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My guess would be 'customer service' staff on minimum wage whose goal is not to help you, but to get you off the phone as quickly as possible so they can answer the next call and keep their personal targets for numbers of 'satisfied customers' achived up so they reach their bonus thresholds.
Or more likely, keep their jobs for another shift.
My guess would be 'customer service' staff on minimum wage whose goal is not to help you, but to get you off the phone as quickly as possible so they can answer the next call and keep their personal targets for numbers of 'satisfied customers' achived up so they reach their bonus thresholds.
Or more likely, keep their jobs for another shift.
they emailed me umpteen times about, so I replied "no more emails just get IT right"
and I have had at least half a dozens phone calls about it
They say the same thing about 3 or 4 times
They seem to think a meter reading is rocket science
Mike4 wrote:
My guess would be 'customer service' staff on minimum wage whose goal is not to help you, but to get you off the phone as quickly as possible so they can answer the next call and keep their personal targets for numbers of 'satisfied customers' achived up so they reach their bonus thresholds.
Or more likely, keep their jobs for another shift.
they emailed me umpteen times about, so I replied "no more emails just get IT right"
and I have had at least half a dozens phone calls about it
They say the same thing about 3 or 4 times
They seem to think a meter reading is rocket science
Well yes, this fits my model. Customer service agents on minimum wage who are allowed, encouraged even, to make up any ol' shyte on the hoof that they think you might swallow whole. I certainly would not like to do their job. I can't imagine them having access to the techies who actually write the meter and billing software to get a proper answer to your questions or problems. To the customer-facing staff, meter reading and billing probably IS rocket science! I'm feeling particularly cynical this morning.
Mike4 wrote:
Customer service agents on minimum wage who are allowed, encouraged even, to make up any ol' shyte on the hoof that they think you might swallow whole. I certainly would not like to do their job.
I have developed a very good bull detector over the years.
You don't want to be on the other end if I detect it
I was with SO Energy who kept pestering me to have a smart meter and kept retaining too much in my account (£1,700 credit at present), so I finally got round to switching and have moved to EON who have offered a flexible tariff (Nextflex) that I can't believe. 29.416p day rate and -0.305p night(yes negative!!)
They say they will give me notice of any change in rate but I can't believe the above rate - we shall see! I have it in writing.
So in theory they pay me to charge my car at night
I have had a long running battle with them over estimated gas bills
I submit gas and electric readings on the last day of the month
Electricity bills are fine, but Gas is always estimated
I was just told not to enter gas on the last day of the month but to do it on the 2nd of each month as the end of the month is too far way from the bill generation date of the 5th
I have never heard such a bunch of nonsense from any energy supplier
WHAT is wrong with them
I'm with Shell. They send me an email on about the 3rd of the month asking me to take readings. As long as I do it any time in the next 5 or so days it's used to make up the bill. Works fine for me.
scrumpyjack wrote:so I finally got round to switching and have moved to EON who have offered a flexible tariff (Nextflex) that I can't believe. 29.416p day rate and -0.305p night(yes negative!!)
They say they will give me notice of any change in rate but I can't believe the above rate - we shall see! I have it in writing.
So in theory they pay me to charge my car at night
I do hope you actually have that tariff in writing, because for me the EON website shows that Next Flex tariff to be the standard Ofgem capped 34p rate tariff.
swill453 wrote:
I'm with Shell. They send me an email on about the 3rd of the month asking me to take readings. As long as I do it any time in the next 5 or so days it's used to make up the bill. Works fine for me.
Scott.
they always send it to me on the 28th or 29th - the planks
bruncher wrote:They pestered me to get smart meters and the new gas meter hasn't initiated or commissioned as it should. Ongoing saga. And they failed to use the final reading (from old meter) for gas as they did for electric ... they have done it finally after many calls, but it says 'customer reading' which isn't correct.
That sounds familiar!
