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

MediumRoastSteam

Ouch! So in the example above, they’ve gone from paying approx. £10k a year to approx. £61k a year. £50k extra. Ouch!

Assuming they have already looked at their energy consumption and can’t make further savings, they cost will have to be passed on to customers somehow. Customers, already feeling the pressure at home, will have to make savings by not visiting the pub as often as they did.

How can this be sustainable in any way? It’s a domino effect. What’s next? Massive closures? Mass unemployment as businesses can’t afford day to day basic operations? Rioting? Looting? I’m very worried for the future of this country (and Europe in general) if something is not done to alleviate this.

DavecUK

MediumRoastSteam I’m very worried for the future of this country (and Europe in general) if something is not done to alleviate this

We will lose many businesses, many people will struggle this winter and some will die.

I look around at what’s happening in the UK, ALL of it and shake my head in disbelief. This thing looks like it might play out to the bitter end, whatever that is. It feels like our society is crumbling around us.

Cuprajake

We’ve been in our house just over a yr, I too am proactive with fixing etc.

We were with pure planet. Fixed till april22, they went bump and I got moved to shell energy who I’m happy to say are a horrid company, ringing, email and txt abuse to pay bills,. I spent around a grand in 6months with them !!!

Now fixed to april23 with octopus.

Work wise I’m fixed with BG on gas but rolling with Opus for electric. Atm there are no deals/fixes.

I expect my current £400 a month to double, triple, I don’t know.

But it’s a double hit, less customers and more bills.

But my cynical side says. Let the small business go bump, big corp monopolies the business.

Imagine if all the small plumbers went bump and you had to deal directly with your energy supplier for a new boiler…..

MediumRoastSteam

DavecUK - it’s definitely worrying times. And on top of that , we have inflation combined with a relative low interest rate and it’s not even passed in full to savers. What could possibly go wrong…

To spell it out: if you have savings for your retirement, children, house deposit, rainy day, house maintenance etc, it’s rotting away attracting an interest rate which is approx. 13x less than the rate of inflation. Next year what costs £100 now will cost £115 if not more. That money in a savings account will become £101, maybe £102 if you are lucky.

Fun times ahead. But I suppose we are all passengers here. We can only sit and prepare for a bumpy ride. Someone else is stirring the ship… and they don’t get sea sick.

CoyoteOldMan

MediumRoastSteam we have inflation combined with a relative low interest rate and it’s not even passed in full to savers

Oh, they have been quick enough to pass on the interest rate rises on mortgages…

Funny (?) thing about the interest rate rises is that they are not needed. The current inflation spike (let’s hope it’s a spike!) is not driven by domestic demand pushing prices up.

Cuprajake

And that’s ontop of covid tax. So that thing that cost £100 last yr was £85.

There will be a massive amount of deaths this yr, elderly and suicide will be up.

Don’t forget covids not been in the news yet and we have that to return too.

Pretty much anything Tories have touched has turned to 💩

DavecUK

CoyoteOldMan Funny (?) thing about the interest rate rises is that they are not needed. The current inflation spike (let’s hope it’s a spike!) is not driven by domestic

I said this ages ago, but that bank of England guy paid 500K plus bonus per year, he must know more than us….Although he did fail badly in monetary policy. I wonder if he gave his bonus back (sorry 99K payment in leiu of pension). Or will he say inflation was beyond his control…if that’s the case, why pay him 500K per year when we could put a trained chimp in that position.

dfk41

CoyoteOldMan Funny (?) thing about the interest rate rises is that they are not needed. The current inflation spike (let’s hope it’s a spike!) is not driven by domestic demand pushing prices up.

Which is exactly why they are not doing a United States on us. Those of us who can remember the last time interest rates peaked at around 16.63% lived through it, as we will this. Yes, times will be hard but things are being whipped up into a cappuccino like frenzy by a rabid media, keen on bringing the government down by peddling nothing but doom and gloom.

DavecUK

This is only a taste of what net zero will look like. One thing to think about, the less fossil fuels we use the more they will cost and all that lovely green energy will cost more than it does now. Cos even today it’s not any cheaper is it!

Systemic

In a recent interview Elon Musk claimed “civilization will crumble” if the world halted the use of oil and natural gas and called for continued drilling and exploration of fossil fuel sources.

Musk backed additional efforts to drill for natural gas and oil in the short term, in line with his recent change in tune on the use of non-renewable sources like fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

Systemic

Meanwhile over at the Lib Dems, Sir Ed Davey has said he remains proud that he was the person who “basically stopped” fracking in the UK, despite the current energy crisis. He said fracking was not needed because of the “success of our renewable policy, particularly in offshore wind, means we’re not going to need anywhere near the amount of gas we did before".

Systemic

Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Shell, one of Europe’s largest energy companies, warned that the energy crisis will last for several winters and it was a “fantasy” to think shortages could be resolved quickly.

Systemic

It’s so reassuring to know that our esteemed political leaders have a firm grasp on the energy crisis whilst those who have a proper job like Musk and Van Beurden tell it like it is.

Systemic

Meanwhile in Scotland where rubbish remains uncollected due to industrial action by council employed workers, the first minister’s official residence is having its rubbish collected as normal. Why? Because it has a £43 million contract with a private firm which also covers 70 authority buildings. How very reminiscent of the communist soviet era.

CoyoteOldMan

dfk41 Which is exactly why they are not doing a United States on us.

Well… my mortgage bill would have gone up by more than 30% had I not fixed it last year.

Systemic

The decade 1970-1979 saw inflation hit 24%

dfk41

Systemic And what was the average interest rate during that time?
Interest Rate in the United Kingdom averaged 7.15 percent from 1971 until 2022, reaching an all time high of 17 percent in November of 1979 and a record low of 0.10 percent in March of 2020.4 Aug 2022

Systemic

dfk41 And what was the average interest rate during that time?

For the decade, 1970 - 79, the averaged rate of inflation was 14%

dfk41

CoyoteOldMan Yes, I understand but it is still no where near the levels we faced in the 1980’s, no matter what the press tell you!

Systemic

dfk41 Yes, I understand but it is still no where near the levels we faced in the 1980’s, no matter what the press tell you!

If interest rates get remotely near the above historic figures, there will be carnage in the housing market. I recall well the problem of negative equity in the ’90s.

CoyoteOldMan

dfk41 That is true, but equally the average cost of housing vs. average earnings is not what it was in the 1980s (BTW, I was there in the 1980s too…)

dfk41

Systemic I recall well the problem of negative equity in the ’90s.

So do I, but point being, we did not implode……we came through it and it was not long before much better times came back…..to be followed by worse times…….(to be continued)
I remember the 90’s…….every client I visited wanted to remortgage every two years so they could take equity out of their property to waste on cars and holidays…….and the interest rates were around 7% which seemed incredibly cheap……..

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