The average bill is based on 2.4 people in an SD house in and is equated to ~2900kWh of electricity use and 12000kWh of equivalent gas usage.
Meaning each individual (as an average) consumes ~1200kWh of electric and 5000kWh of gas.
The new charge rate is £0.52/kWh for electric and £0.15p/kWh for gas. With a daily standing charge of £0.47 and £0.28 for electric and gas respectively.
Using the average numbers - we’d be looking at 4800kWh of electric and 20000kWh of gas. Including the day rate, that would put us at an astonishing £6000 a year for the 4 of us.
In reality, we consume about 6000kWh of electric and about 12000kWh of oil. 1200l. So we’re at £4500 a year. With oil at £1/l.
Forecasters are saying that by next year, it will be a further 80% higher with the average expected to hit ~£5700. That would put us at ~£8000 a year or £675 a month. Wow.
how warm do people keep their houses to use 12000 kwh's of gas? I'm onlt 4200khw for keeping a 2 bedroom at 21C all winter round. I basically turn off the heating from may till october mind you.
It may also be if you use gas to cook, etc. We use our electric hob/oven for around an hour every day, @3kWh so over 1/4 of our electric usage is just for cooking.
No idea. It's not like there's much choice. Bill comes in, gets paid, house warm.
I just looked and ours are roughly 17000kwh gas and 2300kwh elec per year.
Victorian 4 bed town house over 3 floors. Limited insulation potential but we've done what we can. Thermostat set at 18C for when we are in. 12C otherwise. One big difference last winter was that we were both working from home. My wife still is so we'll likely be burning more gas because of that. We're in Newcastle too, regional variations will matter. It is colder here than most places in England.
Last winter was quite mild. If we have a "beast from the east" situation it will be dire. We had temperatures below zero for weeks, I remember -15C being recorded, snow on the ground until April at sea level.
Not sure what we use, but we've just gone onto a one year fixed deal of £3600. We were paying about £110 per month before that. We are very fortunate that we can manage to deal with this.
I cannot fathom what many people are going through at the moment. It's horrific that the government aren't doing anything serious to help. And Ofgem? What is the point of them? I've seen that the Good Law Project are going to sue them on not doing an impact assessment of the price cap rises.
Electricity at 4368kwh and Gas at 1538kwh - three bedroom Victorian semi, family of four. Martin Lewis site says we are going from £1636 to £2886 but that must be wrong, as our bill (DD) currently average £236 a month projected to £403 by my calculations, so £4800p.a. Oct - April, then £6400p.a. April - Oct. I’m hoping that Mrs K’s employment contract is renewed in November.
I noted Sky news are reporting that on average circumstances you’ll need to be earning £45k pa to afford your bills over the next two years / until this is resolved.
Leccy at 3900kwh is £2190
Gas at 4200kwh is £730
So all in £2920 probably looking at £4k+ in jan.
Off the scale tbh, considering I was paying £80 a month (£960) till a year or 2 ago.
Large 4 bedroom detached, no insulation in the walls as 60s timber frame.
10,356 kWh electric, 24,839 kWh gas.
Current cost £4,619, future £9,111.19
High electric cost is I think due to 2 rooms with electric under floor heating. I can improve the insulation for those rooms as there's a boarded outer skin in that area rather than a brick skin, I can remove that, insulate and re-board.
Another big cost would have been old school through the wall tumble dryer. I've replaced it with a heat pump one this week as it was knackered anyway.
Is there any easy way to determine power used by circuit?
how warm do people keep their houses to use 12000 kwh’s of gas?
We used 12800 last year.
Small 3 bed mid 19th century cottage, half double glazed, half interior walls insulated, solid brick walls, 8 year old combi, gas hob.
Stat set to 18. But 2 people WFH all week.
The rest of the house now double glazed and smart stats in all rooms should help bring that down a bit, but probably not significantly.
Based on the last 12 months:
Electric 4700kWh
Gas 9000kWh.