They pestered me too, even lying that fitting them was obligatory. But we relented and the fitter came on 9 March. First thing he said was that he couldn't fit a gas meter as some pipework was hidden and he wasn't allowed to fit one in this scenario in case an unseen joint was disturbed, causing a leak. Fair enough, but annoying as it is gas usage which costs us most so having relatively up to date gas data was potentially more interesting.
He fitted the electricity meter and showed us the in home display (IHD), which, he said, would connect to the meter within 24 hours.
Almost a fortnight later, it has still not started to work. Their customer service bods told me the fitter didn't know what he was talking about and it could take fourteen days for the IHD to start. I'm certain this is codswallop but I've another three days before I can try again to get them to sort out the blasted thing and finally (hopefully!) get the only minor benefit the smart meter installation might give me...
Well, miracles do happen!
Fourteen days now up since our smart meter was installed and as the IHD was still not working, I tried a further direct message via Twitter. An immediate auto response said messages were taking 3 days to reply to, but lo and behold, I has a reply within a few hours, and from someone who didn't just want to fob me off!
Was told the IHD had not been paired with the meter and could I send them a photo of the GUI (IHD ID number). Did so, and within half an hour it worked perfectly.
Ovo advise prices effective 1st April:
night rate 24.28 - 22.98p
day rate 40.26 - 38.66p
Hooray you might think... but the daily standing charge goes from 49.23 - 54.05p.
Net result, estimated 4% reduction in annual cost.
Yesterday I reviewed our regular 6-month 'winter-period' gas and electricity usage record from EDF, which runs from the middle of October to the middle of April each year, and I've got to say that I'm very pleased with the results from the various cost-cutting exercises that we've implemented in our household over the 2022/23 winter months -
Gas used during winter period 2021/22 - 7370 kWh
Gas used during winter period 2022/23 - 6300 kWh
Reduction in gas usage = 1070 kWh = 14.5% less gas used in this winter period.
Electricity used during winter period 2021/22 - 3400 kWh
Electricity used during winter period 2022/23 - 2620 kWh
Reduction in electricity usage = 780 kWh = 22.9% less electricity used in this winter period
The above has primarily been achieved by a combination of changes in our behaviour and energy-usage -
Gas savings -
1. Slight reduction in 'on-time' settings for the central-heating programmes, primarily in the morning setting which is used to take the chill off the house for when people are getting up. One-hour morning programme reduced to 45 minutes, with no really noticeable difference considering that it's a generally 'busy' time of day anyway, once people are up and moving around, and the chill is still taken off the house initially, as the 15-minute reduction was made at the 'off-time' end of the morning programme.
2. Slight reduction in central-heating running temperatures via the boiler setting. This was a little more noticeable than the morning-setting changes, given that it was the main 'night time' running temperature, but judicious use of suitable clothing and warm throws helped to bridge the colder winter weeks, where we felt it the most. We were never 'cold', but it was a case of getting warmer by other means where possible and sensible to do so. No complaints were acceptable when wearing shorts or t-shirts - go and put something on...
Electricity savings -
1. During the previous two winters when working from home, I'd used a small 600W oil-filled heater in my office-room, to help reduce the whole-house gas central heating use. That helped during those two previous winters, but I saw this winter as a good opportunity to perhaps make a chunky electrical saving if I could reduce that 600W room-sized electrical demand further. I'm very pleased to say that the 600W oil-filled heater was not used at all during the 2022/23 winter period, and previously documented use of more 'personal' warming solutions were used to good effect, and which primarily consisted of a USB-heated gillet, which proved to be one of my best-buys and especially useful during those much colder November weeks that we had, and also an electric foot-warmer and separate heat-pad, as well as the usual warm clothing solutions. A nice surprise for me on the clothing side of things was to learn just what a difference a simply roll-neck made, and the two roll-necks I bought from Mountain Warehouse early in the winter have been a surprising and really simple benefit, personally. I was also happy to wear a wooly-hat during the really cold November period, and of course that makes a huge difference during the colder weeks where the more usual solutions are struggling to maintain warmth.
