We all know what's going to happen, and sooner rather than later. I'm expecting energy prices are going to increase across the board by around 50% on gas and electricity. My thoughts then turned to the espresso machine…probably uses more power when it's cold, perhaps as much as 100W per hour..I know some people have cited massive increases in their bills when they have an espresso machine on all day…so I'm preparing, I would imagine the machine will lose only half the energy this way? The underneath towel is to add the extra insulation under the group and keep the top towel wrap in place. I'm already turning green! [upl-image-preview url=//i.imgur.com/sPQzAA6.png]

@"DavecUK"#p4730 Classic Dave’s solution to the problem! 😂😂 I continue to switch the machine off after making coffee. I don’t want the machine to run from 6 am to 9 pm. 😊 Am making a separate thread for green!

me personally, pureplanet went bump on me giving me a massive increase at home, was tied till april 2022 at work my gas and elec have no cap, since march 2021 when i cam out of contract ive seen my monthly elec bill go from £200 to £430 per month, these are out of contract rates atm, its getting crazy

Well, after about 20 minutes of non-use my Sage turns itself off. Plus as it takes only about 6 minutes to get up to temp it shouldn't use too much. After a really good two year fixed deal came to an end in December, we've just gone on to Octopus Go tariff where between 12:30 and 4:30 am the charge is 5p kWh. No good for the coffee machine admittadly unless I'm having a spot of insomnia, but we put our washing machine on for then as that eats electric and I charge my EV then too.

Our tariff is fixed until Aug 23. So, Am good. But, our costs did go up by £50 a month to about £162 pm. Thank God, I went fixed as some one advised flexible. 😊

We changed to Octopus when we were down south, we have always been on a fixed tariff and our bills were around £120 month. We moved up North to Yorkshire and bought a new build our bills are £80 month at most. We renewed to a fixed tariff again in September after a lot of deliberation thinking prices had been stable for some time, so glad we did. Hopefully when it all settles down we can get another fixed rate not sure it will be the same though. All our family are with Octopus they have been really good.

@"LMSC"#p4731 you can because it only takes 15m to warm up, so it's actually worth switching it off if your not going to use it…in fact, even a low power mode would be worthwhile on the Evo, might see if something can be programmed into the motherboards, to actually drop the group temp after a configurable number of minutes of non use. e.g. drop by n C, after n minutes, with brew boiler switching off after n minutes. This is because brew boiler only takes 3 minutes to warm up. In this way a machine could drop into economy (if you enable it) after say 15 minutes and be warmed up again by touching the panel. As soon as the group hits the preset temp, you will be ready to go, probably about 3 or 4 minutes….depending on how low you turn the group down. The energy saving would actually be quite large!

@"DavecUK"#p4762 I am sure you will come up with a solution as an enhancement in the future release. If it can be programmed like a PC - Hibernate, Sleep, Restart and Shut Down! 😬 We mostly make 5 -6 cups in total 2 in the morning, 1 at noon, 1 in the afternoon and 2 in the evening ! Perhaps, decaf in the night.

@"Cuprajake"#p4732 I was with simplicity energy, fortunately they went bust a few months before the energy crisis and I went onto the supplier of last resort British Gas, something called Simplicity Promis until April 2022 which felt like being rodgered up the rear end, but as it turned out was a blessing in disguise. 3p per unit for gas and 17.9 for leccy

I am with octopus on their flexible rate since my fixed rate with them ended at the beginning of December. I am not sure how much I am paying monthly ( was previously £59) as I have just had smart meters fitted and the readings haven’t settled into any pattern but watching the monitor thingy add up the electric units is a bit of a sharp intake of breath whenever the electric shower is used. To make matters worse, my boomerang child has just boomeranged back home to live again and takes two showers a day and wears clothes once before throwing them in the wash. I have been dithering over fixing the rate before April but just cannot commit myself to a tariff that doubles the price of my gas for the next three months even though I know things are going to get very much worse. I switch my machine and grinder off at the wall as soon as I am done.

> @"4W5"#p4814 I am with octopus on their flexible rate since my fixed rate with them ended at the beginning of December. I am not sure how much I am paying monthly ( was previously £59) as I have just had smart meters fitted and the readings haven’t settled into any pattern you must absolutely know the rate per kW hour and standing charge so you can make apples for apples comparisons. They rely on obfuscating these numbers.

