Vocal Voices

Since the beginning of December I have been checking my gas/elec usage to see how things are going.

For a flat with two bedrooms, dining room, lounge, bathroom / toilet and kitchen it comes to £2.44 per day, and that includes lighting and cooking. I do not think it's bad considering that, being retired, I am in most of the day.

The central heating is set at at 18ºC min and 21ºC max and is on and off via the timer between 8 am and 5 pm, but I sometimes use it manually on sunny days. In the evening I use an electric convection heater in the lounge when watching TV.

I think the figures are pretty good, though it has been a fairly mild winter, so far.

We get through two ton of logs a year, which cost us 240 euros.

Frank, you are organized!
Jan, if you run out of logs you could burn Burro's fence!

We have air-conditioning units that, should we choose, supply warmth in the short winter months but as we hate aircon in the summer we dislike just as much the dry heat it supplies.

Our spreadsheet for when it gets colder is put a jumper on.

Reason 241 for moving to southern Spain.

#lowleckiebills

Our monthly gas bill is relatively high in the winter (central heating, hot water) but virtually Nil in the summer - that's because we have a solar thermal panel that provides unlimited hot water as long as the sun's out, and we wouldn't put the heating on anyway.

It confuses the hell out of E.On's algorithms and sends the monthly direct debit up and down like a yoyo …….

That's very reasonable Frank!

Ally

Frank, do you have a smart meter or how did you work out those costs?

To be honest, my bills come out via direct debit each month so I don't even think about how much I spend / use. I'm lucky that I don't have to worry (yet) about the costs and when I'm home I want to be comfortable and have things working as they should.

But saying all that - I am quite conscious of wasting electricity and make sure I switch off whatever can be switched off when it's not in use.

TheOstrich wrote:Our monthly gas bill is relatively high in the winter (central heating, hot water) but virtually Nil in the summer - that's because we have a solar thermal panel that provides unlimited hot water as long as the sun's out, and we wouldn't put the heating on anyway.

It confuses the hell out of E.On's algorithms and sends the monthly direct debit up and down like a yoyo …….

Is the solar panel on your roof Os?
That sounds like it could be a good investment in the long term.

Not smart meters, Ria, as the landlord has it on pre-pay, but a push of a button on each tells me how much was used in the previous 24 hrs.

And like you I am also a turner-offerer. It bugs me no end to see lights on or heaters on in empty rooms: I want to scream!

Yes, Crommers, it's a single panel on the roof. We inherited it when we moved into the house 3 years back, but the system leaked (basically, glycol is heated up by the sun's rays in the panel and pumped around a transfer circuit to heat the hot water tank), and as we couldn't find any engineer who'd take the responsibility of repairing it (they all took one look at it and said it was a very Heath Robinson installation), we had a choice of having it taken out or replacing it entirely.

We eventually had a new system installed. It cost around £5k and I reckon we might save around £100-£150 a year in fuel costs. So, Eco-friendly? Well yes, I guess. Cost effective? Absolutely not.

And the rub is, when I remarked to one of the installers that, oh well, at least we'd get hot water if there was an electricity outage, he replied no you won't, the pump needs electric to operate. Doh!