2. Our tumble-dryer usage this winter has been focussed on, with much more use of outside drying-lines where the weather allowed. With me working from home and being able to make opportune use of what dry weather we've had over the winter, we managed to reduce the need for the costly tumble dryer to an acceptable minimum. We've had a wall-mounted Brabantia clothes-line for a few years now, accessible from a rear-patio, which helps with not having to walk on wet grass to access the longer clothes line, and the Brabantia option was used extensively over the period.
3. Our electric shower has two wattage settings, and by habit we've always had it on the highest 'double-element' setting since it was installed. and at the back end of last summer we were slightly surprised to learn that the lower-wattage 'single element' setting was really quite adequate whilst the incoming water was still relatively warm. This offered opportunities for saving on electricity for some of the winter-period months, and is something that we'll look to make much more use of over the coming warmer period as well, but given that our electric shower on it's 'double-element' setting is the single highest regular consumer of electrical energy, any savings from this type of 'setting switch' will be of benefit over the longer term now that we've seen how acceptable it is for all but about 4 months of the year...
Given that we don't yet know where energy-prices are going to settle over the coming months and years, the above winter period was, for me, really about trying to set an 'acceptable baseline' to work around and from, going forwards. I tried to concentrate on the 'regular and obviously chunky' energy demands in our home, and find ways to either reduce or mitigate energy-demands where it was possible to do so easily, and I'm happy that I've done so with what really feels like very little 'effort'.
I took a photograph of the boiler-settings used over the above period, and will probably look to turn the central-heating temperature up slightly next winter, with the hope that by doing so I can perhaps reduce again the relatively low demand we put on our inefficient 'living flame' gas fire. I suspect that the efficiency gain of the boiler heating the whole house might actually go some way to off-set the very poor efficiency of the gas-fire, but this winter was a case of setting a known baseline to work with, where I can then compare other 'setting scenarios' with these useful winter-period figures.
With the above said...
Whilst being concious about energy usage and running costs is important to me, I am happy to spend money on keeping people warm where sensible efforts have already been made, but it's still cold in the house...
I was happy to wear a woolly-hat whilst working from home during those really cold November weeks, but I wouldn't ever expect anyone else to do so, and in the situations where others were in the house and people were cold, then the central-heating went on...
The efforts documented above are, for me, about making sensible savings in gas and electricity usage where it's possible to do so simply and cheaply, which then saves money from where it really doesn't need to be used, and which then allows those costs to be shifted to where the demand is much more justified and more difficult to mitigate.
For me this exercise isn't primarily about saving money, but making best use of it for as much benefit as possible.
A couple of things I did last year that I think helped our energy usage -
Fitting a thermal blanket over the spray foam covered hot water cylinder. I can't put a number on it but the reduction in temperature inside the airing cupboard is very noticeable. We used to have the water heating set morning and evening. Now I have managed to eliminate the evening water heating period. On the occasion that I need a bit of hotter water in the evening I boil a kettle with half a litre or so of water and use that.
I found in the really cold weather lowering the gas boiler flow temperature down from high 60's to 70 degrees resulted in rooms not getting as warm as they should. A setting of low to mid 60's boiler flow temperature also didn't get the hot water in the cylinder as hot as I'd like it.
Generally setting the room thermostat down half a degree or so from where we used to have it resulted in perfectly adequate comfort.
Having a four hour BEV tariff overnight, it was very useful to use the built in delayed start timers in the dishwasher, washing machine and the (heat pump) tumble dryer. A significant part of our electricity consumption has been time shifted to overnight.
Itsallaguess wrote:so I can perhaps reduce again the relatively low demand we put on our inefficient 'living flame' gas fire.
It's definitely worth looking at eliminating this.
We inherited one when we bought our bungalow ten years ago. The first two or three winters, we tended to just keep the lounge warm with the living flame fire, only using the central heating first thing in the morning and then before bedtime.