Energy Prices

dutchy101

It’s quite incredible how much energy is used up by data centres, cloud storage, the internet etc. You never hear this talked about anywhere. Funny that

Gagaryn

dutchy101 This is an interesting read. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/23/if-our-datacentres-cannot-take-the-heat-the-uk-could-really-go-off-the-rails

PortafilterProcrastinator

Elcarajillo Wouldn’t be surprised if it lasts longer. That stretch is such a prime area for DCs there’s a lot of land already bought waiting for the power to come along.

Bagging capacity is big business, they’ll be watching like hawks until the right time.

PortafilterProcrastinator

Two Days. Up £40 a month.

This is over double what we are paying at the moment.

So the price cap will go up (based on info today) to approx. £3,500 a year from October. An 80% increase on our projected annual cost is a little under £4,600 projected annual.

Not worth fixing I don’t think.

Martin Lewis says don’t fix unless the offered price is less than 70/75% of your current rate. It is the best I have got to go on.

Meldrew

PortafilterProcrastinator And that’s for the loyal customers.

Del_UK

PortafilterProcrastinator
Can we swear on this forum yet….

DavecUK

PortafilterProcrastinator Taking the piss…we should start an energy saving tips thread, I got a few nuggets, which have and will, save me money.

PortafilterProcrastinator

DavecUK I’m all ears.

I have a feeling my mantra this winter will be ‘put (another) jumper on’.

Meldrew

PortafilterProcrastinator What I cannot understand is why the standing charge is also going up. I am with Octopus, our standing charges are 24.4 pence electric and 20 pence gas per day. It cannot cost them much if anything extra to supply the services, surely not to warrant the rising charges.

Cuprajake

@DavecUK do share.

Need to save all we can

DavecUK

Cuprajake

Here’s my hints and tips:

If you have a boiler, turn down the outflow temperature as low as you can and still get decent heating. If the boiler has one temp setting for a storage tank and CH, turn it to 55C. Modern condensing boilers are much more efficient when they can condense properly.
If you have a boiler like the above, have the hot water on shared with the central heating. You may have to have HW on a little longer, but it will give you a much lower return temperature (increasing the delta between outflow and inflow.
For boilers with separate temps for heating and hot water (combi), turn the heating outflow temp as low as you can stand to warm the house and the hot water as well.
4 minute showers (use a timer)

The boiler changes above can save you up to 20kW of gas per day!!

Find any appliances with high parasitic drain and switch them off when not using (modern appliances generally don’t use more than 1 watt), especially older appliances
If you have a pond with a pump and fish, buy an aerator and only use the pump when you want it to look pretty, or for filtration, where you can cut it down to 6 hours per day
Keep curtains closed where you can, it will save you a surprising amount of heat.
Cook efficiently where possible, cook more than 1 thing in the oven and warm up next day in MW if appropriate.
Check your fridge for bad seals, or high usage…it might be cheaper in the long run to replace it.
Always, always dry clothes outside on a washing line if possible…you don’t need sun, just a dry day and wind…winter or summer.
Turn down the washing machine to 30C and always use a biological powder. Never ever use liquids or liquitabs….always use powder. Powder mixes better, contains bleach and thus you don’t get slimy remnants for bacteria growth leading to a smelly washing machine.
Always put a full load in the washing machine
If you have a plasma TV, stop using it and dump it, the 400+ watts simply isn’t worth it!!!
Ensure your computer doesn’t wake up at night and screw your leccy bill…probably better to shut it down.
Turn that coffee machine off, if you are not going to use it for a while…
Fill a kettle with only what you need to boil (unless you have an Osmio)
Add an insulation jacket to your hot tank, even if it’s already foam dipped

Rob666

Meldrew I agree. There has been no adequate explanation for the massive rise in standing charge.

PortafilterProcrastinator

Meldrew Rob666 Cuprajake

Is the unit charge (meant to be) directly related to the wholesale price? So is it as obvious as they can’t increase the unit charge more as there would be outcry, so they ‘fill the gap’ on the cost cap with standing charge increase?

As you say, there seems to be no good reason for the standing charge to increase, so it’s got to be shady.

Cuprajake

Because they can

PortafilterProcrastinator

DavecUK I might have to ask for a bit more advice on the boiler adjustments!

I’ll have a look tomorrow.

LMSC

DavecUK Wow! That’s a long useful list. This is what we have on the boiler side. Not sure, what we need to adjust. Thanks Dave!

