Pedro Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 One thing that the VIs seem to say to support the idea that house prices will remain permanently high is high employment and high incomes. However, even though my income has increased by about 3k over the past few years, my bills seem to have gone up way out of proportion. I just got my water rates bill today - £65 for 3 months!!!! And it's just my husband and I - we have a water meter and we only take showers - and my husband certainly tries to avoid washing his clothes as much as possible (heh heh!) how much would it be for a family?! It's not just water rates, it's gas, electricity, council tax, petrol. My disposable income seems to be dropping at an alarming rate. Even the bus fares have gone from £1.00 for a single about 3 years ago to £1.80 today. Salaries might be rising but taxation and the cost of essential services seems to mean that disposable income is surely plummeting. Does anyone have any links to good analysis on this stuff? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkG Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Does anyone have any links to good analysis on this stuff? No, but the papers were reporting a few months ago that last year was the first year in decades that the average disposable income in the UK went down rather than up. I'm sure it's gone down further this year too with inflation and more and more stealthy and not-so-stealthy tax hikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FTBagain Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 I have pre-paid metering (rented house) and the electricity has gone up may be as much as 25-50% in the last 3 years. £20 on the electricity only lasts about 2 - 2.5 weeks, and that is with every light in the house fitted with energy saving bulbs (£1 each at Ikea, so worth doing folks) and I turned the emersion heater down a bit as well, so I am running pretty efficiently! God knows how much it must cost others with ordinary bulbs and overly hot water! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 One thing that the VIs seem to say to support the idea that house prices will remain permanently high is high employment and high incomes. However, even though my income has increased by about 3k over the past few years, my bills seem to have gone up way out of proportion. I just got my water rates bill today - £65 for 3 months!!!! And it's just my husband and I - we have a water meter and we only take showers - and my husband certainly tries to avoid washing his clothes as much as possible (heh heh!) how much would it be for a family?! It's not just water rates, it's gas, electricity, council tax, petrol. My disposable income seems to be dropping at an alarming rate. Even the bus fares have gone from £1.00 for a single about 3 years ago to £1.80 today. Salaries might be rising but taxation and the cost of essential services seems to mean that disposable income is surely plummeting. Does anyone have any links to good analysis on this stuff? Thats about right - we were paying 34quid a month before getting a water meter - now its 21quid a month Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedro Posted November 11, 2005 Author Share Posted November 11, 2005 Thats about right - we were paying 34quid a month before getting a water meter - now its 21quid a month It's good to know that we're paying the average for water - just seems to be a lot more than a few years ago. How people on really low incomes cope I just don't know. I think our 'essentials' bill (water, gas, electric, council tax) comes to about £170-190 per month at the moment, and that's BEFORE food, petrol, clothing, mortgage/ rent etc! That's a helluva lot if you only earn £15k pa. I'm going to buy some energy saving bulbs - thanks FTBagain - a very good idea. We had them in the last place we rented but haven't got round to changing them in our new place. We've also turned our immersion heater down.. have yet to see if it makes any difference to the gas bill. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockdoctor Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 We're on a meter. Last but one bill showed we'd used 82 cubic metres. Latest bill, after a period in which we made a real effort to reduce water consumption, showed we had used only 66 cubic metres. However, bill was about 15% bigger than before. It makes you despair - we cut down usage dramatically (20%) and watched the bill go up. We are easily able to afford it, but I bet many of our elderly neighbours are struggling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew McP Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 I must have a very weird view of the universe. Despite a (much) below-average wage I really don't mind paying <checks> about £22 a month for my water. When you think about what's being supplied and removed for that money it's a bargain; you're buying civilisation. In fact I'm amazed it's so cheap, even after the recent prices rises. The same goes for electricity really. We take these things for granted, but they're the foundation for our entire lives. That doesn't mean I don't squirm sometimes when I see the bills, but I do try to keep things in perspective. Andrew McP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bart of Darkness Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Can't we buy our water and electricity from China, just like the cheap DVDs and other stuff. Come to think of it, let's buy our food from there too, that'll keep inflation low, eh Gordon? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhifoe Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 (edited) I'm going to buy some energy saving bulbs - thanks FTBagain - a very good idea. We had them in the last place we rented but haven't got round to changing them in our new place. We've also turned our immersion heater down.. have yet to see if it makes any difference to the gas bill. If you have a Wilkinsons near you they are doing 3 energy saving lightbulbs for £4. They've got much better recently as well. Nice warm colour and they start up at about 60% brightness, getting to full brightness in under a minute. Edited November 11, 2005 by mhifoe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erranta Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 No, but the papers were reporting a few months ago that last year was the first year in decades that the average disposable income in the UK went down rather than up. I'm sure it's gone down further this year too with inflation and more and more stealthy and not-so-stealthy tax hikes. Bang in line with output/revenue reduction of NorthSea Oil and Gas