Energy price rises-Shocking!

[The Gurnard]

Thanks Orwell Boy and Steve.

Im sure you will recognise most the Oban area from the videos Steve. When you arrive at the campsite .. ask for the security number that lets you use Tralee Bay slipway .. its free to campsite users and if you have not seen it before ..no doubt you will get very familiar with this view

Tralee Bay Caravan park slipway .. a good chip shop on site too ..what more could you ask for. Give us a shout when you arrive and I will happily call round for a gravy and chips

[Maximus]

[QUOTE=The Gurnard;849343]Thanks Maximus .. and as you possibly know by now ..another advantage of living in the promised land is that being part of a small community is a far friendlier experience than living in the busy city where everyone is too busy to stop for a chat

When its too windy to go up the loch.. I really enjoy watching the locals watching their otters. Its a great way to get to know people ..and I confess that I even enjoy chatting with the hairy beavers that also enjoy watching the cool otters.

Can't possibly comment on the "Hairy Beavers" at you're end of the Loch Mate!
....but both me and my Wife have been humbled by the warmth of the Highland welcome we've experienced since moving up last year...and have made some great new friends

[Bern Hanreck]

Well Donny's talk about Spring coming has put the mockers on that ! Yellow warnings of snow imminent !

Steve said " It will be interesting to see the changes in the scenery when we're up there in August. " .............No change Steve . There'll still be snow on the hills ......It may be still there from this winter , or just plain early for next winter......... Tie up them kilts lads !

[The Gurnard]

Originally Posted by Bern Hanreck

Tie up them kilts lads !

Ok Bern



Yea’z can come oan holiday ,
Yea’z can eat oor fish and chips,
We will tak' yer florins,

But yea’z will ..never ..ever ... defeat oor midges

[Maximus]

I see the "Eco-Leading" self flagellating Germans have just announced they are dropping thier "Green Levey" on the Price of energy,which is probably the least they can do for consumers after woeful mismanagement and near total dismemberment of their Nulcear power industry in favour of unsustainable "renewables" and the idiotic dependance on Putins Russia for most of its Gas.....Hopfully we will follow suit here!....and soon!

[Poly]

I can see where this thread is heading, so just a reminder that RIBnet is a safe haven from all the BS in life and political debate is off limits and since you all know this, people who intentionally flout the rules get banned. Hopefully this way this place remains one of the few places on internet where people can talk boats without getting into arguments, except about the really important stuff like how to drill a hole, whether 2 strokes are better, and whether it’s called a Union Jack or not.

[Oldman2]

My fixed contract ends next month and I had been sitting on the fence considering not entering a contract until I could see what the energy market was doing, the situation in Europe will only add fuel to the fire of volatility (see what I did there ) not that its any joke for any of us.
I mulled it overnight and decided to go for the 2yr contract my provider was offering even though it seemed quite expensive.
Logged in this morning to do the deed only to find they pulled both the 2yr and 1yr fixed! I can understand they don't want to be caught with their pants down, so variable rate here I come

[Fenlander]

We have stayed on a variable for years now and I realise it might seem to leave us a bit exposed but so be it... we'll just change the balance of household expenditure... less transom wheel sets for a start.

[Matt]

Yeah, we are too. I’ve just shaved another hour off (half an hour later on, half an hour earlier off). We get up and go to bed at the same time and don’t seem to notice the difference. Anyway, hopefully starting to warm up soon so we’ll have it switched off

[paddlers]

Our £70 a month with Octopus for electricity only terminated in December and the best fix was with them at £113 per month for twelve months . First month on the new tariff bill was £138 ....... with no extra usage and on my old tariff we were always about £50 in credit . They're now talking £2 a litre for petrol coming.
I can't see this job getting better anytime soon!!

[Fenlander]

By chance an email from our power company today explaining the price rises. Seems our gas/elec year to end March is predicted at £1700... the new rates will take that to £2500. It is how it is.