That’s with us as home workers, not really having any real consideration for use of either gas or electric & charging a Tesla at home, 3 times a month on average. Just some quick maths shows half our electric bill is charging the car, which is still considerably cheaper to use than a ICE vehicle (and it’s effectively free as is a Co Car) & probably 2 of those charges are covered under business use expenses.
Gas is just heating & water for us, everything else is electric. This year we are going to do a test, as we have a couple of wood burning stoves, live in a forest, so have ~3t of hardwood to use, instead of running the heating all day in winter. (Looking at our usage on Octopus, we use significantly more gas in one month of winter than the remaining 9 months of the year when the heating isn’t even on!).
So:
Electric 4700 x 0.52 + SDC = £2615. Expect to recover ~£1000 through expenses = £1615 net.
Gas (expecting to halve use minimum) 4500 x 0.15 + SDC = £800 ish.
Actual cost to us, about £2500 a year.
I've no idea of my annual usage but my leccy is 20.49p per kWh and standing charge is 27.4p.. That's on a fixed rate until Sept 2024.
We also have LPG. That's 27p per litre (is that about 3.8 p per kWh?) until March 2023. I expect that to jump sharply but at least we'll get this winter done.
Gas: 26,000kwh pa
Electric: 4200kwh pa
We're still on a fixed rate til April 2023, so paying £224 per month, up from £144 on the last fix.
1920s 3 bed semi in the northwest in an exposed location, gas for cooking, heating and water. 2 people working from home permanently
House very draughty due to bare floorboards, so even with heating on full blast it's never warm.
Cavity insulation not possible. Will be looking to replace floors asap.
Our wood supplier was offering the same rates as last year and even did us a deal on 5M cubic for 500 quid. Going to see how long we can last just using the wood burner and just put the CH on for drying clothes on the rads.
I ordered 4 cube for the first time in years. Speakinf to others in my area most are planning to burn lots more than recent years due to wood being comparable manageable compared to the electric or the oil bills. One neighbours in lpg in the form of 48kg calor tins he's being bled dry.
We are 2400kwh/year for 3 in a 3 bed semi. + Circa 800l oil and in a typical year get through 2 cube of wood. - put 6 in the store for this year.
Gas 12,800 kWh
Electricity 4205kWh
Calculated new monthly DD for gas/electric will be £355/Month which is approx 4 times what it was about 18 months ago)
3 bed 80's detached brick-build with double glazing and reasonable insulation (roof needs more). 25+ year old gas boiler though so I suspect that could help if we replaced it, but not sure how to do the maths...
We use 5000kwh of elec,and 30000 kWh of gas per year.
So we're looking at around 8-9k per year at the new prices.
Time to buy a new jumper
Only been in this house for 4 months so no detailed usage yet. 2 bed 1920s semi, 2 of us living here.
Currently paying £170 a month for dual fuel. That’s after Shell advised increased DD to allow for this latest rise.
Would have been £400+ easily at our old house.
£300 a month here now.
Can do better. No closed door way from open plan lounge/dining room to our room in the attic. A few thick curtains will help.
Have a log burner which will be used far more this winter than previous when it was used at weekends etc.
Using the air fryer instead of the oven.
Turning things off at the plug - the microwave is a bugger for eating leccy on standby.
Lay z spa going away forever. Loved it in winters when it was at 40c all through the cold season.
Plan on setting the nest to 18c and wearing warmer clothing instead of lying on the sofa in boxer shorts when it's snowing outside.
Recently went part time.... Already gone full time again. :-/
Next year my kids will be doing homework by candlelight whilst I salt meat and the wife does needlework on the socks before I, as the man of the house, get to have a bath first before they all have my tepid water.
Not really sure of the cost. However, I did think initially I’d be Ok and absorb it. Not now with the increase earlier in the year and now 2 more due. I’ll have to look at my bills and make saving across them.
EDF on the ball, no, not really.