too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil D Possitt Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 If you have a Wilkinsons near you they are doing 3 energy saving lightbulbs for £4. They've got much better recently as well. Nice warm colour and they start up at about 60% brightness, getting to full brightness in under a minute. Best offer I can find at the moment on energy saving bulbs is from Sainsburys, surprisingly. Two for £1.95 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theChuz Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 I have pre-paid metering (rented house) and the electricity has gone up may be as much as 25-50% in the last 3 years. £20 on the electricity only lasts about 2 - 2.5 weeks, and that is with every light in the house fitted with energy saving bulbs (£1 each at Ikea, so worth doing folks) and I turned the emersion heater down a bit as well, so I am running pretty efficiently! God knows how much it must cost others with ordinary bulbs and overly hot water! We dont have hot water and the only heating is by a gas fire in the living room which only gets put on in the winter i.e its not been on at all this year yet. You could do better Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carabansity Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Don't forget to check your insulation. Grants available here... http://www.clear-skies.org/households/ I read once that we could easily meet our 2010 Kyoto targets by next year if the big house builders were made to build decent insulated houses with a solar panel. Currently I think they use 75mm of insulation and crappy plastic windows with trickle vents that let out a huge amount of heat. Should be 200mm insulation, triple glazed windows and either passive stack or mechanical heat recovery ventilation. Add a solar panel (even up in Scotland there is enough sunlight to meet 50% of hot water needs) and we all benefit. Would add about £1k to every new home, recouped in lower bills within 2 years. If you really want to go eco then choose one of the newest wood pellet boilers. A bit more expensive than gas at the moment but watch gas just rise and rise over the next few years. Alternatively if you have the space (and under floor heating) install a ground source heat pump. Sucks heat out of ground, water or even air! Works just like a fridge and gives 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity. My favourite, but sadly will always be too radical for this country (and way, way too expensive for me) is underground living. I adore the work of Peter Vetch, a Swiss architect found here, http://www.erdhaus.ch/web/ and earlier this year I went to see the RuralZed house designed by Bill Dunster of BedZed fame and built/marketed by the Cornwall Sustainable Building Trust. Might have bought one but it is a little too expensive at £90k for a 3 bed kit (don't forget to add land and build costs!) although it is spacious and very well designed. http://www.zedfactory.com/ http://www.csbt.org.uk p.s. Saving for a Space Ship. Checked out your links, cool house Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AteMoose Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 (edited) Don't forget to check your insulation. Grants available here... http://www.clear-skies.org/households/ I read once that we could easily meet our 2010 Kyoto targets by next year if the big house builders were made to build decent insulated houses with a solar panel. Currently I think they use 75mm of insulation and crappy plastic windows with trickle vents that let out a huge amount of heat. Should be 200mm insulation, triple glazed windows and either passive stack or mechanical heat recovery ventilation. Add a solar panel (even up in Scotland there is enough sunlight to meet 50% of hot water needs) and we all benefit. Would add about £1k to every new home, recouped in lower bills within 2 years. If you really want to go eco then choose one of the newest wood pellet boilers. A bit more expensive than gas at the moment but watch gas just rise and rise over the next few years. Alternatively if you have the space (and under floor heating) install a ground source heat pump. Sucks heat out of ground, water or even air! Works just like a fridge and gives 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity. My favourite, but sadly will always be too radical for this country (and way, way too expensive for me) is underground living. I adore the work of Peter Vetch, a Swiss architect found here, http://www.erdhaus.ch/web/ and earlier this year I went to see the RuralZed house designed by Bill Dunster of BedZed fame and built/marketed by the Cornwall Sustainable Building Trust. Might have bought one but it is a little too expensive at £90k for a 3 bed kit (don't forget to add land and build costs!) although it is spacious and very well designed. http://www.zedfactory.com/ http://www.csbt.org.uk p.s. Saving for a Space Ship. Checked out your links, cool house Teletubbies, telletubbies, telletubbies..... say eh oh!! Edited November 11, 2005 by moosetea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pedro Posted November 11, 2005 Author Share Posted November 11, 2005 Don't forget to check your insulation. Grants available here... http://www.clear-skies.org/households/ I read once that we could easily meet our 2010 Kyoto targets by next year if the big house builders were made to build decent insulated houses with a solar panel. Currently I think they use 75mm of insulation and crappy plastic windows with trickle vents that let out a huge amount of heat. Should be 200mm insulation, triple glazed windows and either passive stack or mechanical heat recovery ventilation. Add a solar panel (even up in Scotland there is enough sunlight to meet 50% of hot water needs) and we all benefit. Would add about £1k to every new home, recouped in lower bills within 2 years. If you really want to go eco then choose one of the newest wood pellet boilers. A bit more expensive than gas at the moment but watch gas just rise and rise over the next few years. Alternatively if you have the space (and under floor heating) install a ground source heat pump. Sucks heat out of ground, water or even air! Works just like a fridge and gives 4 units of heat for every unit of electricity. My favourite, but sadly will always be too radical for this country (and way, way too expensive for me) is underground living. I adore the work of Peter Vetch, a Swiss architect found here, http://www.erdhaus.ch/web/ and earlier this year I went to see the RuralZed house designed by Bill Dunster of BedZed fame and built/marketed by the Cornwall Sustainable Building Trust. Might have bought one but it is a little too expensive at £90k for a 3 bed kit (don't forget to add land and build costs!) although it is spacious and very well designed. http://www.zedfactory.com/ http://www.csbt.org.uk p.s. Saving for a Space Ship. Checked out your links, cool house I rent - can you force your LL to insulate the house better? Presumably they don't care, since the tenant pays the gas bill? This is one of the problems of renting IMO. I also can't force him to install low water use toilets, although I have put a big rock in the tank to reduce water volume! The problem with better insulation via double glazing is poor indoor air quality - which can cause massive health problems (asthma, allergies) and which cost the health service a packet &, of course, the ultimate health threat if there's no ventilation is death by carbon monoxide poisoning. The reason they put these trickle vents in is to improve the indoor air quality & new builds have to have them for health protection reasons. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kinesin Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Best offer I can find at the moment on energy saving bulbs is from Sainsburys, surprisingly. Two for £1.95 Morrisons recently were doing 2 philips bulbs for £1 - Picked up a fivers worth. Not sure if it's still running tho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SarahBell Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Was reading somewhere about water meter bills doubling after two years - once you're past the removal option time. Insulation - always worth seeing about as its not dear with a grant - can even be free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smell the Fear Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Can't we buy our water and electricity from China, just like the cheap DVDs and other stuff. Come to think of it, let's buy our food from there too, that'll keep inflation low, eh Gordon? Can we get some from India as well? I do like a good curry (several times a week). I have pre-paid metering (rented house) and the electricity has gone up may be as much as 25-50% in the last 3 years. £20 on the electricity only lasts about 2 - 2.5 weeks, and that is with every light in the house fitted with energy saving bulbs (£1 each at Ikea, so worth doing folks) and I turned the emersion heater down a bit as well, so I am running pretty efficiently! God knows how much it must cost others with ordinary bulbs and overly hot water! how long would it take to recoup the investment in energy efficient bulbs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Bart of Darkness Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 I have some energy saving bulbs that are about 9 years old. They were expensive at the time (about £15) but they must have paid for themselves many times over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyMe Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 how long would it take to recoup the investment in energy efficient bulbs? A compact flourescent is about 4x as efficient as an incandescent bulb, so a 100W can be replaced with one about 25W or a 60W with a 15w. Incandescents last roughly 1,000 hours depending on spec, cheap bulbs seem to blow with tedious regularity a CF will last around 8 times as long. So a 100W switched on for 6 hours a day will cost about £20 a year to run and will likely blow in that year and need replacing. A 25W CF will cost £5 to run and will last for around 4 years. If you don't mind the look/light that they give off now that the prices have come down there really is no argument about which way to go. Watch out for dimmers that aren't suitable for CF's though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhifoe Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 A compact flourescent is about 4x as efficient as an incandescent bulb, so a 100W can be replaced with one about 25W or a 60W with a 15w. Incandescents last roughly 1,000 hours depending on spec, cheap bulbs seem to blow with tedious regularity a CF will last around 8 times as long. So a 100W switched on for 6 hours a day will cost about £20 a year to run and will likely blow in that year and need replacing. A 25W CF will cost £5 to run and will last for around 4 years. If you don't mind the look/light that they give off now that the prices have come down there really is no argument about which way to go. Watch out for dimmers that aren't suitable for CF's though! Useful info. I fitted the whole house with them last week and they have improved immensely in the last few years. In particular the colour of the light is nice and soft, almost indistinguishable from an incandescent bulb. Now you can pick them up for about a pound each I believe they are a no brainer, especially for areas where the lights are on for many hours a day. As an aside, does anyone know where I can buy low energy R80 spotlights? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyMe Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Useful info. I fitted the whole house with them last week and they have improved immensely in the last few years. In particular the colour of the light is nice and soft, almost indistinguishable from an incandescent bulb. Now you can pick them up for about a pound each I believe they are a no brainer, especially for areas where the lights are on for many hours a day. As an aside, does anyone know where I can buy low energy R80 spotlights? TLC are pretty good for electrical bits. Maybe try Screwfix and Toolstation (ex Screwfix founder). TLC definitely have them. http://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Lig...ergy_Reflector/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhifoe Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 Thanks for that. A pretty good price too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khali Posted November 11, 2005 Share Posted November 11, 2005 As an aside, does anyone know where I can buy low energy R80 spotlights? Try these guys. They know just about all there is to know in my experience. http://www.specialistlamps.com/ Lots of industrial stuff, but they do domestic aswell. To return to the main thrust of the thread (utility bill inflation), in addition to water, gas, electricity and council tax, I've also just noticed an above inflation rise in my buildings insurance - nearly +9%, guess why? Cos it would cost considerably more to rebuild my house these days if it fell down. Let's assume HPC happens. Will my buildings insurance go down because the building trade has imploded along with house prices? Doubt it very much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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