Be Excellent To Each Other

Quick poll, how much do you people spend on gas and electric a month? I recently switched and though I was getting a good deal, now I've received an email saying that they're increasing my direct debit by nearly £30 a month!

This takes the total to £104 a month that I'm paying. Is that good? Or is that bad? We live in a 3 bedroom house with gas central heating but have nothing to compare us too.

About £70 combined for a two bed flat, although that's probably overpaying.

Now is a reasonable time to get your payments assessed. Most of winter out the way so you can work out cost of clearing current balance and full year. They'll almost certainly have over calculated but it's your right to reduce if you can provide a reasoned costed alternative.

£90 a month. Small two bedroom house. Cunts.

No gas here, just electric. Around £100 a month for a 2 bed flat.

I actually rang up last month and gave some meter readings because I was worried we might've been overusing in the winter and would be due a whopping final bill when we eventually moved out. Turns out £90 was about spot on for what we were using. Over the cold winter, at least. So hopefully come summer we should have some credit.

Approx £100 per month for electricity, and we get through two tanks of oil per year usually, which is £600 per tank (i.e. £1200 per year), so £100 per month.

So in total, £200 per month.

Both leccy and oil have got a lot more expensive over the last few years though.

I remember when we first moved here we literally just left the heating on 24 hours per day in winter, as heating oil was so cheap. Wouldn't dream of doing it now!

Very interesting.. thanks everyone. The heating has been on pretty much non stop over winter so that won't help will it?



I think they may have underestimated previously as now we've switched provider, I give the meter readings online. Before we had to rely on someone coming round during they day when neither of us were here.

It's shameful how much prices have gone up. Most of the rises have not been based on anything other than the desire for even larger profits.

£765 for 5 months for the place in Bingley.

£100 PCM, that should go down in summer. I have leccy only and storage heaters

Atrocity, isnt that £200 per month then?

How on earth did you manage that? Ridiculous tariff or ridiculous usage?

For some reason I did some sort of crazy divide by four as if I was thinking of weeks

Corrected now!

Mine will work out at somewhere between 70 and 80 quid per month over 12 months. That's for a 3 storey 4 bed townhouse with plenty of insulation.

in that case - ouch! you win at paying the man.

The joys of heating an old Victorian house (built in 1895) with the original single glazed sash windows still installed

We got a quote for getting it double glazed and it came in at £14K (three storey house, lots of windows).

Plus because of the age of the house we have to get double glazing that is 'sympathetic' with the style of the terrace, which appears to mean, 'Get your chequebook out and bend over'.

On top of that, cost of living on the IOM is well known to be higher than the UK, it is quite literally the price you pay for being here.

My gas payments are calculated every six months so I'll use daft amounts over Winter trying to get this place warm results in payments over summer of £43 a month which led to me building up a surplus so I'm paying just £19 a month now. I'm expecting it to jump rather drastically soon though.

Electricity is on a meter so I put on £20 every month or so.

We're currently paying £130/month, which pisses me off, although our flat is massive and impossible to heat over the winter. During the summer the direct debit dipped to about £56, and they adjust it based on your estimated usage from meter readings.

Naturally this estimate is full of shit and they like to try to ensure you've got a couple of hundred quid credit on the account at all time. Cunts.

It's grim up north.

120/month leccy on average, 4 bedroom old stone house, includes electric heating on economy 7 (admittedly not much of it), + about 50 miles per day.

Also that's a renewable tariff so over the odds, and it's paid quarterly in arrears, so mega over the odds

I'm further up than you!

105 pounds a month 1930 house double glassed. This so far is just about covering the winter months.

I give monthly readings when I remember, to stop that happening...

I have a 4 bedroom and pay around £155 a month for both.

With British Gas for now, but I need to review what I pay as the web tariff I had expired on the 29th

I found British to be a pain in the arse with DD, I told them last year that I wasn’t prepared to put up with them changing the DD to suit them. So they calculated the annual usage and based the DD on that. Only last week after the winter meter reading I had to call them to stop an increase.

