during the heat wave to stop the heat getting in by closing the blinds/curtains and we left the living room door open so that cooler air would come in from the kitchen side (north facing) of the house. We managed fine without air con on those extremely hot days.

Regarding my 'jumping' unit prices: Someone posted a link on another website which has the correct rates for all areas on Octopus, so I've been able to work out my budget. A pleasant surprise because it's about £20 a month less than I'm paying (before the £67 reduction). I will leave the payments as they are so we should in theory help build a little buffer along with the existing credit we have on the account.

I'm now paying 34.23p a unit Electricity and standing charge is 42.77p a day. Gas is 10.46p a unit and standing charge is 26.84p a day.

Here is the link for anyone else with Octopus:

Energy prices from October Octopus
 
might try a switch when it settles down from EDF to Octopus as those rates & what I hear about their CS etc seems good
 
might try a switch when it settles down from EDF to Octopus as those rates & what I hear about their CS etc seems good
We only ended up with them because Avro went bust, but apart from the last few days of odd unit prices, they've been great. The smart meter install was slick too. Side bonus is that if we get solar panels next year, then as an existing customer I can benefit from their better SEG rate of 15p a unit to sell back to the grid.
 
Yes, we have cavity wall insulation, but not on the front wall of the house/living room as it has a tiled front. We have considered getting it covered/insulated, but it would be as much from a cosmetic POV as for insulation.

I think having decent double glazing, plus the fact I've doubled up on blinds and curtains in the living room (for home cinema purposes to get it as dark as possible) really helps retain the heat.

It also worked well during the heat wave to stop the heat getting in by closing the blinds/curtains and we left the living room door open so that cooler air would come in from the kitchen side (north facing) of the house. We managed fine without air con on those extremely hot days.

Regarding my 'jumping' unit prices: Someone posted a link on another website which has the correct rates for all areas on Octopus, so I've been able to work out my budget. A pleasant surprise because it's about £20 a month less than I'm paying (before the £67 reduction). I will leave the payments as they are so we should in theory help build a little buffer along with the existing credit we have on the account.

I'm now paying 34.23p a unit Electricity and standing charge is 42.77p a day. Gas is 10.46p a unit and standing charge is 26.84p a day.

Here is the link for anyone else with Octopus:

Energy prices from October Octopus
I have a timber frame house, so brick / timber frame / insulation / plaster board.

Unfortunately, it seems I may not have enough insulation in the 2 rooms that are outward facing. Those 2 rooms.just do.not get to temperature.

So, I've been toying on the ideas of either:

Pulling down the plasterboard on the outside facing walls in these rooms and reinsulating with kings pan. This will be a messy job and cost about £3k

Or

Get exterior wall insulation. But I'm not sure how much this will.cost yet. And don't know whether this will be better than more effective than option A.

So, with my absolute knowledge about this kind of stuff, I want to ask for your advice please. I've asked about interior insulation on another thread a while back but not about exterior wall insulation.

What should I do?
 
@Alps we chatted with a near neighbour who had the front of his house treated. It's a semi and different style to our house, but did have the same kind of tiled front section. I haven't seen him in ages to ask how he has got on since having it done though. I makes the 70s house look a bit more modern too, so there was partly a cosmetic reason behind having it done.

Years ago I used to work a place that was originally old council buildings and they were freezing in winter. The whole lot got clad from the outside and rendered and it did make a difference, though they also replaced the windows for double glazed, so it's hard to say which bit gave the most improvement.

Hopefully someone else with better experience will come along soon and give you some more feedback.
 
I’d say they all make a difference…cladding, rendering and double glazing. But ime, double glazing made the most difference.
 

How about one of these? There are smaller and cheaper versions.
 
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How about one of these? There are smaller and cheaper versions.
'life-saving product for combat readiness.' :)
 
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@Alps we chatted with a near neighbour who had the front of his house treated. It's a semi and different style to our house, but did have the same kind of tiled front section. I haven't seen him in ages to ask how he has got on since having it done though. I makes the 70s house look a bit more modern too, so there was partly a cosmetic reason behind having it done.