We then decided we were fed up of having a cold house most of the day (we're both retired so tend to be in most days) and the following winter we decided not to use the fire at all but just use the central heating. After all, even if it cost a lot more, we were not exactly poor so we might as well spend some money on comfort. This was, of course, before rocketing energy costs.
In the end, we found our usage was no higher. The irony is, had energy costs been sky high then, we would probably not have changed our strategy and never realised just how wasteful and inefficient the living flame fire was.
Once we did, we had the gas fire supply capped, removed the fire and closed the fireplace (leaving ventilation to stop any damp in the flue). This had the double benefit of removing the wasteful appliance and stopping the inevitable heat losses and draughts from the flue.
We did investigate replacing the fire with a more efficient living flame version with a glass front but decided in the end it just wouldn't be worth it. We have a 'living flame' electric fire with a thermostat now which might get used for half an hour or so every couple of weeks in spring and autumn, just to take the chill off the lounge in an evening when it's not cold enough to warrant heating the whole house.
BullDog wrote:
I found in the really cold weather lowering the gas boiler flow temperature down from high 60's to 70 degrees resulted in rooms not getting as warm as they should. A setting of low to mid 60's boiler flow temperature also didn't get the hot water in the cylinder as hot as I'd like it.
Generally setting the room thermostat down half a degree or so from where we used to have it resulted in perfectly adequate comfort.
staffordian wrote:
It's definitely worth looking at eliminating [the living flame gas fire]
We inherited one when we bought our bungalow ten years ago. The first two or three winters, we tended to just keep the lounge warm with the living flame fire, only using the central heating first thing in the morning and then before bedtime.
We then decided we were fed up of having a cold house most of the day (we're both retired so tend to be in most days) and the following winter we decided not to use the fire at all but just use the central heating. After all, even if it cost a lot more, we were not exactly poor so we might as well spend some money on comfort. This was, of course, before rocketing energy costs.
In the end, we found our usage was no higher. The irony is, had energy costs been sky high then, we would probably not have changed our strategy and never realised just how wasteful and inefficient the living flame fire was.
Thanks both, and I'm conscious as well that throughout the winter period covered in my earlier figures, I had used a single boiler return-temperature setting, and I also found that the slightly lower than normal setting felt a little inadequate during those really cold weeks of November, hence my use of the inefficient living-flame gas-fire during those period...
One of my plans for next winter is to broadly maintain this winter's boiler temperature setting, but to also plan on modulating it upwards during the inevitable 'really cold' weeks that we normally have to endure at times, and part of the hopeful outcome of that plan will be remove at least some of the use of our living-flame gas fire that we did use more often than I'd like during those very cold periods.
I have been taking weekly gas and electricity-meter readings since around November, to help gauge my through-winter energy usage as I tried various things, and I did take a mental note of the weeks where the gas-fire wasn't used much, and it really surprised me as to how much more gas was used when it was in use fairly frequently, although it's a little difficult to gauge completely independent from the boiler gas-use, as I was really only using the gas fire during the colder periods, and if the central heating was also on at the same time, then I would certainly expect the boiler to also be using more gas as well, during the same colder weeks, so I do intend to run some completely isolated tests next winter, with varying levels of central-heating return-temperatures used over the colder weeks, just to see if I can finesse some comfort/cost improvements there, using this winter's baseline figures as a good starting point, and hopefully a much more efficient central-heating boiler in providing that much-needed heat-boost rather than the gas-fire...
One additional thing I would say about this exercise over the winter, is that I have found that taking regular gas and electricity meter readings does seem to focus the mind in a similar way to when regularly weighing yourself, and in a similar way to those regular scale-sessions, you begin to almost get a feel for the meter-readings before actually taking them, as you get tuned to the 'normal' and 'more than normal' weeks that the readings are being taken for...
What's the energy-usage equivalent of 'I knew I shouldn't have had that full packet of biscuits...'?
BullDog wrote:
I found in the really cold weather lowering the gas boiler flow temperature down from high 60's to 70 degrees resulted in rooms not getting as warm as they should. A setting of low to mid 60's boiler flow temperature also didn't get the hot water in the cylinder as hot as I'd like it.
