Gas/Electricity Price Increases

[elsiegee40]

Article on the Which? website contained this table of most expensive appliances to run

 

The full article including energy saving tips may be behind their paywall.

They do say descale your kettle, defrost your freezer, stack your dishwasher so that it’s completely full before you use it and dry your laundry on racks or outdoors if possible.

 

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/find-out-how-much-your-household-appliances-cost-to-run-aP1BZ7f2GNYd

Edited November 20, 2022 by elsiegee40

[mavhc]

Article on the Which? website contained this table of most expensive appliances to run

[ATTACH]67183[/ATTACH]

 

The full article including energy saving tips may be behind their paywall.

They do say descale your kettle, defrost your freezer, stack your dishwasher so that it’s completely full before you use it and dry your laundry on racks or outdoors if possible.

 

https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/find-out-how-much-your-household-appliances-cost-to-run-aP1BZ7f2GNYd

 

Assuming it's in the print issue, check your local library for a copy.

 

Were people not doing all those things and just wasting money for the past 30 years then?

 

More top tips: Don't leave things on that you're not using, shut doors, use the free sun.

[mikeprice]

A few days ago I saw a money saving item on several websites

 

Now normally I am very scheptical about these as they are often either overly simplistic/obvious (e.g. boiling less water uses less energy)

Or sometimes are ignoring the basic manner in which devices operate - gnoring the fact that a thermostat operates being a common one

 

 

However, this was something I hadn;t thought of and was uncertain of the effect of.

 

The suggestion was that you should turn down the circulating temperature of the central heating system as most are set up far too high for the maximum efficiency of the boiler

 

The suggestion included some figures - some thing like

houses built in 1980-1990 - 60 degrees

1990-2000 55 degrees

2000-2010 50 degrees

 

It also suggested that if you can drop it to 45 degrees that you should consider switching to a heat pump but if you can;t then a heat pump is not suitable without other changes

 

 

 

Anyway - we looked (OK I looked) and the boiler was set to 72 degrees - so I dropped it to 60 degrees as suggested

 

As a result the house actually seems to be warmer in the evenings

In fact we have dropped the room thermostat down by 2 degrees

 

I am presuming that the radiators are slightly cooler (OK 12 degrees or so) and so the room temperature climbs more slowly

Hence the thermostat - which is at the far end of the room to the main radiator - sees a more constant temperature as the slightly cooler radiators down over heat the room before the thermostat can react

 

Seems to be working anyway - just wondering if teh boiler is burning for longer - whether or not we a re actually saving gas

 

AT the moment I am just assuming that we are!!

[Andrew_C]

In an ideal world (yeah right) you would modulate the flow temperature dependent on the difference between your current temperature and the set point. Some modern boilers can do this out of the box, some have options, and there's a "grey market" for parts for others that can, but the mfrs don't "allow".

[mikeprice]

In an ideal world (yeah right) you would modulate the flow temperature dependent on the difference between your current temperature and the set point. Some modern boilers can do this out of the box, some have options, and there's a "grey market" for parts for others that can, but the mfrs don't "allow".

 

Hmm

 

any details of these ones that are 'not allowed"?

[E_G_R2]

Martin Lewis has been promoting this trick

[mavhc]

Measure the temp of the return flow pipe to the boiler, needs to be at most 50C, and lower is better, all the way to near freezing.

 

The lower it is the more of the extra 12% wasted heat you can recover.

 

The temp you need to stay warm however depends on the outside temp, and the size of your radiators, so weather compensation device will alter the flow temp as required

[southhamster]

This worked for us. 45C has saved us about 10?% of our oil. Unless it's below about 5C/windy outside when we have to bump it up to 65C or more. The boiler is undersized anyway, an old Worcester 14Kw open flue model. I'm waiting for it to die so we can replace with a heat pump.

[Andrew_C]

any details of these ones that are 'not allowed"?

Yep; mine. Can't remember what it is though. I'll look. The Dutch have a thriving DIY scene apparently, and you can order replacement circuit boards from there. CORGI might get upset though.

[mikeprice]

Is it legal to do some DIY on a gas boiler??

 

Or is there a point where you are allowed to 'fiddle' but you can;t go further

 

obviously if you fiddle with the actual gas system then it is not allowed unless you are Gas Safe registered

 

but what about other stuff??

[Andrew_C]

Vallient - https://myboiler.com/opentherm/vaillant-opentherm/

 

I'm not sure whether you can "legally" fiddle with the controls either.

[Dos_Box]

Just got an email from Bulb saying my payments have been reduced from £110 to £103. That's Christmas sorted then!

[mikeprice]

Just got an email from Hugo saying tha there is one of the Windtter cashback thingies TODAY for using less - I think - electric

No mention of gas

 

Oh and it is only between 5 and 6 pm

 

 

Anyway - though people should know

 

 

however it is annoying because I have been ill for the last few days -(I goda dold) so not much cooking has been done for that time

 

AND grand-daughter is coming round for a 'sleepover' (AKA spending a day away from brothers!) so potential for lowering energy is minimal!

