I see DC is wishing there were a "big 60" energy firms, rather than a "big 6"
Where has he been the last 15 years, as slowly but surely the smaller companies got bought out by the big ones ?
Yes, but of course we are all told that big players have a lot of clout and can obtain much better rates in the market. Bollocks. Brian
Vaguely reminds me of an old gag:
"How you know you work for a dotcom company ?" "You have changed employers 3 times, but sit at the same desk".
"How do you know your energy supplier is British ?" "Because you have changed accounts 3 times in 3 years without doing anything"
In the RBS IT department it still is 1999 ...
Owain
People complain that prices go up when wholesale prices go up, but don't go down when wholesale prices go down. Shirely a market opening for a market tracker tariff.
JGH
Contracts for gas are *very* complex. They need to cover:
total annual take take over specified days take over rig shutdowns take to specified intakes overall take from specified companies individual take from specified rigs
all to be weighed against predicted demand by area ....
amongst others
quite a knotty computing problem. And not one which lends itself to buggering about with futures ...
Wholesale gas prices are exactly the same as they were 6/7 years ago. Retai l gas prices have risen 50% since then. It is all down to green taxes/subsi dies. Dave Camoron's FIL makes a £1,000 a day in wind turbine subsidies. The government climate change advisory panel chairman stepped down last yea r, because he was receiving money from associated firms and the replacement chairman is under investigation for doing the exact same.
It is nothing but transfer of wealth from the taxpayer to the corporatist n on taxpayers. I've just looked at my EPC certificate which is compulsory fo r property sales no. The guy assumed I didn't have loft insulation, because he didn't have a ladder to get in the loft (it's an empty property that is some distance away and I'm letting the EA deal with it). Any how, he lists all the things that I could do to make it more energy efficient (it is ful ly DG with gas CH). This list of things comes to just shy of £32K and the annual cost savings are, wait for it, exactly £615. Do these people live in the real world?
Thats around 52 years to get my money back, excluding the interest I could earn on banking the money and of course, my energy efficient new boiler wil l do well to last 10 years. The fact that the old style one has been there for the 20 years that I've owned the property, plus all the years that the previous owner has had it, is neither here nor there.
Yes, they live in a real world where they've been granted the right to coin money. There's really no way to radically improve the energy efficiency of a tenement flat, for example, but all sorts of nonsense gets put on the certificate.
Insulating the inside walls only helps to stop heat flowing from a warm flat to a cold neighbouring flat. If the neighbouring flat is warmer, insulation will make a flat colder.
The outside wall is usually a double wall with an air gap, which already provides some insulation. And unless it's a ground floor flat, you can't blow insulation into the gap because it's likely to fall down to the ground floor, which won't help you at all.
Flats above the ground floor get heat from the flats below, as you discover when everyone goes away at Chrismas, so you don't want underfloor insulation for flats above ground level.
Insulating the loft above a top floor flat does make sense, but as you say they never check that and just assume there is little or none.
And according to the government's own figures, the saving from double glazing is only a tiny fraction of the installation cost. Just plugging the air gaps in sash windows would make far more sense.
Once upon a time they used good materials.
Accoding to the EPC for my flat: Estimated Energy costs over three years £1100, potential cost 740 'you could save 380". Well my combined lec & gas (including running a few computers all day) was just over 200 in the past year so I don't think so.
Recommended measures
1 Internal or external wall insulation Indicative cost £4,000 - £14,000 Typical savings over 3 years £105 No I don't think that would be a good investment, especially in a 2nd floor flat in a listed building with an internal floor area of 32m²3 Replace boiler with new condensing boiler cost £2,200 - £3,000 to save £ 42 My condensing boiler was installed seven years ago, I consider that new enough. And I doubt a newer one is any more efficient.
The agent didn't charge extra for the EPC, by one of the specialist companies who supply photography, floor plan and EPC in one package, So the EPC was done by the bod who drew the floorplan, and that wasn't too good either.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.