Have you put your heating on yet?

[Babylon]

On 07/12/2022 at 17:52, Raj said:

You need to get that mo eye into YOUR account not leave it in credit with BG.

Fair enough a couple of hundred in credit over winter, but ask for a refund asap.

 

By the way your daily G&E amount is insane...what you got a mansion??

I’ve done £14 today in a 3 bed semi that well insulated and a decent boiler. It’s more than average but three cloths washes, two tumble dries and a roast chicken has pumped it up. Average is about £7-£10 a day at the moment.

[Raj]

7 hours ago, Babylon said:

I’ve done £14 today in a 3 bed semi that well insulated and a decent boiler. It’s more than average but three cloths washes, two tumble dries and a roast chicken has pumped it up. Average is about £7-£10 a day at the moment.

Same here mate.

BUT I'd be interested to get the final bill for the month, I'm sure it wont be £300 pcm which suggests to me smart meters arent that accurate.

 

 

[Free Falling Foxes]

3 hours ago, Raj said:

Same here mate.

BUT I'd be interested to get the final bill for the month, I'm sure it wont be £300 pcm which suggests to me smart meters arent that accurate.

 

 

They do appear to not be too 'smart'.

Yesterday ours indicated via its little flame indicator, we were using gas.

The cooker was off and the boiler wasn't firing.

I switched the thing off, then back on and it then read correctly. It seems to hang on the previous reading.

I hope the meter is sending the correct info to BG.

[FoyleFox]

Our smart meter and bills seem to be reasonably well aligned cost wise. Although the smart meter records a calendar month and our billing cycle is 4th - 3rd, which is a bit annoying.

[The Blur]

I am probably being little paranoid but I cannot get my head around why energy companies are encouraging smart meters when it is likely be better financially for them to rely on estimated readings by lazy households?  

 

Will you be able to still check traditional meter readings to ensure the bills are accurate?

Edited 12 December 2022 by The Blur

[Mickyblueeyes]

We’re at just over £100 (both E&G) for this month (up to the 10th). Roughly that will be £300 for this month. I think we will hit that figure next month too. But it will even itself out. Feb, March, April always have less use and we are at around £150 Oct/November. 
 

I feel for those who are genuinely choosing when to switch it on. 

[StanSP]

9 hours ago, The Blur said:

Will you be able to still check traditional meter readings to ensure the bills are accurate?

Yep, with Ovo we've still been able to submit the actual meter readings on their website. 

[The Blur]

46 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Yep, with Ovo we've still been able to submit the actual meter readings on their website. 

 

Do you do that to ensure accuracy while using smart meter as a guide towards your spending?  Is this a temporary arrangement until you have greater confidence in your smart meter?

Edited 13 December 2022 by The Blur

[StanSP]

35 minutes ago, The Blur said:

 

Do you do that to ensure accuracy while using smart meter as a guide towards your spending?  Is this a temporary arrangement until you have greater confidence in your smart meter?

I've only done it once or twice and that's more recently because of the heating being on and the gas cost shooting up. 

 

I've noticed the cost sometimes shoots up on the smart meter for gas, but when we've checked our bills and usage online, it's actually stayed pretty steady with only a slight increase at the weekends so far in terms of cost. 

 

So I wouldn't trust the smart meter 100%. Before the central heating went on, it was fairly similar to what we were seeing online, as in smart meter readings tallied up with elec/gas usage online. 

 

So I'll keep submitting a manual reading every now and then just to make sure I know I'm being billed correctly. 

 

The good thing for us is that we're quite a lot in credit thanks to higher DD in summer which we budgeted for. So I'm hoping there's no dramatic rebalancing act on OVO's end which takes all that away. 

[Monk]

Moved house a year ago to a new build which is fairly efficient, but previous owner had put a hot tub in…. Which has been off now since the price went up. Also have an electric car and our bill has been £300 ish for the past month or two. 
 

Luckily we are £500 in credit from Shell whacking up our DD earlier in the year. Won’t last long though!