[Maximus]

Seems to me at least most responders are talking and thinking of how to cope with impending price rises...which few if any will ultimately escape....which is fair enough.
Maybe a little time should be given to asking....how we possibly ended up in this situation and so quickly ???
It might just give us some hope for the future....by the way I don't think we've seen anything yet!

[spartacus]

Originally Posted by Maximus

Seems to me at least most responders are talking and thinking of how to cope with impending price rises...which few if any will ultimately escape....which is fair enough.

We're starting to see the knock-on effects now. Read a few stories of cooking oil being targeted from restaurants to turn into unregulated bio-diesel, and a forest local to us had mature trees cut down last weekend (with all things considered), there was a lot of storm-damaged timber that could have been taken first.

Back to the thread. Anyone have a battery storage system hooked up to solar? What are you running storage wise and is there any advantage in increasing capacity. We're coming into spring, so longer days. I have 4 Pylon US2000 units, stacked like an old IBM server farm, with 9.6Kw capacity. We have 18 solar panels and live north of the wall!

[Limecc]

For years we were on variable rate leccy, for some reason locked in until Oct 2023 at 18.1p/kwh before all this malarky kicked off. Looking for solar panels now, the SEG that replaced the feed-in tariff earns a measly 4p/unit so the main value is that you won't have to buy it in at 27p/unit.

I'd never gotten around to replacing my gas guzzling, at least 25yr old back boiler. Was so reliable, I figured the total cost of ownership was comparable to my neighbour who was having British Gas around every other week to fix his modern boiler and had several new. Anyway it went up to the great boileryard at the end of Jan so had no choice but to update it. Chip shortage means there's a boiler supply shortage! My Gas Safe buddies really struggled to get me a Worcester Bosch, but it's now installed! £2K cost. Usage has been slashed by 50% according to my Smart Meter and Hive monitor - a great result!

Here's how to set up a system, apologies if these points are common knowledge, was new to me:
1. Fitted quality Drayton TRV valves on each radiator.
2. Balanced the radiators, best to get at least 12°C drop across each. A condensing boiler can't condense unless the return is less than 53°C so any 'A' rating is lost unless the system is optimised.
3. Gas engineer said to leave the boiler on max heat 70°C, a wide differential is needed for max efficiency.
4. Fitted a hot water cylinder thermostat set to 55°C fitted to the tank 1/3rd of the way up.
5. I already had a magnetic filter installed. They stop the radiators clogging and protect the boiler.
6. Added a Hive Smart TRV in the room where the log burner will go creating a second zone.

[Steve509926]

I think your back boiler would have been closer to 30 years old, building regs changed in 2005 and I think Baxi stopped making them 2002/2003.

Any reason you still have a hot water cylinder and not a combi boiler or a pressurised hot water cylinder?

Will your log burner have a back boiler and will you link it into your central heating system?

[Limecc]

Originally Posted by Steve509926

I think your back boiler would have been closer to 30 years old, building regs changed in 2005 and I think Baxi stopped making them 2002/2003.

Any reason you still have a hot water cylinder and not a combi boiler or a pressurised hot water cylinder?

Will your log burner have a back boiler and will you link it into your central heating system?

Except for the back boiler it was already a tidy system. I've pipework experience from years ago, copper stuff is easy. They said they normally recommend Combi's but a heat-only boiler would also work well.

Keeping a hot water cylinder (it's in the loft) gives options. I can use gas to heat water when using the log burner and have an immersion heater as backup to the boiler. It's pumped rather than pressurised so can fill a deep bath quickly or have a strong power shower.

I was set to buy a Pioneer 400 with boiler option but finally decided against. Why? For a number of reasons:
1. A boiler reduces combustion temps, soots up the glass and reduces the capacity of the firebox. To compensate it would be a very greedy consumer of wood, up to double according to Clearview.
2. The best I would get is a tankful of hot water, 8000 btu's couldn't supply any radiators. A cylinder thermostat couldn't be used so the tank would become a wasteful heat-dump.
3. The Pioneer, although a great design is now outdated and isn't as efficient as newer rivals which also look better having a bigger viewing area.