We are on a standard variable tariff, but paying a fixed amount every month. Catch up over the summer, and fall back over the winter, has been working OK for the last few years.
I increased our DD by 50%, as we have had nothing from them saying that our bills were going to go up.
Couple of days later I had a message from them saying that they were going to increase the DD to cover the expected increase... to the same amount as I had upped ours to already. Going to look at the numbers and probably increase the DD again to double what we were paying originally. We are lucky that this is affordable for us, as long as other stuff is kept in check. I can't see how other people are going to cope.
Are we heading for a 'Food Bank' system to help those in need who can't meet their energy bills??
Heating is LPG which has only gone up marginally on my recent 2 year fix. We’re currently using £125 per month on electric but that includes a Plug in hybrid. For those with a smart meter you can get an app called Loop which integrates with the SM and gives you quite a bit of useful data. We were away for a couple of days last week and still using £1.44 when not in the house which seems quite a bit. Double that number for the upcoming rise then x365 and it comes to a grand!
4500lts of kero a year ish
Not looking forward to putting the heating on in Autumn
I'm picking up another couple of cubic metres of wood tomorrow, 100 quid basically. Should see me through the winter with the 3 or so i have in the wood shed already.
Electricity bills are only up 10-15% as i got a fixed rate deal in january. But everything else is going up, so have to be careful.
~£200 most months, it'll peak at about 275 in dec/jan/feb.
Neighbour missed the boat on the good fixed rate deals, so his bills are up 250% already, and increasing, he's paying spot rate as most suppliers aren't offering anything sensible on fixed rate deals.
So he's just ordered 10 cu metres of wood for delivery and having a look at recommisioning his pellet burner (as even pellets are "better" than electricity for heating at the moment.)
Doesn't help that his wife likes the house at t-shirt and shorts temperature all year round, even when it's -25 outside.
Only gas i have to worry about is for the hob, and that's an 11 kilo bottle a couple of times a year!
No idea on usage as haven't checked but was paying £140 per month for gas and electric. Raised it to £200 per month a few months back and that's been difficult to manage.
They want £289 per month the last I checked a few weeks ago and that's before the next lot of price hikes. Really struggling to afford it now let alone what's to come.
Honestly don't know what I'm going to do.
I'm really worried and really scared.
The average bill is based on 2.4 people in an SD house in and is equated to ~2900kWh of electricity use and 12000kWh of equivalent gas usage.
Very close to average here. 3 bed semi. Two people.
Approx 12000Kwh gas last year. CH and cooking. Which would be about £1800 for gas next year before further rises. On the other hand 40 year old boiler has been replaced. Better controls. Loft insulation doubled to 200mm.
Along with keeping the house cooler I expect gas use to go down at least 25%.
Electricity - 3200Kwh last year. So cost around £1850 at October rates. Minor savings by turning off pond pump Nov - April. Training Mrs IRC not to use TV as background noise all day but don't expect much reduction.
2 bed terrace in Bristol.
2 adults at home pretty much all day every day.
Gas - 8000-9000 kWh (ish)
Leccy - 2500 kWh (ish)
We're with Good Energy which isn't bound by the cap. Been paying about £190 a month for most of this year, and we've gone slightly into credit over the summer. That will be gone soon enough!
I just plugged annual numbers into Octopus and looks like we'll be on to ca £300/month. At least until the next cap increase.