 

-7° degrees here in Scotland this morning so very thankful to be able to put the heating on and thinking of others who cannot. 

[Scotch]

1 hour ago, Monk said:

Moved house a year ago to a new build which is fairly efficient, but previous owner had put a hot tub in…. Which has been off now since the price went up. Also have an electric car and our bill has been £300 ish for the past month or two. 
 

Luckily we are £500 in credit from Shell whacking up our DD earlier in the year. Won’t last long though!

 

-7° degrees here in Scotland this morning so very thankful to be able to put the heating on and thinking of others who cannot. 

I'm in a similar, very fortunate situation. 

 

We moved into a council owned newbuild last year but we are very fortunate in that the 100 odd houses in  our site is heated by a communal biomass boiler. We don't even contribute to running it, it's funded by the scottish government so the highest our bill has ever ben was £14 a month but is usually around the £2 mark. Our electricity is also offset by solar panels although not by much, we still pay around £90 a month.  

 

I can't lie, I feel very lucky that we moved in when we did but still can't help feel guilty that we are in this position when others are struggling. Especially since the biomass boiler that runs our home is run and maintained on tax payer money. 

[Milo]

30 minutes ago, Scotch said:

I'm in a similar, very fortunate situation. 

 

We moved into a council owned newbuild last year but we are very fortunate in that the 100 odd houses in  our site is heated by a communal biomass boiler. We don't even contribute to running it, it's funded by the scottish government so the highest our bill has ever ben was £14 a month but is usually around the £2 mark. Our electricity is also offset by solar panels although not by much, we still pay around £90 a month.  

 

I can't lie, I feel very lucky that we moved in when we did but still can't help feel guilty that we are in this position when others are struggling. Especially since the biomass boiler that runs our home is run and maintained on tax payer money. 

That’s amazing. 
 

What a great concept - I’ve never heard of that before. 
 

Looks like an option for the way forward. Octopus look like they were doing something similar, with trying to store energy generated by solar panels from their customers, and use it to supply other customers at a reduced rate. 

[grobyfox1990]

54 minutes ago, Scotch said:

I'm in a similar, very fortunate situation. 

 

We moved into a council owned newbuild last year but we are very fortunate in that the 100 odd houses in  our site is heated by a communal biomass boiler. We don't even contribute to running it, it's funded by the scottish government so the highest our bill has ever ben was £14 a month but is usually around the £2 mark. Our electricity is also offset by solar panels although not by much, we still pay around £90 a month.  

 

I can't lie, I feel very lucky that we moved in when we did but still can't help feel guilty that we are in this position when others are struggling. Especially since the biomass boiler that runs our home is run and maintained on tax payer money. 

Good to hear schemes like this exist. Increasingly corporates aren't looking to 'protect' their sustainability knowledge, but share it with the market to test and upskill together. Works much better than trying to gain competitive advantage for yourself plus the obvs social benefits. Hopefully you get more of them launching schemes like this, instead of leaving it to the state. 

[yorkie1999]

On 12/12/2022 at 05:44, Raj said:

Same here mate.

BUT I'd be interested to get the final bill for the month, I'm sure it wont be £300 pcm which suggests to me smart meters arent that accurate.

 

 

As far as i can tell, they don't take eco 7 into account.

[Jattdogg]

-11 over here right now. The heat is cranking away but then again our prices arent insane like yours. Natural gas heated home and im paying maybe $125-$135 or so a month which is like £80 and thats high. Normally was $98 (£58) before pandemic. I will say though i keep my house at 22 max and 21 low. Its too cold over here to let it drop further at least for us but i can manage if i have to.  Extra layers help no doubt.

 

Incredibly thankful to have heat on and not have to pay the crazy fees some of you are mentioning.

 

Now the electric bill is higher though. We get one every other month so im guessing its like $200 on average per month. Our electric bils us for water monthly but electric every other month. 

 

Really hope you can all stay warm this winter.

[Raj]

16 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

As far as i can tell, they don't take eco 7 into account.