I've ordered a DG Ivar 5 with multi-fuel grate. Compared to the Pioneer it throws more heat into the room rather than the surrounding brickwork. One log will keep burning overnight until morning, so no need to re-light. No airbrick or secondary air needed, it's nominally rated 5kw not max rated. Great reviews. Exciting waiting for it to arrive! We should start a new thread 'show us your log'

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Matt, presumably you have a chimney if your home is 100 years old. We fitted this 8 years ago when we moved in. Cost us £3300 all in, but I recon with free wood we save about £250 year on the gas heating by using it regularly. So we are about half way to breaking even. It can supply 5kw flat out but once warmed we turn it way down or the house goes over 20c. The chimney breast and the second one upstairs also warm up and act like a huge heat sink staying warm until the following morning. They burn really hot so don't smoke if using dry wood or coke brickets. Finally the dry heat and air circulation going up the chimney means we don't have to open windows each day, just briefly when showering. The wood burner does the rest.

At the back of my mind is the fact that it also provides heat in the event of a power or gas cut in the future. The winters of 1973/4 were tough with those electrical power cuts.

Pete

Had "the man" round earlier to quote. Looking at an MI Fires Tinderbox in medium for the kitchen, with a clean & simple setup much like you have. We could do a 2nd one in the living room too, but suspect we've only got enough saved for the one at the moment (and enough saved, I mean that's the RIB savings for a nice 5.4M searider being blown)

Originally Posted by Limecc

We should start a new thread 'show us your log'

Yes, probably.

[Matt]

Streuth. What is it with people.
Contacted 2x companies to get a wood burning stove installed.

One company sent someone round - made lots of notes, we agreed the burner and other details. I was ready to buy.
Never heard from them again.

Contacted another company. They just wanted some photos - which I duly took and sent. They responded with a price.
I've responded confirming that the price is in budget and I finished the reply with "What are the next steps please".
No response.

FFS.

If anyone can recommend a company that will supply a decent quality stove, do a good job AND not just disappear, in Farnborough, hants, please let me know.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by Limecc

I've ordered a DG Ivar 5 with multi-fuel grate.

How are you getting on with this one? I like the look of it - simple, functional.

Originally Posted by Limecc

6. Added a Hive Smart TRV in the room where the log burner will go creating a

Between the Hive setup, and now I've put Hive Smart TRVs in all the rooms we don't need heated during the day, I think we're getting towards a 50% reduction - although difficult to tell in the last few days as it's also got a bit warmer.

Then on top of that we've got the new worcester boiler (couple of years back now and double glazing, again couple of years back). So I'm happy we must have materially reduced our consumption overall, even though not seeing it in £ reductions.

[Orwell boy]

Originally Posted by Matt

Streuth. What is it with people.
Contacted 2x companies to get a wood burning stove installed.

One company sent someone round - made lots of notes, we agreed the burner and other details. I was ready to buy.
Never heard from them again.

Contacted another company. They just wanted some photos - which I duly took and sent. They responded with a price.
I've responded confirming that the price is in budget and I finished the reply with "What are the next steps please".
No response.

FFS.

If anyone can recommend a company that will supply a decent quality stove, do a good job AND not just disappear, in Farnborough, hants, please let me know.

Not just me has that sort of luck with tradesmen then
My expierienc tends to run a littl e like this .........
Turn up late usually after dropping the kids to school
Say no to a coffee as they seem to think you are trying for a cheaper price
Do a lot of sucking through their teeth and explaining how hard the job is going to be ready to inflict their ambitious quote
On the way out they usually seem to tell you they will be back ,however the wife is waiting for a covid result and if that is positive then may take a little longer as the family are on holiday for a fortnight next month
once all angles covered they leave never to be seen or heard from again