Toying with the idea of moving somewhere, hopefully, a little quieter and a little bigger. The question I am wondering is how much difference does house size make to the costs. going from a small victorian two bed terrace to a medium sized 60's semi, I assume will use more energy as the rooms have more air needing heating. Is there anyway to get a feel for what the cost is likely to be to help figure out what is actually realistic.
Ask the sellers what their current monthly spend is?
FWIW, I moved from a 1 bed victorian ground floor flat spending £60p/m on combined electric /gas to a 3 bed, detached 1976 built house - 4x the size of house and bills only went up by 30%...
Energy efficiency is everything!
Ask the sellers what their current monthly spend is?
Better to ask them what their consumption is.
We moved from an 1860s two up two down end terrace to a 1960s bungalow that was much larger and we also worried about running costs at the time, new house ended up being slightly cheaper to heat and feels cosier, I'd pretty much rebuilt the terraced house and gone nuts with the insulation whilst we'd been living there. I'm currently doing the same in the bungalow to reduce costs further 🙂
I'd sat type of house, and it's level of insultation and boiler can trump size. Our old place was from about 1910, you could run the heating full-whack all day and there would still be cold rooms and drafts, our current place is a little smaller, but uses half the Gas.
Thanks, gives some handy questions to ask, re loft insulation, boiler and walls then. But in theory shouldn't be a big issue.
Could ask to see their recent bills and look at energy consumption but it may depend on their lifestyle.
Our first couple of bills when we moved in were huge, it would have been over £3k per year. I assume that was a continuation of what the previous owners had spent (it was a set monthly spend, not based on meter readings at that point), as we were keeping the same supplier. We cut the costs in half, partly through fixing a number of gaping draughts, partly through setting a lower temperature.
Will quite possibly be back up there next year at current rates though!
We've just moved...
• Old house - 3 bed Victorian semi on the side of a hill. Always windy, difficult to keep warm. Dual energy bill was due to go up to £270/month.
• New house - 2 bed semi, sheltered location. We've just taken over with the previous supplier to the house (Shell Energy) and they have predicted £154.00/month for dual energy on current variable rates and they have all the history through Smart meter readings.
...so, yes it can make a big difference!
Did cost us nearly 8k in fees to move though. 🙂
Make sure lots of glass on sunny side with no near obstructions, I have 2 south facing flats I bet the tenants v rarely use any heating, just for water.
Vendors will give you a guide but they may not be bothered 're cost, max out insulation and glass on sunny side, let the sun do all the work. Some houses are just dark and gloomy.
Probably not too relevant on old properties but you can get the epc certification online for houses quite easily to compare. Just need the 2 post codes