That's not quite enough really but when the writing was on the wall I increased my payments to £200/month already so have quite a positive balance just now. Hopefully we can also reduce usage as well - we're not quite Weeksy levels of blaseness but I'm not exactly draconian on enforcing jumper wearing and carrot eating tactics, instead the house is frequently lit up like Piccadilly by teenagers that can't operate a light switch. Until now - so hopefully with a bit more control and DD off to Uni in a month, that number gets a bit lower still (or rather I can buffer against the next increase a bit more)
And if the Gov do finally step in - I'll ask for the excess back
ive just calculated some averages over the last 33 months use
3 bed 30s semi, solid brick walls, moderate roof insulation, decent double glazing and the biggy is ALL space heating is 2 wood stoves (more or less, gas C/H may get used briefly). 2 adults, then a 7yo, 5yo and a 2.2yo
if my numbers are right
gas is 2890kWh per year (hot water and cooking....I will be encouraging shorter showers and less bath water!)
electric 2216kWh per year
electric I think must be driven by the tumble dryer, washing machine and dishwasher. 3 kids = lots of washing and washing up. last winter and again this we will use clothes horse in front of stoves to do a lot of clothes drying, washing is done at 30C and I've taken to turing the dishwasher off 20 mins into its drying cycle to save the cost of the last 30 mins (wtf does it have a 50 minute drying cycle!?)
hmm...must be an error in those numbers as that works out at £1860 for the year now and thats a bit less than I was paying before the last increase....I need to check again!
Honestly don’t know what I’m going to do.
I’m really worried and really scared.
There were two people on BBC Breakfast this morning giving very good advice (one from CAB, can’t remember where other one was from).
Basic summary was if you are struggling you must flag it up with your energy supplier - there are processes they have to put in place.
They were on about 8.30 ish - well worth watching on catch-up.
Just ordered heating oil, basically double what it was this time last year.
Solid smokeless fuel is up 50% for my stove.
I have a electricity deal that tied me in for 5 years, has 2 more years to run. It's with British Gas Lite, so hopefully shouldn't go to the wall. 15.54p kwh.
The people who we bought our house off put loads of insulation in, it stays very warm. We don't bother with the upstairs heating even in winter. Occasionally when it's zero and below, we put a rad on for a hour or so before we go to bed.
So it's going up but it's manageable for now.
Looks like I am one of the fortunate ones.
Per year:
No gas
2m3 of wood which comes from neighbours' gardens
-200kWh elcectricity roughly, it depends on how much we use the car, and yes that's a minus sign.
We use 10000kWh as we have a car and on a dual tariff for evening.
Not had any details the whole EDF site and app is woefully behind.
They only bill twice a year for some reason.
Based on last year, £3700 on the October figures, projected over £4000 with the January uplift. Heating is on 16 mornings, 18 evenings, can't realistically go below that.
Can't happen because we don't have that money to pay.
Just bought a chainsaw from screwfix. £43, going to scavenge all the free wood I can and dry clothes in front of the fire.
Will switch to showering at work.
Strategic office location choice will give me one free car charge a week, can eek this out for 6 days.
Can't see any other way. Electric oven doesn't really get turned on anymore.
Biggest saving for us is living at the South end of the country, We're way below average gas consumption, presumably mostly due to geography.
c1800kWh of electric, 6000kWh gas. 3 bed mid terrace with very good loft insulation and some underfloor insulation I put in years ago. Easy to keep warm in winter and cool in summer.
We currently pay £100pcm for both. That'll obviously need to go up in a months time to c£180 (But we are selling up and moving to France in 2 weeks so won't be our bill to pay)
Can’t happen because we don’t have that money to pay.
This is the problem. Both for households and businesses.
There is only so much you can do to save energy and the bills will still be more than people have.
A butcher shop owner, on the radio, electric going from £12k to £70k a year, that's him finished.
It still feels that the majority of our population have not grasped how absolutely devasting this is going to be.
Anyone else’s Bulb app suspiciously not working today?
I’m lucky (?) in more ways than 1
1 bed flat was costing approx £40 per month combined , then since April it’s been around £60, I figure that will go to around the £120 mark with the latest rise
Fortunately as a loan end this month I’ll be ok at least for now
Plus the £60 ish a month back from October till March will be a help
Downside is I’m on a prepayment meter with no ( affordable) option at present to change….. am not reall looking forward to the next cap hike already as I guess that will take me to £200 a month if not more looking at forecasts … or around 5 times as much as the beginning of this year 😭
Approx 7,000 kWh elec, 26,000 kWh Gas. Large 1980s 4 bed house in the country near the sea (so strong winds).3 of here full time (2 wfh) and 3 older kids who descend every now and then and take long showers and leave lights on. Gas is for ehating and HW only, elec for everything else, and we have solar panels that help too!
