Gas & Electricity

Blue Maverick said:
How long does it take to get to temperature say 19degrees mate, ours this morning was 13.5 and in 30 mins it hadn’t moved!
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No idea to be honest as we don't really switch it on and off. We leave ours at 20 all the time and it seems to make the house a pleasant temperature.
 
Now sat with nearly £1400 in credit on my EDF account and yes, I know a big bill is due but it fucking grates me they are sat on £billions all earning a fortune for them in interest.
 
I have found a new way to save money on your heating bill. On the coldest March night for ten years, surrounded by six inches of snow, let your boiler fail. No gas being used, it’s magic. My engineer gave me the good news:
”Sorry mate, it’s completely fucked”
Boiler is 14 years old so repairs estimated at £500/£600 probably not worth it, so a new boiler it is. Meanwhile, I’m freezing.
A decent boiler, but it should have lasted longer. It was the electronics that failed.
My first boiler was a Potterton which was ten years old when I inherited it and it lasted till I sold that house 15 years later. Never had to repair it. Ok, it was basic, but I’m not convinced that filling a boiler full of chips with lots of fancy functions is necessarily a good thing. Technology, bloody hell.
 
Blue Maverick said:
Where does everyone keep their room stat, chatting to a couple of plumbers and they said in your hallway, the coldest room, ours is freezing no way it ever gets to temperature. We have rad stats everywhere apart from the hallway and bathroom, the experts say you shouldn’t have your room stat in same room as radiators with thermostatic valves, but then it says you should have it in the most used room! Very conflicting advice.
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We have a hive room stat and carry it around into the room we are in and fully open that room’s thermostatic valve.
 
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Blue Maverick said:
Where does everyone keep their room stat, chatting to a couple of plumbers and they said in your hallway, the coldest room, ours is freezing no way it ever gets to temperature. We have rad stats everywhere apart from the hallway and bathroom, the experts say you shouldn’t have your room stat in same room as radiators with thermostatic valves, but then it says you should have it in the most used room! Very conflicting advice.
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Sounds standard practice.
 
My thermastat was put in the hallway by the guys who put it in , the radiator opposite has no controls on it at all, assume it was something to do with that
 
kaz7 said:
My thermastat was put in the hallway by the guys who put it in , the radiator opposite has no controls on it at all, assume it was something to do with that
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Yes, old standard practice: put the thermostat in the hall but don’t attenuate that radiators output. I have today had a new boiler installed and modern practice is to keep the thermostat in a room that is well used. I can move mine around, it communicates with the boiler by radio. So you can experiment and find the best location to give you the room temp you require.
As I posted above, my boiler died on the coldest day, surrounded by snow. My usual engineer who installed the boiler and has serviced it has retired, so I got a new guy and his first act was to persuade the installation engineers that two old people would die of hypothermia unless they worked their day off. Result, we are warm as toast.
 
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KS55 said:
Yes, old standard practice: put the thermostat in the hall but don’t attenuate that radiators output. I have today had a new boiler installed and modern practice is to keep the thermostat in a room that is well used. I can move mine around, it communicates with the boiler by radio. So you can experiment and find the best location to give you the room temp you require.
As I posted above, my boiler died on the coldest day, surrounded by snow. My usual engineer who installed the boiler and has serviced it has retired, so I got a new guy and his first act was to persuade the installation engineers that two old people would die of hypothermia unless they worked their day off. Result, we are warm as toast.
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I would have donated to the "BM Flowers for KS55 and his missus as they were found 9 days after they froze to death" fund.
 
Getting a refund off from EDF of £780! Overpaid massively this winter and really from December haven’t skimped on the heating so without the £400 from the government we would’ve still been in credit. It also looks like you can move providers now I detest EDF and Octopus is available anyone been with them, I heard you can get daily updates etc for your usage/cost although our smart meters don’t work anyway!
 