Years ago I used to work a place that was originally old council buildings and they were freezing in winter. The whole lot got clad from the outside and rendered and it did make a difference, though they also replaced the windows for double glazed, so it's hard to say which bit gave the most improvement.

Hopefully someone else with better experience will come along soon and give you some more feedback.

I’d say they all make a difference…cladding, rendering and double glazing. But ime, double glazing made the most difference.
Thanks guys. Unfortunately, my house is already quite modern looking (prefer the Victorian / Edwardian look myself) so making it look modern is not biggy. Also, if I do go with this option, I can get the house done in a subtle blue :D

I had a builder round on Friday and asked him about the cost. He's going to look into it and get back to me. For comparison, @KelvinS1965 do you know how much your neighbour paid for his work?
 
Sorry I don't know the costs. He did say there was some scheme that helped towards the cost, but I can't remember the details: My wife reminded me it was actually 2020 when this happened as we were doing our '1 hour walk' thing and he would have a chat to us as we went past.

Not a very good photo, but you can see the tiled section of my house on the top right of the picture. The lower section under the living room window was cavity filled, so it's just the front wall of the main and larger of the spare bedrooms. Maybe not quite so critical now I think about it as we tend to have the bedroom window open pretty much all the time as you can just see in this picture:

Lavender (5).jpg
 
My last fixed deal ended on the 1st . With the £66 just credited to the account, we are £1k in credit and I am happy to continue to pay £233 @ month for now. I wasnt happy when it started, but mellowed as I got used to it, saw what was happening to prices as I was fixed and now have some protection.
With one of the big6 so not too worried about losing it
I have a few spare smart sockets they probably won't contribute a lot, but am going round configuring stuff to switch off when not in use, so all the kit in the office . 3 monitors 2 laptops, phone chargers and printer will switch off when we are not actually wfh, that's worth 7000+ hours a year of standby per item
My bedside chargers will only come on between midnight and 7 , again peanuts but another 6000 hours saved per charger
Next to look at is my amp tv xbox sub and anything else under the TV I can afford to hard switch off

I already have smart heating with TADO , i am constantly tweaking timings and temps to reduce gas consumption. Looking like I am already down on last October's usage, but it early yet and still high teens temp wise outside
 
I already have smart heating with TADO , i am constantly tweaking timings and temps to reduce gas consumption. Looking like I am already down on last October's usage, but it early yet and still high teens temp wise outside
Apart from briefly putting ours on last weekend due to baby grandson being with us, our heating hasn't been on since April. Even last weekend, the gas used was tiny because the weather was so mild that it barely kicked in.

I've massively reduced our timing settings on a less smart controller and plan to just manually put it back on if we start getting cold later in the evening. I suspect we'll be fine though: I recall sometimes taking my jumper off later in the evening in previous years in the winter, which is a bit silly really.

Helps it's very mild at the moment and our conservatory passively heats the living on sunny days like today and it's about 22 degrees in there by the time we move out of here into the living room late afternoon.
 
I have also downloaded the loop energy app
The monitor inside for the leccy meter has never worked, too many concrete blocks in the way I guess
It's the phantom load I am going to look at first, hence the smart plug stuff

All my lights are already LED, security lights are solar
Biggest loads are oven dishwasher and the tumble dryer, although that's a heat pump version so lower than most
And I guess the TV amp and sub that are always to together
 
Sorry I don't know the costs. He did say there was some scheme that helped towards the cost, but I can't remember the details: My wife reminded me it was actually 2020 when this happened as we were doing our '1 hour walk' thing and he would have a chat to us as we went past.

Not a very good photo, but you can see the tiled section of my house on the top right of the picture. The lower section under the living room window was cavity filled, so it's just the front wall of the main and larger of the spare bedrooms. Maybe not quite so critical now I think about it as we tend to have the bedroom window open pretty much all the time as you can just see in this picture:

View attachment 1764302
I might be being a touch dim here - but the walls look normal to me - in that they look as though they're normal brick. I thought exterior wall insulation looked like plaster.
 

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