Have done insulation (but will see if I can do more on loft hatches in particular). No chimney so no free wood burning heating. Frankly I can't see how I can afford to put the heating on much at all - even 3 showers a day, plus one sink to wash up pans uses over 300 kWh of gas a month. Never use the tumble dryer, washing already on 30 degrees, all lights LED. Last winter we wore jumpers more, and sat under blankets in the evening.
Will be buying curtain liners and an air fryer to reduce heat loss / cooking times, plus electric blankets so we can turn off all heating upstairs.
Am currently using a plug in electricity use meter (one of these) to see if I can eliminate some other big uses of electricity. Can't afford to spend approx £8k on fuel per year. As we dont pay tax nor receive benefits I dont think we will get any external help. Not sure how much more we can do to be honest.
just saw this on Twitter. This is what is going to end a lot of small businesses.
97.05p kWh!!!!
https://twitter.com/RoseAndCrownBeb/status/1563451257376763908?s=20&t=z4lQJC-TzBIF-Ep_zP4HIA
holy cow jj! ouch!
ive checked my figures, found some small errors but hasn't changed overall....which means Shell have been over estimating my bill rather. it looks like (having just checked) since i've not been with them a year yet, they ust ake up a predicted useage. With the tariff changes, transfer from green when they went pop, and a silly big creditI'd bult up before, I'd not noticed shell were overcharing me so much. I feel a bit happier now.
I've also just discovered my shell account makes it really easy to a credit card payment which doesn't appear to incur extra charges. i get a little bit of cash back with barclays...its not much but if I dump what i can afford in via the credit card and set the DD low I'll save an extra few pounds....only a few quid but it all helps
According to uSwitch, my (combined) bill is going up 80%. So from £200 to £360.
I live on my own. Combi boiler, electric oven. Double glazed. Well insulated.
I cook every other day.
My curse is 3.5m high ceilings and full-time WFH. I'm investing in a smart thermostat and smart TRVs and I'll see how those help. Then take a look at my other options if necessary.
I rent but I can take the smart stuff with me when I move, in theory. But as it's likely to be to Portugal, I doubt they'll be much use 🙄
@ji do you need to shower every day? Even every other day with a decent wash in between would make a difference.
@ji do you need to shower every day?
It depends on what you do for a living and what exercise you take.
It's not really necessary to shower every day if you sit at a desk all day.
Modern three bed detached house (five years old). Working from home all through so heating on more than normal:
3830 kwh for gas (heating, hot water and hob)
1928 kwh for electricity
Luckily I'm on a fixed rate till July 2023.
Our payments have gone from £53 per month to £169 for both gas and electricity.
Our payments have gone from £53 per month to £169 for both gas and electricity.
Are your current costs £169? Did the energy supplier put them up by 300% and if so, I am presuming you're well in credit ?
2000 kwh of electricity. That's 2 adults in a 4 bed detached. Looking at some of your electricity figures, I have to wonder if you're running the kettle 24 hours a day?!?!
Gas is a bit unclear due to British gas being a shambles, but I calculate it around 10,000 kwh
3.5m high ceilings
Similar problem at my house so I fitted a ceiling fan to push the warm air down to floor level. Not many watts to run either.
A lady on the radio yesterday said she was going to have to think about turning her immersion heater off when she didn't need hot water....
My electricity consumption figures above include running my 2.5kw air conditioning unit for six or seven hours a night from roughly May though to October.
A lady on the radio yesterday said she was going to have to think about turning her immersion heater off when she didn’t need hot water….
