Energy Bill for December

Our combined for December was £450 and £310 of that was gas

 

We have similar amounts and struggling to understand how we reduce the gas without turning the heating off completely and freezing.

 

Before you consider cavity wall insulation. Drill several inspection holes in each and every external wall and inspect the actual cavities with a boroscope, and these are cheap as chips nowadays. Inspect how good your wall ties are and are they generally clean. Inspect all your air bricks and make sure they are sleeved, inspect all cavity trays for detritus and other residues and last but by no means least inspect down by your damp course and check there is plenty of room for any water to run away and it’s not covered with crap. Everything can be cleaned up prior to installation and then you’ll be fine but do your homework. Stay away from any of the fibrous versions and the expanding foam types too. Polystyrene beads pumped in with a hint of pva glue is the biz and carbon coated ones allegedly are about fifteen per cent more efficient. There will be grants available with a little research. If you have any gas / oil / solid fuel appliances in excess of 6KW, that room will require a non close able thumping great air vent so consider this prior.

A great way to check other efficiencies is with a candle. Go for a wander with a candle and it will point to where your heating is disappearing but it will also point away from where the draught has come in. Never do this on your own because it’s too easy to set fire to stuff like curtains. All draughts need a way in and a way out. Cold cold hallways are quite often a sign that the hatch or trap door isn’t insulated very well or has little in the way of draught proofing. Loft insulation at a foot thick is the most common recommendation in most areas and not insulating the loft hatch is like having a bucket with a big hole in it and there’s loads of ways to insulate them. Loft insulation as recommended is great but squashing it really hinders its performance and if your loft is insulated but some is squashed to four inches or so, then that’s pretty much how good your insulation is gonna be as it’s the weakest link in the chain type effect. On a frosty or snowy day, you’ll notice where most of your neighbours loft hatches are by the lack of frost and snow above them.

Then check and increase your ventilation above your insulation. Modern vent regs are there for a reason. I’ve got mine to re roof this year as I can’t get it drip free with the old style felt. I’m going for the modern breathable stuff with continuous eaves vents and maybe a vent tile or two up near the ridge, maybe pop some in the facia too.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,, great this trying to keep warm malarkey innit.

 

Post of the year

 

its early dayz.

 

I was expecting to end with “Trust me on the sunscreen.”

 

All electric here ...
December was £270
of which £60 was car charging.
(3 bed bungalow with room in the roof.
1/2 1930's brick cavity, now with EWI.
1/2 2000's timber frame with zoned electric UFH)

 

That detached house? Approx what age?

 

I don't think it's for sale..

 

Couldn’t afford to heat it anyway

 

Yes detached built 1955

 

Mm, similar story then

 

I think anyone with a house built before 1970 will have several, if not all of these issues present, so the consequences may well outweigh the benefits.

Also be mindful that whenever there is a grant/initiative driven by central government, there is an inevitable shortage of specialist contractors/installers, so the shortage is filled by opportunists with little or no experience. We had ours done about 12 years ago during the last initiative of energy efficiency measures heavily subsidized via our energy provider at the time.

I came home from work on the first day to find the installers still working in the pitch dark, hanging off ladders to drill supposedly precise injection holes through the mortar between the brick courses, with only torches to illuminate the walls. With hindsight I should have stopped them there and then, but they carried on the next day to finish. I got home that day to literally dozens of holes in the brickwork - they had used the wrong size (too big) masonry drill bits - so every brick above and below every hole had been chipped/nicked.

It took a lot of calls and threats to get a specialist team down to repair and colour match every damaged brick. Furthermore they sealed up every air brick on the inside and outside with silicone sealant so our house lost most of its natural ventilation that had been installed when it was built.

 

I wish ours was £450, and we had cavity walls to insulate, and Princess C would accept a bit part in Frozen...

 

Haven't you get a whole lot of alternative energy sources as well though @Dub and Dubber ?

 

Only plans ...
The roof to ground heat exchanger has all the pipework in place but has been waiting on me finishing the roof, among other things ....
As for PV there's a huge sycamore in next door's wood that does an excellent job of shading the best places for that.
Our main "green" credential is the draught-stop, and crazy insulation levels.
£270 for the whole kit including the car isn't bad for that December we just had .... (is it?)
Another key factor is our position, on a high ridge running SE/NW with some vicious winds cutting through at times.
(Ecotricity put their first wind turbine up here after all!)
We've been snowed-in but with no snow beyond a mile in any direction
A very "special" place

 

Our combined gas & electric was just over £300 for mid-November to mid-December. There again we did get through about £100 worth of logs in the log burner too

Four of us, and not skimping on baths & showers

 

I was talking to a plumber friend yesterday. He has a customer with a five bed detached house that they had built about four years ago. So obviously top level insulation. They decided to go fully air source heat pump when it was installed. During the cold snap it was costing them £49 a day to heat the house! He currently has a deal with his energy company to cap his bills at £9000 a year!!! The week before Christmas my mate got picture sent through to him from his customer, sitting in a bar in Tenerife with a note to say that they’d got away for a week because it was cheaper to do that than heat the house!

Absolute madness.

 

Our mid Nov to mid Dec bill was £270, electric only mid terrace 3 bed Victorian.

The new solar and overnight battery charging contributed about £50, whilst the government put in £67.

We probably used £100 - £125 of wood, but we both had extra time at home with Covid during the cold snap so used a lot more than normal.

We’ve had a lot less sunny days since, so I’m expecting the mid Jan bill to have a lot less solar savings