 

Also - batteries for solar panale system have not been working properly for the last few days - which stops us 'cheating'

Edited December 1, 2022 by mikeprice

[mavhc]

It's not cheating, they want you to reduce load as much as possible

[elsiegee40]

Just got an email from Hugo saying tha there is one of the Windtter cashback thingies TODAY for using less - I think - electric

No mention of gas

 

Oh and it is only between 5 and 6 pm

 

 

Anyway - though people should know

 

 

however it is annoying because I have been ill for the last few days -(I goda dold) so not much cooking has been done for that time

 

AND grand-daughter is coming round for a 'sleepover' (AKA spending a day away from brothers!) so potential for lowering energy is minimal!

 

Also - batteries for solar panale system have not been working properly for the last few days - which stops us 'cheating'

 

We have had the same notice from Octopus (our supplier). Reminder set on my phone for 17:45 to go round and check everything is off if we aren’t still running on battery then. Luckily, the solar has barely registered for most of the month, so this morning’s sun will make a difference

Edited December 1, 2022 by elsiegee40

[TechMonkey]

AND grand-daughter is coming round for a 'sleepover' (AKA spending a day away from brothers!) so potential for lowering energy is minimal!

 

Candles, boardgames, hot chocolate. Proper sleep over

[LeMarchand]

I'm wondering if this "cut your bill by lowering usage during these hours" isn't just a ploy to get a load more on smart meters and when critical mass is reached the way forward will be price rise between peak hours etc.

[TechMonkey]

I'm wondering if this "cut your bill by lowering usage during these hours" isn't just a ploy to get a load more on smart meters and when critical mass is reached the way forward will be price rise between peak hours etc.

 

It will totally end that way, it is the logical conclusion, but that isn't a bad thing. I was Octopus Agile for a while and you just think about your usage a bit, pre-heat the oven before the peak slot, put appliances on overnight. Nothing could get anywhere near the price I was paying.

[mavhc]

There's already been a price rise in peak hours, you're just not paying it because you're paying more for non peak hours

[elsiegee40]

We have had the same notice from Octopus (our supplier). Reminder set on my phone for 17:45 to go round and check everything is off if we aren’t still running on battery then. Luckily, the solar has barely registered for most of the month, so this morning’s sun will make a difference

 

Just checked and apparently we saved 98% of our power in this hour and earned £5.05 (Mostly by turning off the electric heating in our conservatory which is also our dining room and eating off trays in front of the tv)

[HarryMonkey]

Has anyone had any experience with these? are they worth installing other than for "lazy" value (Alexa turn the heating down cos I can't be bothered to get off the sofa).

 

https://www.tado.com/gb-en/smart-thermostat-overview

[Marci]

Depends. I made my own smart thermostat, but ultimately the benefit of them all is where they key from and control over hysteresis (ie: lower threshold used to turn heat on, upper threshold to turn cooling on if available, target temperature sits between the two).

 

Assume a smarthome has temperature sensors per room, you should be able to make routines to switch so that when you're in bedroom at night, thermostat uses temperature of the bedroom. If you're in kitchen, uses the kitchen etc. And fine tuning hysteresis can make for more efficient use of the heating (depends how quick your house loses heat / heats up).

 

All depends on your overall smart-home setup really. I have motion/occupancy sensors per room with integrated temperature sensors, so "the system" (Domoticz in my case) knows what room it needs to key from (which room has most people in it), whether I'm in the house or not, what the condensation point is, what the temperature outside is etc, so there is no "Alexa turn the heating down" cos the system's already worked out for itself that it can be turned down and done it.

[robyholmes]

Has anyone had any experience with these? are they worth installing other than for "lazy" value (Alexa turn the heating down cos I can't be bothered to get off the sofa).

 

https://www.tado.com/gb-en/smart-thermostat-overview

We have starter kit plus five thermostatic radiator valves. For us we have a irregular pattern home/away so we've paid the small yearly fee to have to auto geofencing to turn the heating on and off.

 

Seems to work well, I'm sure it saves money but not sure how much as we've only just moved house so have no real before data.

 

The radiator valves don't report room temp very well, but good enough for small rooms. A larger room (Living room, master bedroom for example) would benifit from a room stat, but costs add up so not done that yet.

[jmak]

Has anyone had any experience with these? are they worth installing other than for "lazy" value (Alexa turn the heating down cos I can't be bothered to get off the sofa).

 

https://www.tado.com/gb-en/smart-thermostat-overview

I ran them for a couple of years and was happy with them. I chose them specifically because of the geofencing facility as there were four of us with very random schedules. I believe Nest now has that facility, but both require a subscription. As an early adopter there was no ongoing charge for the geofencing facility.

 

The main downside was that none of the programming is held locally - it's all cloud based. That means that if the system loses internet connectivity it stays in the previous state. I was always slightly concerned that I'd come home to an empty oil tank because it had stayed on indefinitely.

[XiJ]

I’ve had Tado tor the best part of 8 years. Also an early adopter so no sub costs and I wanted it for the geolocation stuff too.

 

Tbh it’s been flawless. I don’t touch it, save a replacing batteries now and again - I can’t remember when I last needed to.

 

I suppose I have kept a close eye on the app in recent times with the cost of living. But mainly I’ve just lowered our minimum viable temperature !

 

I hate the subscription model for this kind of thing. If I was purchasing now I’d run home assistant and build a system myself. Other than that, 5 stars.