That’s the sort of thing we’d have got the belt for in the 70’s!!! 🤣🤣
I’m currently paying around the average cap at £1900, so I presume in October I’ll be paying the £3600.
No way I’ll be paying £5200, £6600, £7000 net for energy, which is what an extra £9/£10k gross required on your wage. They can come in and switch the gas and electric off!!!!!!
20 yr old 5 bed detached house, 2 teenagers, wife out most days, I either work from home or away, generally away a few days every 3rd week. Currently £350 a month, expecting it to go to £500 plus in October, probably £600 in Jan.
I'm on £80/month at the moment DD for both. The prediction chart I've used suggests that it'll be £230/month within a year. 😳
Not clear what ours is going to be, 1920 build house with but the only thing connected to mains is electricity. Economy 7 heaters all round and 2 massive log burners, one of which heats a rad in the landing upstairs. Was with green, whose estimate were woefully low, now on shell who didn't give us a bill or tell us the rates they were charging until 4 months after green went bust.
No idea what the annual usage will be, as we only moved in April 2021, but it's going to hurt whatever it is.
dyls - brave words but...you won't have any choice.
You can opt to not pay in the short term but, eventually, you'll be forced to; your supplier is likely to get a court order for access to fit pre-payment meters which will cost you more than the cap.
Non-payments won't be written off.
Haven’t worked out the gas increase cost yet.
However, modern 4 bed detached house, EV car, solar panels and Tesla Power Wall battery.
Last year , 2021 we used 4500 kWh of electricity for our total useage including charging the EV.
We only bought / imported 32% of that total.
The new price of 0.52p kw, will mean our electricity will now be ( based on 2021).
4500 x 0.32 = 1440 kWh
1440 x £0.52= £748
I realise we are fortunate and semi insulated from this.
The point I wish to make though, is that this is a real crisis for almost everyone in the UK.
The government need to act NOW.
No idea. It’s not like there’s much choice. Bill comes in, gets paid, house warm
Well you do have a choice to useless energy.
Lots of people out there won't have the ability to be able to just suck it up
OUCH
just had new offer through. On 2 year contract at business rates..
Annual consumption is 5800 Kwh
Current quarterlt charge £32 New rate £71
Current FIT charge 0.68p/kwh New charge 0.78p/kwh
Current unit charge 14.7p?kwh New rate 62.2p/kwh
So from an average annual spend of £1200 I now will have to find £5000. Not going to happen
Based on last years usage we are going to be north of £10k from around £2k when our fix ends in October. We’ll be ok but I don’t know how others and small businesses are going to manage.
We are getting showered at work and cutting down on the kids showers no more 1/2 showers for the daughter.
New build 4 bed so pretty well sealed and insulated but in a fairly windy spot. Miserably crawled flat on my back under our old bungalow insulating the floors, but the new house floor construction is way better in comparison (suspended beam and block, then a massive chunk of foam and screed on top). Too soon to know exactly what things will cost, plus both kids will be away so that more than halves the washing, drying and showers for the next six months.
No gas in the area so everything electric, with supplier predicting 6500 kWh pa which includes pretty heavy usage last dec-feb when it was cold weather and the place was drying out / getting the heating optimised. Some of those gas kWh readings are frightening and suggest the ashp is actually doing it's thing pretty efficiently.
Work could get interesting...... if I turn on and use all the hydraulics at full whack it would be 1.3 MW!
Pretty terrifying for us given it coincides with our fixed mortgage deal coming to and end in November which will result in a couple of hundred quid extra a month going in that direction also
No idea. It’s not like there’s much choice. Bill gets paid by DD, house warm.
This
Trouble is that for many including several on here already, it's not a choice either but is becoming it. Not just a choice of what holiday to go on, or bike upgrade or where to eat out at, but between heating the house and putting food on tables in some cases. If you genuinely 'have no idea' what your energy bill is or will be but are just confident you can still afford it you are in a very privileged place.