Longer term I need to change the heating system in my house, the guy I bought the place off was a builder but as is quite typical cut every corner he could and appeared to not give a shit when it came to his own house. Thats on the plan for this year.

220-250 SEK per month in a small 27m^2 flat and no gas.

Possibly both. We can pay it off interest free, with no early repayment thing, so that's good. We've changed tariffs for the new place, and I won't be at home all day, freezing cold with the heating on..

We're probably on around £180 a month. But then our consumption would probably make Kalmar explode with the fury of a small sun.

Is that due to all your kitchen appliances running 24-7, alongside the SeaWorld centre in your lounge?

Pretty much, yes. Also electric underfloor heating, which is hardly efficient.

I suppose I do have a lot of electronic equipment running a lot. My PC is hardly ever off and then there's the ton of consoles that are always plugged in.

Then there's the lights.. we have a lot of lights on in our house for some reason.

It sounds like the amount I spend is pretty much the norm.

Heh, I have a huge amount of electric kit, a lot of which stays on 24/7.
To counter this excessive electricity usage, I drive cars that use eccessive amounts of petrol, to get my oil usage into balance.

quite low, I'd imagine - I didn't turn the heating on all winter and only things I'm actually using get turned on.

You turn me on.

I don't use you.

And you were only the third most dave violating person when I met you. So not sure if I believe you.

This makes me wonder if I should turn my router off during the day. Is that likely to save any meaningful cash?

Good question. Would anyone like to do the maths?

Who was 2nd???

Some random guy in the gents loo in the dive that alberto(?) took us to on the first night.

My router takes about 15W. 0.015kW * 8760 = 131 kWh, so it costs somewhere between £15 and £20 per year, so you'd save 2/3rds of that or whatever.

The fixtures I put in the kitchen in my new house took 50W GU10 bulbs x many! You could feel them gently toasting the top of your head.
I found a 5W single-LED replacement in The Ikea's which I'm trialling. The light output is very good, it's not as yellow but the shadows it casts seem a bit harsher or something, so I'm not sure about it yet. Also how long it'll last, £5 is sort of too cheap. Also they had neat little under-cabinet LED strips, £20 for 3 strips and one power supply.

Ah, I'm glad you've mentioned that. I have some lights in my Command Centre that kind of go under the top shelves but I'm not happy with them.

I'm thinking of going down the Ikea light route because ZOMG LED and changing colours etc! I keep meaning to go down there and price it up but you know, I'm lazy...

I got some white ones from here when we did our kitchen:

http://s.dealextreme.com/search/led+strip

You can get 5M with a power adapter for twenty quid or so.

I think I pay £50-70 a month for gas+electric. I have a 3 bedroom semi-detached house.

I currently do not pay for gas or electric. This is an arrangement that suits current me very well. Future Russell has to deal with it, and I hate that guy.

I used to live my life on the salary I thought I would be earning in a couple of years. I had a great time, but it could have gone so very very wrong!

Heh, nothing like that. More incompetence on the part of the electricity suppliers who don't seem to want to take my money and instead send me disconnection notices.

This thread got me thinking... Has anyone found a LED that's almost as good or better than the standard 50W GU10 (Think that's the correct model) bulbs?

I've just set up direct debits for both gas and electric. £64 a month for gas, £36 a month for electricity - two different suppliers, and it's a 3 bedroom house.

Did you see my post up the page? I'd say the ikea one is 'almost as good' in terms of lighting. Better if it lasts, due to saving energy.
There are loads more though. Going to try a couple of pricier ones for comparison.

Homebase have just started doing 6W LED bulbs for a tenner, and they're pretty good.

Need to replace the dull as fuck LED GU10 bulbs in the kitchen. I had to put a halogen back in just so I wouldn't slice off an extremity whilst chopping veg