Yes they do because you can amend the hours on the smart meter for when  your eco 7 is from.

[yorkie1999]

7 minutes ago, Raj said:

Yes they do because you can amend the hours on the smart meter for when  your eco 7 is from.

On the actual smart meter or the IHD?

[Raj]

27 minutes ago, yorkie1999 said:

On the actual smart meter or the IHD?

On the smart meter.

Our eco 7 is 0030- 7.30 so I gas to change our smart meter accordingly.

 

Edited 13 December 2022 by Raj

[Lako42]

45 minutes ago, Jattdogg said:

-11 over here right now. The heat is cranking away but then again our prices arent insane like yours. Natural gas heated home and im paying maybe $125-$135 or so a month which is like £80 and thats high. Normally was $98 (£58) before pandemic. I will say though i keep my house at 22 max and 21 low. Its too cold over here to let it drop further at least for us but i can manage if i have to.  Extra layers help no doubt.

 

Incredibly thankful to have heat on and not have to pay the crazy fees some of you are mentioning.

 

Now the electric bill is higher though. We get one every other month so im guessing its like $200 on average per month. Our electric bils us for water monthly but electric every other month. 

 

Really hope you can all stay warm this winter.

Yep, we are being heavily shafted in the UK. 

[Greg2607]

we and my wife both work from home (mainly, we do 1 day a week in the office)

 

I've just been downstairs to make lunch and it's 13.5 degrees on the thermostat and it feels like i might as well stand outside. It's bitter. 

 

it's thoroughly depressing (not in the clinical sense) to live in a house that cold, but we simply couldn't afford to heat the whole house for the entire time that we are working from home. 

 

We are in a new build, albeit, it's a 3 storey, 5 bed house, so we have to be really picky on which rooms we heat. 

 

I don't even heat my office during the day, as it's south facing, so by the afternoon it's warmed up alot..... 

 

what a grim situation everyone is in. 

 

I'm tempted to get a log burner installed and just have that running all day instead. 

[FoyleFox]

18 minutes ago, Raj said:

On the smart meter.

Our eco 7 is 0030- 7.30 so I gas to change our smart meter accordingly.

 

I've not seen anything on our smart meter regarding our E7, it knows because it lists the charges separately on our bill.

[grobyfox1990]

9 minutes ago, Greg2607 said:

we and my wife both work from home (mainly, we do 1 day a week in the office)

 

I've just been downstairs to make lunch and it's 13.5 degrees on the thermostat and it feels like i might as well stand outside. It's bitter. 

 

it's thoroughly depressing (not in the clinical sense) to live in a house that cold, but we simply couldn't afford to heat the whole house for the entire time that we are working from home. 

 

We are in a new build, albeit, it's a 3 storey, 5 bed house, so we have to be really picky on which rooms we heat. 

 

I don't even heat my office during the day, as it's south facing, so by the afternoon it's warmed up alot..... 

 

what a grim situation everyone is in. 

 

I'm tempted to get a log burner installed and just have that running all day instead. 

Christ, is it worth going into the office more to warm up? When i was at my old job a few of us did a cost/benefit analysis (can't remember what price we put on being 'warm') to figure out if it was more cost efficient, baring in mind train fare, to go into the office rather than switch the heating on. For some it was. 

[FoxesDeb]

43 minutes ago, Raj said:

On the smart meter.

Our eco 7 is 0030- 7.30 so I gas to change our smart meter accordingly.

 

You can't change settings on your meter can you? Do you mean the in home display rather than the actual meter?

[yorkie1999]

Just now, FoxesDeb said:

You can't change settings on your meter can you? Do you mean the in home display rather than the actual meter?

That's what i would like to know because as far as i can tell, the eco 7 doesn't get sent to the IHD so it shows how much leccy i've used at the full rate.

[Raj]

36 minutes ago, FoxesDeb said:

You can't change settings on your meter can you? Do you mean the in home display rather than the actual meter?

Oh yes sorry the in home display.