Blue Maverick said:
Getting a refund off from EDF of £780! Overpaid massively this winter and really from December haven’t skimped on the heating so without the £400 from the government we would’ve still been in credit. It also looks like you can move providers now I detest EDF and Octopus is available anyone been with them, I heard you can get daily updates etc for your usage/cost although our smart meters don’t work anyway!
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Octopus are pretty good in my experience although without a smart meter you won't get daily updates unless you read them every day! In the old days they used to fit a device that clipped to your meters that sent a signal to an IHD (in home display) which calculated daily/weekly usage, current usage etc. Last time I asked for one, Octopus said they don't have any to send out so maybe the data from the 30min read frequency from a (working) smart meter has become the norm.
 
Blue Maverick said:
Octopus is available, anyone been with them, I heard you can get daily updates etc for your usage/cost although our smart meters don’t work anyway!
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Neither do Octopus's and it's hard to imagine that both our gas/electric meters failed simultaneously, so that only leaves a problem from the supplier side. We used to enjoy being in control on the Octopus portal but at the moment it's nil by mouth. We can still monitor usage with our own readings, so that will suffice.

They escalated the complaint a few months back, but now that they have meter-morphasised into a dinosaur of the energy world, they've re-attuned to selective hearing.

We are not inputing any more readings, even though this stops us spinning their "wheel of fortune", so we shall leave them with the option of mending the issue, or sending out a nice meter man to keep them on track.

Having said that, we enjoy participating in the Octopus energy reduction scheme, wherebye we opt in regularly for Octopoints between designated timescales. As they cannot read the meters they always give us their daily average..hoozah!
 
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Two Gun Bob said:
Neither do Octopus's and it's hard to imagine that both our gas/electric meters failed simultaneously, so that only leaves a problem from the supplier side. We used to enjoy being in control on the Octopus portal but at the moment it's nil by mouth. We can still monitor usage with our own readings, so that will suffice.

They escalated the complaint a few months back, but now that they have meter-morphasised into a dinosaur of the energy world they've re-attuned to selective hearing.

We are not inputing any more readings, even though this stops us spinning their wheel of fortune, so we shall leave them with the option of mending the issue or sending out a nice regular meter man to keep on track.

Having said that, we enjoy participating in the Octopus energy reduction scheme, wherebye we opt in regularly for Octopoints between designated timescales. As they cannot read the meters they always give us their daily average..hoozah!
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Seems EDF have the same problem with their meters so as you say it looks like a manufacturer fault on a huge scale, I wonder how people who gave EV charging rates for nighttime go on? If the meter doesn’t work how can you benefit from cheap night rates?
 
Another here sick to fucking death of EDF, their shit billing, their broken smart meters and them holding nearly £1400 of my money as it stands.
 
denislawsbackheel said:
I’m with Octopus. No smart meter. I send monthly readings.
Monthly billing.
Never had a problem with getting refunds for excess credit off them.
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Yeah, I was previously with Bulb and have just been switched to Octopus. Had lots of credit so claimed some back and it only took about 3 days to credit into my bank account.
 
blueinsa said:
Another here sick to fucking death of EDF, their shit billing, their broken smart meters and them holding nearly £1400 of my money as it stands.
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If you give them a reading today it should all be refunded before April. As soon as it hits I’m off.
 
Blue Maverick said:
Getting a refund off from EDF of £780! Overpaid massively this winter and really from December haven’t skimped on the heating so without the £400 from the government we would’ve still been in credit. It also looks like you can move providers now I detest EDF and Octopus is available anyone been with them, I heard you can get daily updates etc for your usage/cost although our smart meters don’t work anyway!
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Octopus are fine and you get daily updates of usage.
As far as smart meters go they can read SMET1's (the first version) as ours was installed 6 years ago and communicates to there system.
 
I was going to tough out the winter but it has been impossible and i have been having an hour every morning , just have to suck the bill up when it eventually gets here

Chilly again to start today and again tomorrow then warmer so will switch heating off unless it pisses it down and i cant dry my towels
 
My quarterly bill arrived and it was close to £1600, after the government grant it went down for about £200, I just had to man up and pay.
 
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