Brits are going to have to choose to work from home in a cold house or go to the office where it's warm.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/08/25/cost-of-living-brits-to-ditch-home-working-as-heating-bills-soar.html

That may happen here too.  My heating bill jumped from $540 in 2021 to $1140 this year.  I'll find out next month what it will be for 2023. 

Noel

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by birdguy

Not just Brits but most of Northern Europe. There is considerable concern about how much the government will help. Currently Boris Johnson is PM in name only.

Once a new PM is announced on 5 September a policy will be implemented to help us.

My monthly payment used to be 60GBP/month but I’ve raised it to 95 and after 1 October it’s likely to rise to around 140. Lots of people will not be able to afford to heat their homes. It’s going to be a very difficult winter.

Fracking will help the US. There’s rising acceptance it has to restart here in England.

This is part of why I went solar because during the summer WFH is actually cost prohibitive with the electric bills... 

Try powering 11 monitors, 5 systems and the AC to keep an office cool 5 days a wk 12-16 hrs/day.  My worst electric bill pre-solar was $940 in a month.  My worst bill post-solar was $249 running the pool pump and Aircon 24 hrs/day and once the Air Conditioning and pool are off I should be pumping electric back to the grid and see credits on my account.  Most of the time I am $75.month now which is just my solar payment 🙂 

I reduced my grid consumption massively.  LOVE my Solar 🙂  

In the winter I can actually have to open a window in my office and don't need heat 🙂 

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by psolk

Do you live in a climate that has cold winters Paul?  If so, how efficient is electric heating?

I have a friend who has an all electric home.  He tells me it is not as efficient as a gas furnace to heat a house.  

I have no experience trying to heat house with electric heat so I don't know.

I live in an old house without central heating.  We have a gas floor furnace in the living room and a gas wall heater in the bedroom.  They work well in keeping the house nice and cozy.

Noel

16 minutes ago, birdguy said:

Do you live in a climate that has cold winters Paul?  If so, how efficient is electric heating?

I have a friend who has an all electric home.  He tells me it is not as efficient as a gas furnace to heat a house.  

I have no experience trying to heat house with electric heat so I don't know.

I live in an old house without central heating.  We have a gas floor furnace in the living room and a gas wall heater in the bedroom.  They work well in keeping the house nice and cozy.

Noel

Hope you are well Noel! Oh yes, it's cold here in New Jersey the winter but we do have central gas furnace for heat and air. 

We have also essentially re-done the portions of the house we use most with mini split systems which are quite common overseas but very new over here.  So we have a master Condenser outside but individual evaporators in the rooms we use most.  So at night for example we can shut off the rest of the house and just cool/heat our room and those systems are electric but they are so much more efficient now than a traditional electric baseboard system which I've also used in the past and are incredibly inefficient and expensive! 

Also, in the summer I can turn the rest of the house up allowing the central system to shut down while my office stays 70F.  The Mini Split systems really are spectacular.

Cheers!  

 

PS, Off-Topic but thanks to you and your brother I got one of our monthly "Thanks to your support, Colton can be a kid " emails from St Jude.   So just know your impact here has long lasting impacts far beyond flightsim...  That and ASPCA have become monthly staples in our house now in addition to Ronald McDonald House which was already near and dear to my heart.   Just thought some positive news would be nice... 

@birdguy  Noel - they sell window A/C  heat pumps.  It wouldn't be as efficient as the mini split systems Paul is talking about but if your house is old, it would be a fairly easy way to possibly get more efficient heating and cooling.  I had no idea gas prices had gotten so high.  Is it propane?  My trailer in Dallas used natural gas and it was very cheap to heat my home but that was decades ago.

Odd that the more we find of the stuff, the higher the price goes.  Or I guess we're running out and might have to look for some alternative energy source?

Yes Dave, we use natural gas for heating and cooking.  Our house is old and has high ceilings (11 feet in the living room and 9 feet everywhere else.)  And as heat rises you can see where the living room would take a lot of furnace power to heat.  But I use a floor fan angled up at the ceiling and turned on low to circulate the warm air.

We have ceiling fan in the bedroom that blows the warm air back down.

