Electricity goes up tomorrow

woodbine said:

My electricity goes down 7% tomorrow, although the £60 a month help we all got last year won't be repeated this year.
For heating we use LPG cylinders which I'm lead to understand has reduced by 18% this week.

stormy said:

Bettahm said:

Jimm_Scope said:

I believe my energy bill is also coming down. They keep trying to have us switch to a year fixed so part of me wonders if it'll keep dropping. They tried very hard to get us to switch to a year fixed the last time prices went down, telling us there's no guarantee it would go down again in October (there isn't a guarantee, but there's also no guarantee it'll go up...).

We live in a rather poorly-insulated large house. Our bills last month were very scary, a few hundred a month, private rent or I'd have had it done last year. Hopefully we have a warmer winter as well as the bills being reduced.

I live in an old house . It's got loft insulation, double glazed but no cavity walls just 9 inch thick solid walls so does get cold.
Dont know if heating oil will come down it was 400 minimum spend earlier this month.

Yeah the thick the stone wall is bad for heating costs. They just absorb the heat, never to release (unless its right next to a fireplace). Mine are 33" thick... with no heating it goes down to about 7C at times.

I think we got £200 for not having mains gas last year- I dunno if we are getting that again.

Jimm_Scope said:

I'm thinking back to my history of YE OLDEN DAYS and I remember they would hang rugs, tapestries, cloth from the thick stone walls to try and insulate them. Obviously something that would cost unless you happen to have rugs lying around... well, lying around and not being used as rugs. And even then I'm not really sure you'd be saving much? I have heard draught excluders can be well worth their cost though if you can find draughts still not covered.

woodbine said:

Isn't heating oil best brought in the summer when its cheaper?

It hasn't come down much since it was one pound a litre. It's still 400 for the minimum spend. And it might go up I guess as we get into winter. A few years back it was between 250 and 300 in winter and just under 200 in summer.

poppy123456 said:

There’s the household support fund still running. Contact your local authority because heating costs is one of the things this supports. Full details here https://www.gov.uk/cost-living-help-local-council
The earlier you apply for this the better because each LA will have different funding amounts and some areas will have less than others. Definitely worth making enquiries. 

My son and his partner live on the edge of a mountain, literally. Their house is about 200 years old and they have no gas in the village they live in either. Their only source of heating is oil and I remember them telling me last year that it was about £500. Their house is freezing!! I stayed there last winter for a couple of nights… never again in the winter 😂 never been so cold! 🥶

Jimm_Scope said:

Old housing is such an issue in the UK, and the new builds are being built in a way that they're only "serviceable" for so many decades. Even affects public buildings, see the recent RAAC school crisis.

I understand the want to switch to heat pumps due to cheaper long-term + environmental benefits, but most housing just isn't built for them. Much like @Bettahm's housing wasn't built for modern heating methods.

There has to be a compromise between keeping historically relevant buildings and having homes that stay warm without losing an arm and a leg.