Generally setting the room thermostat down half a degree or so from where we used to have it resulted in perfectly adequate comfort.
staffordian wrote:
It's definitely worth looking at eliminating [the living flame gas fire]
We inherited one when we bought our bungalow ten years ago. The first two or three winters, we tended to just keep the lounge warm with the living flame fire, only using the central heating first thing in the morning and then before bedtime.
We then decided we were fed up of having a cold house most of the day (we're both retired so tend to be in most days) and the following winter we decided not to use the fire at all but just use the central heating. After all, even if it cost a lot more, we were not exactly poor so we might as well spend some money on comfort. This was, of course, before rocketing energy costs.
In the end, we found our usage was no higher. The irony is, had energy costs been sky high then, we would probably not have changed our strategy and never realised just how wasteful and inefficient the living flame fire was.
Thanks both, and I'm conscious as well that throughout the winter period covered in my earlier figures, I had used a single boiler return-temperature setting, and I also found that the slightly lower than normal setting felt a little inadequate during those really cold weeks of November, hence my use of the inefficient living-flame gas-fire during those period...
One of my plans for next winter is to broadly maintain this winter's boiler temperature setting, but to also plan on modulating it upwards during the inevitable 'really cold' weeks that we normally have to endure at times, and part of the hopeful outcome of that plan will be remove at least some of the use of our living-flame gas fire that we did use more often than I'd like during those very cold periods.
I have been taking weekly gas and electricity-meter readings since around November, to help gauge my through-winter energy usage as I tried various things, and I did take a mental note of the weeks where the gas-fire wasn't used much, and it really surprised me as to how much more gas was used when it was in use fairly frequently, although it's a little difficult to gauge completely independent from the boiler gas-use, as I was really only using the gas fire during the colder periods, and if the central heating was also on at the same time, then I would certainly expect the boiler to also be using more gas as well, during the same colder weeks, so I do intend to run some completely isolated tests next winter, with varying levels of central-heating return-temperatures used over the colder weeks, just to see if I can finesse some comfort/cost improvements there, using this winter's baseline figures as a good starting point, and hopefully a much more efficient central-heating boiler in providing that much-needed heat-boost rather than the gas-fire...
Cheers,
Itsallaguess
Good luck with optimising your energy usage. Every cloud has a silver lining and that means many of us have focused on energy consumption due to the high prices the last year or so.
If my experience is anything to go by, a boiler flow temperature in the low 60's is OK in the milder weather but results in not hot enough hot water. So, I have to set boiler flow temperature to the high 60's both for colder weather and hot enough hot water.
I might add that on my open vent Y plan heating system I cannot set different boiler flow temperatures for the heating circuit and hot water circuit. More sophisticated systems might allow two boiler flow temperature set points. Of course, a combi boiler doesn't have a hot water tank anyway.
So, iaag's mileage may vary to mine.
Second thing regarding energy use monitoring. If you have a smart meter I recommend using an app called Bright. You get historic energy consumption data in 30 minute slices. If you don't have a smart meter, I recommend you get one.
Another option is that our energy supplier, Octopus, let's me download energy data as a .csv file for use in a spreadsheet. Again in 30 minute slices.
Of course, iaag might well already know all of that. Hope that helps.
After seeing iaag's winter energy figures, I had a look at my own:
Comparing Oct-March 2021-22 to Oct-March 2022-23 I find:
Gas: reduction of 18% in kWh
Electricity: reduction of 8.5% in kWh.
Main measures taken:
Boiler (gas combi) temperature reduced.
Insulation added - in the loft and under floor
Installed (in January) an aircon unit / heat pump in the living room to reduce gas usage during the day.
CH thermostat reduced from 20C to 19C when on in the morning and evening.
I have an EV and charge the car at home, so the electricity figures are affected by how many miles I drive. I have driven about 1000 miles fewer this winter compared to last, which I think explains all of the electricity reduction.