Noel 

2 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Not just Brits but most of Northern Europe. There is considerable concern about how much the government will help. Currently Boris Johnson is PM in name only.

Once a new PM is announced on 5 September a policy will be implemented to help us.

My monthly payment used to be 60GBP/month but I’ve raised it to 95 and after 1 October it’s likely to rise to around 140. Lots of people will not be able to afford to heat their homes. It’s going to be a very difficult winter.

Fracking will help the US. There’s rising acceptance it has to restart here in England.

I'm not up to date with payments in the UK. Is this amount for gas or electricity? 

We don't have central heating, the log fire warms the house and electric blankets warm us. Logs cost about R2000 a season.

8 minutes ago, IanHarrison said:

I'm not up to date with payments in the UK. Is this amount for gas or electricity? 

We don't have central heating, the log fire warms the house and electric blankets warm us. Logs cost about R2000 a season.

Most people get both from a single supplier so any payments cover both. My electricity usage is only 3 times higher in winter than summer. It’s gas usage that’s the killer. Most have gas-fired central heating. Mine usually goes on in late October depending on temps but I’ll be resisting that early and wearing more layers.

2000 Rand is around 100GBP. Wow! Lucky you. More money for scenery and airports. 😁

30 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

My electricity usage is only 3 times higher in winter than summer. It’s gas usage that’s the killer.

Why does your electric bill go up so much if your heat is gas?

Our house has a central air heat pump that cools in summer and heats in winter.  Electricity costs are lower in winter because we have less winter than summer down here along the Gulf coast.

19 minutes ago, sightseer said:

Why does your electric bill go up so much if your heat is gas?

Our house has a central air heat pump that cools in summer and heats in winter.  Electricity costs are lower in winter because we have less winter than summer down here along the Gulf coast.

I have solar panels and those keep my electricity usage lower from March to October. The main reason is daylight. 12 hours in March, 16 in June but barely 8 in December. I cook mainly with a combination microwave (electricity) and to a lesser extent with a gas hob. But those aren’t great consumers of power.

You’re on the same latitude as northern Egypt. I’m at the same as southern Hudson Bay. We need central heating on from November to early April. All gas powered and the price per therm has gone from 60p / therm to 600p / therm in less than a year. That’s a ten-fold increase! 😳 This may help..

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cxwdwz5d8gxt/natural-gas

3 hours ago, psolk said:

Oh yes, it's cold here in New Jersey the winter but we do have central gas furnace for heat and air. 

I'm curious as to why you don't have electric heat that can run off your solar power?

Also, how much did your solar power system cost?

Thanks.

Dave

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Fracking will help the US. There’s rising acceptance it has to restart here in England.

 

I was listening to a guy from the National Grid talking about that this morning. Not really a solution. 1. It takes time to create an industry 2. Very little volume from our geology but lots of disruption. 3. The gas that would come out of the ground would still meet a Pan-European gas price so it doesn't matter if you made it here or not, you wouldn't get it cheaper. 

 

13:46.

 

 

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by martin-w

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I have solar panels and those keep my electricity usage lower from March to October.

I forgot you had solar.  Thats pretty cool that it helps so much in the summer.  Does it have battery backup or does it use micro-inverters?  or something else?

I'm really having fun with my experiemntal power backup system.  Its just a couple batteries I bought online plus a few solar panels, an inverter and a charge controller.  it seems to work for its purpose but I am really tempted to try something bigger and more permanent.

38 minutes ago, dave2013 said:

I'm curious as to why you don't have electric heat that can run off your solar power?

Also, how much did your solar power system cost?

Thanks.

Dave

Hey Dave...  That's why we put the mini split system in so we can pull from Solar. We went with a 4 way mini split and it pretty much can cool the entire 3800 sq ft, Each Evap is 1 ton unit.   They are all electric heat and AC so I can essentially shut the central system down.  Heater for the pool (largest consumer heater available) is also on the solar grid now.  It's flippin awesome sitting here watching my app and live energy production lol... 

$12,500 all in for 17.5kw after local credits.  

Edited August 26, 20223 yr by psolk