Even the chancellor's sums say a £45K income is going to struggle and might need help. That's a lot of people
People keep saying to speak to their supplier if you can't pay. But what are they going to do! Put you on a payment plan? Which is only going to get higher and higher debt.
When will someone help? I can't believe no one is stepping in. I don't understand why some people haven't realised the magnitude of it.
What is the UK's energy strategy?
I asked a similar question about the UK's economic strategy on the (currently) moribund coronanomics thread; that will spring back into life soon.
In an attempt to answer my own questions...
i) no clearly articulated energy strategy
ii) no clearly articulated economic strategy.
Is there a trend in these questions?
What is the gov doing to accelerate the development of (rolls royce) small modular nuclear reactors?
When will the Rough gas storage facility be re-opened?
When will UK develop/open new LNG terminals?
Is anyone in gov or any of the wannabes capable of strategic thinking?
To answer my own question, again, the answer is...no.
Even the chancellor’s sums say a £45K income is going to struggle and might need help. That’s a lot of people
I seem to recall earning 50k puts you in the top 10% of the country in terms of salary. As you say, a lot of people are going to struggle.
@theotherjonv - frustrating isn’t it. My sister and brother in law are extremely well off and they just don’t get what I’m fretting about. I’ve asked them how much they are budgeting for energy each month and basically they’re not as they’re comfortable enough to know they’ll be able to afford whatever increases are coming their way without making any other sacrifices. Some people just don’t get it
rjimbob88 i think there are lots of people in your position and this crisis will be like boiling a frog, there are still people on fixed rates before all this started for their energy and many more on fixed rate mortgages.
And can I make it quite clear that even those who are well off can see how this is impacting others, I am truly worried for the state of the country when this bites properly, I might come through relatively ok but if the local business have gone bust, the NHS has collapsed and schools are bankrupt saying I'm alright Jack isn't going to cut it. This isn't the fault of the well off (many of whom have got there off their own graft, I've had no parental support, not inherited and had some really scary times between jobs with little to no help from anyone to keep the lights on), please direct all vitriol towards our government(s) who could see this coming in some form 20 years ago and chose to do nothing about it.
My sister and brother in law are extremely well off and they just don’t get what I’m fretting about. I’ve asked them how much they are budgeting for energy each month and basically they’re not as they’re comfortable enough to know they’ll be able to afford whatever increases are coming their way without making any other sacrifices. Some people just don’t get it
At the other end of the scale, my mate's neighbour is a young single mum who isn't the brightest. He helps her out a lot and had a chat with her last week to see what she was doing about the upcoming rises.
She's not worried as she's on a pre-payment meter and only puts £12 on at a time. She cannot grasp that she'll be putting that £12 in many times a week rather than once or twice. It simply doesn't register with her😱
There's a geographical element to all this too. The milder south of the UK will fare easier during the winter than the frozen north. I've seen folk suggesting a reverse "London Weighting" to take account of higher energy requirements.
I don't have a problem with people whose venn diagram crosses at the worked hard and through accident or design relatively lucky with the way their jobs and earnings have turned out. I'd count myself in that bracket, although these recent hikes, needing to pay privately for some medical care, and D1 about to embark on Uni have created a pinch that has caused cutbacks to be made.
But those that 'it'll be what it is, just keep sending the bill and I'll keep paying' without seemingly any awareness don't sit very well. If there's no awareness, I'd like there to be some, if there is awareness and the response is 'so what, doesn't affect me' that sits even worse. That's what i was trying to convey.
If there’s no awareness, I’d like there to be some, if there is awareness and the response is ‘so what, doesn’t affect me’ that sits even worse.
There will be awareness very soon.
Even if you have a £50,000 salary, a monthly energy bill of £700 is going to sting.
When what is left of your local high street disappears when the uncapped energy bills arrive.
Even the big companies are going to struggle, how much energy do you think a typical supermarket uses? If their bills are going up by 600% how will they continue to operate?
