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

CoyoteOldMan Someone - like the average premier league footballer - making £3.5 million is going to be £210k better off. Neither of them needed the money.

This of course assumes they are paying tax through a system like PAYE, which none of them will be. The liklihood is they won’t ne any better off as they’re avoiding the tax through clever accountingin the first place

Cuprajake

So logged on to octopus energy and they had lowered my DD

Inspector

Cuprajake

i already lowered my DD 2 days ago from £150 to £100 and today i receved email from them saying they lowered it to £33. haha

i think i will manually bring it up to £100 again. So £166 a month might just cover us.

LMSC

Ovo is a bit checky here!

The DD remains unchanged. Once the DD payments are cleared, the monthly discount will be refunded shortly after that. This is done over 6 months.

Cuprajake

Yeah, I’ve put mine back up to £180, and I’m £300 in credit atm

But heating was on last night at the house was 16.5degrees

LMSC

Cuprajake I don’t understand the in credit business. It never earns any interest; it’s a free run for these super rich companies in the name of building up for winter. It’s another rip off, IMO. Our account is in credit by about £635.

Our house temp is about 17.5C. My 83 MIL feeling very cold. Think the heater will have to come up tomorrow, which is at least 5-6 weeks sooner. It is only Sep!

CoyoteOldMan

LMSC it never earns any interest; it’s a free run for these super rich companies in the name of building up for winter

If you want to bother to change DD payments twice a year or even more often, there is nothing to stop you doing it - or at least, I can change my DD whenever I want. When I was with PurePlanet (until it went belly up), they automatically set the payments to be 25% lower than average during the 6 “summer months”, and 25% higher during winter - this meant I was closer to zero net balance through the year.

However, considering the best savings account are around 4% AER (but overdrafts are usually >35% APR), running an average credit of say £500 (+1000 in summer, 0 in winter) doesn’t lose me much in terms of interest, and it may just save me some overdraft charges (all I’d need is 11 days of overdraft on my monthly £500 energy bill, and I’m ‘net zero’ against the lost interest).

As usual in these things, YMMV…

LMSC

CoyoteOldMan Of course, I am aware of those choices. It’s just the options the general pop may not be aware of. The natural or a logical thing, IMO, is charge for the actual. I am an Economist by training and understand risks and money by profession. One do not have to work like a credit card company, but they could charge the actuals. That’s my view anyway.

CoyoteOldMan

LMSC They definitely could, particularly since they “insist” that you install smart meters or provide them with very regular readings… 😁

DavecUK

It always irritates me they can’t render a bill and then take the correct amount by dd on payment day. What they euphemistically call direct debit, is what BT called in the olden days, a budget account. Usually enforced on customers who were bad payers.

I also find it odd that with all their modern computers they can’t work out the right amount. I am £760 in credit, I never heard of people even 100 in debit.

CoyoteOldMan

DavecUK FWIW, for my first 18 months with PurePlanet I was ‘under’ - at most by £1800. They also went bust… which may or may not be correlated.

DavecUK

CoyoteOldMan It was the shock of finding a customer in debit which probably sent them under.

LMSC

Update re-boiler

The engineer dropped in last week and found the valve holding the zone-valve actuator was a little sticky. A bit of oil was all required. He said the boiler is ok and so are the settings. It no longer runs continuously.

But, the hot water is playing up for the last few days. My daughter said on the week end the water wasn’t hot enough, despite it ran for an hour. My MIL said the same yesterday and my wife this morning.

Any idea what the issue could be? I am thinking if the gas engineer did his job properly, though we ended up paying £70 for the call out/service.

It’s a medium-sized tank.

Thx

Meldrew

LMSC If the boiler is heating the supply water to the tank correctly then I would be looking at the thermostat on the tank. Is the thermostat switching off to early. If you check what temperature the tank thermostat is set at and you can adjust the thermostat a bit higher and see if that helps. It would help if you had a thermometer to check the actual water temperature coming out of the taps before and after adjusting the thermostat. Hope this helps

LMSC

Elcarajillo Meldrew

Thanks folks. I will check as advised starting with the thermostat of the tank. We never changed the setting. It’s set at 55C and the engineer said the other day this is perfect for hot water. It does heat the tank as the water is neither cold nor luke warm. Normally, the water from the tap is hot 15-20 mins after the boiler comes alive. After 30 mins, it is very hot and good for 3 × 4 mins shower.

I will do the before and after test as Meldrew advised and go from there. Will call out the engineer otherwise.

Elcarajillo

I agree with @ Meldrew, either the boiler DHW stat or the cylinder stat.

The boiler DHW stat is inside the boiler lower L/H side= cost about £12. I think the boiler needs to be partially drained.

Check the cylinder stat first as Meldrew said.

DavecUK

.LMSC it’s also worth checking timings, if you changed HW to come on with heating (more efficient, but will take a bit longer. Applies to heat only system or system boiler, with single flow temp for HW and CH. Not sure what you have from looking at boiler. Looks like a system boiler where you can set independent flow temps.

Elcarajillo

They are independent settings and as LMSC has them set they should be just right.

One other thing not connected.👍🏻 It is worth closing the two gate valves and then reopening, they are very prone to seizing which can cause a big problem if you do need to shut them off. Fully open then back ½ a turn👍🏻

LMSC

Elcarajillo It is worth closing the two gate valves and then reopening, they are very prone to seizing which can cause a big problem if you do need to shut them off. Fully open then back ½ a turn

What’s this two-gate valve please? Where is it located? 🤔

CoyoteOldMan

LMSC These (the red-and-brass bits):

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