Insane home fuel prices

Jimbro66

This report from Faisal Islam outlines what options the government is considering at present.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60001695

Yesterday we had our energy suppliers on the phone trying to press us into a new 2yr fixed deal which would push our monthly costs from £120 to around £245. It was presented as being a very favourable deal  Needless to say we didn't bite at this point in time.

horse

Voxman said:

...How can people possibly cope with such increases

They don't tend to have swimming pools

BillDL

Cuddling the dog, doing star jumps and eating lots of porridge is definitely the way to go.  Wrapping yourself in a tinfoil emergency "blanket" can help as well.

RaymondLin

Just remember that it takes 4200 joules to warm 1 litre of water up 1 degree.

now scale that up to a swimming pool.

Kittyfrisk

And 4200 Joules translates to 0.0011666666667 kWh  
Do your own calculations 

Pablo

I'm just going through this now. I've just come off my old fixed term and hit the cap rate.

I'm trying to decide between a new 12 month contract that's nearly 60% more expensive, or wait and see what the new cap is in April/hope prices come down over the year. 

Kittyfrisk

^ All the advice at the moment for people in our situation, is to stick to the best standard variable tariff that you can find & try to ride out the uncertainty.

JezWynd

When have prices ever gone down? When the current crisis ends I’m sure they’ll carry on charging the new high rates, perhaps with a small fall as a face saver, probably use the excuse that turning green is more costly than was envisaged.

notanon

We are in a small place. Our combined gas and electric can hit £8 some days. That is with a fair amount of washing and drying.

I hate the sound of dryers so I put ours in the shed, the drop in temperature over winter obviously affects drying time and cost. Normally I am happy to pay the extra but the costs are getting silly.

With our home office of 5 monitors, 4 computers, . .   I'm beginning to think all the extra devices, normally a  few pence a day are now starting to cost a fair amount.

Gotta count your blessings if you are on the right side of the poverty gap, must be getting tough on the wrong side :-(

hollywoodrox

I only used to pay about £235 - £250 a quarter for my gas/electric/ water combined
  don’t know how I would manage now . Had to rent a flat with my folks combined but miss my old place . On about £100 a week  and having to top your rent allowance up plus pay so much council tax it was already on the poverty line  don’t know how I would cope now . Hard to get social housing here and private rents are sky high and about 95% properties are damp . Hate living under Tory rule 

Living with parents is a challenge too , they’re great and amazing but we don’t see eye to eye on lots of things ,plus lots of crazy rules 

Greatape

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/16/energy-firms-seeking-whitehall-loans-paid-200bn-to-shareholders-since-2010

Maybe it's time to concede that a for-profit model for this industry isn't working.

Nitefly

Greatape said:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/16/energy-firms-seeking-whitehall-loans-paid-200bn-to-shareholders-since-2010

Maybe it's time to concede that a for-profit model for this industry isn't working.

I wonder what the calorific value of shareholders is?  

DavidR

Here's a graphic of Natural Gas prices.

Natural gas | 2022 Data | 2023 Forecast | 1990-2021 Historical | Price | Quote | Chart (tradingeconomics.com)

The causes of this huge fluctuation in prices, up and then down again, are complex.

- A disengagement between the usual supply and demand controls caused by economies firing up and down out of sync due to Covid as it travels around the world.

- Winter in the northern hemisphere.

- World development meaning that we in the west don't always get first dibs on supply.

- The politics of the Nordstream 2 pipeline from Russia and the unproven suspicion that Russia might be gaming gas supplies to Europe in order to force Germany to approve the pipeline. So far it hasn't. But it probably will in the Summer.

The era of cheap energy is over. Financially painful but arguably not a wholly bad thing. I suspect gas prices will find a more settled new normal sometime in 2022. For most that won't be a problem. It's the sudden change that is causing pain.

hollywoodrox

It’s been a problem for most people I know for over. 20 years , it’s just got too expensive , 20 years ago people were not using the heating as they couldn’t afford it  ,it’s disgusting 

RaymondLin

hollywoodrox said:

It’s been a problem for most people I know for over. 20 years , it’s just got too expensive , 20 years ago people were not using the heating as they couldn’t afford it  ,it’s disgusting 

My living room is currently 13c lol

Voxman

Pool aside, and that's down to us and in our control (eg we can just turn the heating off) it's the scale of the normal domestic costs hike that will be impacting on everyone. 

Last year we considered putting in a new more efficient gas boiler. But I'm now pleased we didn't because if gas stays this crazy in the UK, then we're better off going with an electric heat pump.

Moving is not really a serious option ... at least not at the moment. This is our forever home, and its near all our family. If at some stage we found ourselves struggling to go up and down stairs or health or financial issues arose, then it might be something to consider.  

crunchman

If you go the heat pump route, could you install solar panels and heat the pool during the day?

My brother had solar panels on his old house, and even in winter they would generate 600W on a relatively small 3 bed terrrace, and around 2.5kW on a good summer day.  That was an older generation of panels, which are less efficient than what is available now, and you probably have a much bigger roof to put them on.  With some kind of electric heating, you might be able to save a good chunk on heating your pool if you heat in daylight hours.

RaymondLin

Voxman said:

Pool aside, and that's down to us and in our control (eg we can just turn the heating off) it's the scale of the normal domestic costs hike that will be impacting on everyone. 

Last year we considered putting in a new more efficient gas boiler. But I'm now pleased we didn't because if gas stays this crazy in the UK, then we're better off going with an electric heat pump.

Moving is not really a serious option ... at least not at the moment. This is our forever home, and its near all our family. If at some stage we found ourselves struggling to go up and down stairs or health or financial issues arose, then it might be something to consider.  

I would seriously consider Solar Panels to offset the heating cost if this is your forever home.  

Voxman

crunchman said:

If you go the heat pump route, could you install solar panels and heat the pool during the day?

My brother had solar panels on his old house, and even in winter they would generate 600W on a relatively small 3 bed terrrace, and around 2.5kW on a good summer day.  That was an older generation of panels, which are less efficient than what is available now, and you probably have a much bigger roof to put them on.  With some kind of electric heating, you might be able to save a good chunk on heating your pool if you heat in daylight hours.

Good thought but the pool and plant are at the end of our garden so I think it needs a separate heat pump. I've just looked at home heat pumps and huge grants seem to be available so I'm going to look into both and remove our dependency on gas.  

Our cars are both petrol. One is on lease, and in 3.5yrs we'll change to electric. We may go down to one car or get two electrics. Will deal with one problem at a time. 

Dav275

Just to offer a different perspective. After seeing the (frightening) figures quoted here, I worked back over our last six years of home fuel costs.

It averages out that for all power, heating and cooking needs each year I have made a profit of £21 per year.

Now I realise this is unusual, in that we are off grid, have access to free firewood (apart from my time and effort to fell trees etc.), and have benefited from the original, higher rate feed in tariff payments, which will eventually end. It also does not allow for the initial cost of the kit.

I suppose the point I am trying to make is that I am increasingly glad not to be at the mercy of the large power companies, and feel that, in some cases, a different approach is worth considering.

When we started, 10 years ago, various “experts” advised us against it and suggested we should just accept the huge cost of hooking up to the grid and be normal. Now, there are three other off grid homes in various stages of planning/construction nearby.

I know this is not possible for the large majority in built up areas and older properties etc., but feel a move towards smaller scale, local generation wherever possible should be the way to go for future construction.