There is going to be mass unemployment in an incredibly short time scale.
We are staring at an unprecedented economic collapse and nobody seems to be doing a thing!
No idea what ours will go up to. Went up from £107 to £144 a month this time up for the £75 per we were paying in 2019.
Was £760 in credit this time last year and currently £430 in credit.
House stays at 24-29 all from May till November so heating not put on.
Both work 12 hour shifts for NHS so hardly in. Four showers a week each.
Reptiles seem to cost 8 pence an hour currently, tv takes it up to 12 p per hour. Washing machine ups it to 60p per hour. Average £3 a day electric. And £4 when both off. Been on standard variable since last year.
British Gas App says £144 per month is paying too much.
Three bed new build detached.
without seemingly any awareness don’t sit very well
Yes I agree, it's going to affect everyone and people should be aware whether it's concern for the welfare of other citizens or for more selfish reasons, the pub has closed, local restaurant has gone, town centre is a wasteland etc. it's going to affect us all. As I said above I think there are a lot who havent realised what is coming, people at the end of a fixed rate, mortgage or energy, who have a very nasty shock when renewal comes around. People who fixed last summer will have seen others being impacted whilst up until now been insulated themselves, that won't last.
People on more than £50k are also going to be impacted financially, finding an extra £600 a month for energy, another couple humdred on mortgage payements and uplifts on food probably equates to a grand a month less disposable income, even amongst higher earners that's a big hit, many have mortgaged up to the hilt and have other outgoings inline with income. Also got to remember take home pay drops drastically around this point with over 40% disappearing before you even see it. Again not going to be as catestrophic as for lower incomes but not something most people can shrug off.
I think it's been coming for a long time though, we've been encouraged from the nineties to live to the limit of our means relying on credit and short term financially stability, we're at a point where many households lifestyles at all income points have outstripped ability to afford. It's going to be a very painful if not disastrous correction for most.
There’s a geographical element to all this too. The milder south of the UK will fare easier during the winter than the frozen north. I’ve seen folk suggesting a reverse “London Weighting” to take account of higher energy requirements.
Surely Northern property should be constructed to reflect the different weather, they do this in Spain/Italy where there is a significant difference north to south and it’s not like it’s suddenly just got colder in the north, there have been centuries to understand this
Why should the south pay for the inefficiency and poor planning of the north when it has it’s own buildings to deal with?
Northern property should be constructed to reflect the different weather
Yep, we can obviously rely on the builders and planners to do things right...
Surely Northern property should be constructed to reflect the different weather, they do this in Spain/Italy where there is a significant difference north to south and it’s not like it’s suddenly just got colder in the north, there have been centuries to understand this
Well yes, but not everyone lives in a less than 10-year-old house. They didn't have foam insulation, central heating and means of hermetically sealing a house back in the early 1800s. To reflect the weather up here we've got a very steep pitched roof (to stop the snow settling, but means a much larger surface area through which to lose heat) and 3ft thick solid stone walls which are a massive heatsink and take literally weeks to properly warm up after a whole summer of no heating use.
It's hugely un-green but the only way I can see to manage this winter with some degree of comfort is to put in a log burner with back boiler linked up to the radiators - it might cost a couple of grand to do it but if I'm going to be paying ~£600/month for gas anyway and can get a trailer of logs for less than £200 then it'll pay for itself within a season.
Edit: for context, the last actual annual usage report we had showed ~8,000kWh electricity and 32,000 kWh gas.That's with a thermostat that never goes above 19°C and a gas hob.
Yep, we can obviously rely on the builders and planners to do things right…
Well they didn’t do things right in the bottom half of the country so will the top half pay for that?...
Well they didn’t do things right in the bottom half of the country so will the top half pay for that?…
We do, every day, all those public transport subsidies for London and surroundings because too many people live in such a small area. Try public transport up north. No doubt the north will be paying for the lack of infrastructure for water supplies in the south.
