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

Meldrew

Our upstairs heating came on a few days ago and again this morning. Will be turning it down when the wife is not looking,lol. She does like it warm. It was set at 19 but should be 18 really. I am surprised that it came on as the house is well insulated being only 3 years old. We have underfloor heating downstairs which has not come on as yet. We are lucky that each room is individually controlled so we have quite good control over the temperature in all areas downstairs. The lowest temperature that we have seen so far is 20.5. Jumpers have been brought out. Just wished that we had a log burner, might see if we could get one installed.

DavecUK

Meldrew Just wished that we had a log burner, might see if we could get one installed.

How can they be cheaper, especially with the price of logs increasing ….great for the ebv as well 🤣

Rob666

DavecUK One log burner heats the whole house. Logs are the same price here as last year. The imported ones have increased a lot though.
“ebv”?

Meldrew

DavecUK A friend of mine had one fitted several years ago and said that his house had never been so warm . I don’t know how good they actually are but it would give one an option other than gas heating. I also think sitting in front of a nice open fire is more psychological than anything else. Just nice sitting in front of a real fire.

CoyoteOldMan

Rob666 “ebv"

‘n’ is next to ‘b’ on the keyboard; I think it was meant to be env(ironment)

DavecUK

Meldrew Can you imagine if everybody had log burners, it would be like the 60s again…I do miss those fogs!

Rob666

CoyoteOldMan I was wondering what on earth it had to do with Epstein‐Barr virus! ;)

Inspector

Ours came on last night when we arrived from holiday.

It was 17.5 degrees at home and this year i set controller to 19 degrees. Spent 22kwh/2m3 of gas to bring home 19.5 degrees. Could have been less, i was just lazy to go to loft room to shut off the radiators there at 4am lol

Meldrew

DavecUK Just like the pandemic days

Amberale

I will admit to watching “moving to the country” and admiring your english countryside.
However the Studmistress and I piss ourselves laughing every time someone says “Ooh a log fire, lovely.”
We live in rural Victoria in the hinterland about 700′ amsl.
Our combustion heater is going for about 9 months of the year.
We chew through at least 6 ton of wood per year.
I source most of that off our property but even if I buy it (about $300/ton) we need to split and stack it, bring it into the house, clean the ashes, find kindling, start the fire and continue feeding it.
It then only warms half the house(old build).
We have reverse cycle ac which is more efficient but swbmo preferes the heat from the fire and as you say the ambience.

Bicky

From Bulb

DavecUK

Bicky Ouch!

Cuprajake

Bar that standing charge that’s pretty much what I locked in at,

Big week for the country really, bury you queen, imminent bank of England interest rise, country wide energy crisis and the new pm is over in the USA pledging billions to the Ukraine

Giphy - Yee Haw Reaction GIF by Black Rifle Coffee Company

DavecUK

I heard tonight thats it’s the UKs moral duty to suffer and spend billions supporting Ukraine. I wondered 2 things, why and why us (as usual). We helped the Kuwaitis and didn’t get any of the contracts to help them rebuild and recently a thick ear when we went for energy help.

I am not sure we should always be Europe’s policeman. We always go in with America as well and help them, and when it comes to a trade deal we get diddleyquat and a senile old men telling us what to do about the Northern Ireland protocol.

Today I was thrilled to hear that we’re going to spend even more money on Ukraine, it’s almost like it’s a contest. 🤣

Cuprajake

It does seem that we always have to lead the way,

Our piddly small country trying to lead the way with net zero and being green

Knowing that tomorrow if we crushed every car, got on bicycles, moved to solar and wind energy that we would effect just 1% of global emissions, till we sanctions the likes of China for the amount of shite they pump out nothing will change.

All the while, the large corps make billions

DavecUK

I’m tempted to switch the CH on just to check it works, but I’m on an energy saving drive. Thinking I might as well take my chances when it goes on in November sometime. Heres hoping global warming saves us some money.

Managed to reduce my leccy usage by almost 40%…sometimes though, I feel like buying a big cylinder of CO2 and running the whole cylinder out through a fart sounder, whilst shouting fu greens….

Elcarajillo

DavecUK It is always worth turning it on occasionally to keep the pump from seizing up.

Some systems have an automatic run occasionally feature eg Bosch combi.👍

Cuprajake

Nov? Weathers dropping next week 12oC 😭

DavecUK

Cuprajake Yer a northern softie…I laugh in the face of 12C…..

Cuprajake

kids feel the cold, im not fussed i run hot haha

DavecUK

Cuprajake Buy em some nice fleeces or furs

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