MediumRoastSteam

DavecUK Turn down the washing machine to 30C and always use a biological powder. Never ever use liquids or liquitabs….always use powder. Powder mixes better, contains bleach and thus you don’t get slimy remnants for bacteria growth leading to a smelly washing machine.

This is helpful and I remember you telling me this a while back. 👍

With regards to biological (bio) vs non-bio, what’s he difference? Also, I noticed these days it’s virtually impossible to buy powder. We used to buy Ariel colours, or Persil, but now all you can get is the liquid or liquid tabs, and they are bio. We also use Fairy powder, non-bio, and that contains bleach as you said.

LMSC

MediumRoastSteam just read what it’s circled in your attachment. It says setting 4 is 53C. It looks like, to me, if the scale is proportional, that 55C is where the “star” is.

DavecUK Oh the reason for 55C is legionella, 55C Kills Listeria in about 2 hours, 60C to 65C kills it in 15 minutes…but really it’s not a risk to have 55 in a domestic environment. Especially if the tank is only 70% hot with a lower cooler layer…lower than 55 is probably not great.

Hot water
I checked the instruction for this boiler. It shows the hot water range is 40 to 70. If proportional, I am thinking the average mark up is 4.3C and 4 will be 58 and e js about 62?

I am wondering if 4 is enough for the hot waters to kill the bacteria. The hot water tank has a temperature control and is set at 55C.

Central Heating

The same scale would apply. I will drop this to 4 than the recommended 5 and see how it goes in the winter!

Please ignore the display. I briefly fired to check the boiler after changing Hive battery!

DavecUK Turn down the washing machine to 30C and always use a biological powder. Never ever use liquids or liquitabs….always use powder. Powder mixes better, contains bleach and thus you don’t get slimy remnants for bacteria growth leading to a smelly washing machine.

We wash a full load running at 30C for 20 mins for all daily wear once a week. They are hardly dirty. The only issue with the full load is the non-colour stuff. We wash one weekly cycle full load and the alternative week two loads of 30C and 20 mins each for colour and non-colour (mostly whites).

The powder is mostly non-bio and the conditioner is always diluted with water (50:50).

DavecUK

PortafilterProcrastinator really how did we all get to thinking it’s even remotely OK for it to be going up to almost 60p per kW and standing charges for dual fuel approaching £1 day.

Especially as we were told wind power would be so much cheaper….almost free. What happened, is the wind blowing less or something. Do solar panels work worse for some reason?

As great a mystery as when all the Lorry drivers got beamed into space…and just as quickly beamed back 4 weeks later.

PortafilterProcrastinator

DavecUK I don’t think it’s okay in the slightest, but I feel totally powerless. Looking at the options to make a meaningful impact on our energy cost (renewables etc) we’re simply not in a position to be able to pursue them.

A bit like the political realisation over the last few years. I’ll continue to vote and have a say as it were, but I have no expectation that anything will happen as any politician says it will.

DavecUK

LMSC I will assume that it’s a combi boiler running a pressurised system. If so, left knob is radiator temp. When winter comes reduce it a little in increments. Check rads get hot, they won’t get as hot, heat up time of house will be slower. If it all works OK for a few days, , you can reduce a bit more and see if it is still OK..

The right hand one is hot water, reduce it so showers can be just hot enough when the shower is set close to it’s max temp, and flow rate is acceptable. This will save a lot of gas.

LMSC

DavecUK I don’t think this is a combi boiler. We have a separate hot water tank in our airing cupboard and a cold water tank in the attic. The unit is Bosch Greenstar 30CDI.

Yeah, the control knobs for hot water and heater are correct as you describe.

Thx Dave.

DavecUK

LMSC then the hot water knob needs to be no lower than 55C (Listeria).

It looks as if whoever set up the boiler did a good job

MediumRoastSteam

LMSC Where does this 55C would fall on our hot water knob?

LMSC don’t think this is a combi boiler. We have a separate hot water tank in our airing cupboard and a cold water tank in the attic. The unit is Bosch Greenstar 30CDI

If you have a tank, most likely there’s a thermostat control on the tank itself in which you set the temperature of the hot water as you please.

Edit: I just read what it’s circled in your attachment. It says setting 4 is 53C. It looks like, to me, if the scale is proportional, that 55C is where the “star” is.

But do check your hot water cylinder too. 👍

LMSC

DavecUK then the hot water knob needs to be no lower than 55C (Listeria).

Where does this 55C would fall on our hot water knob?

That’s about 4, which is the optimum as per this!

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