Discontent #7 food, energy, transport, cost of living, society etc

[Doctor_Wibble]

Very unhelpful bad maths and scaremongering from the new statesmen who are saying WTF will end as it'll now cost £30 a day.

My work laptop uses at most 45w, I'm sure most work laptops are similar and they don't always use this full power.

That's way overboard for how much energy to heat a flat, and in anycase people will probably just be heating the one workspace room.

It won't be anywhere near £30 a day, and even if it was my 35 min train ride into london is £26 a day anyway

View attachment 1542430


I use an oil filled one when working from home to heat that room, I don't like the kind of air fan heaters give off. But it's more on low to take the edge off than keep it warm.

Those are some seriously bad figures they have there!
A desktop PC (with monitor) less than about ten years old won't be using anywhere near 300w.
Stats I have to hand right now are a desktop, two external disks, a hub and wireless extender using 30w total (screen plugged in separately but max 30w it says on the sticker on the back) so 60w absolute max. On for eight hours = 0.24kwh.

And their heating costs are for a blast furnace!
The kwh rating for boilers is (as far as I am aware) and always has been an 'up to' figure, not what the thing would burn through in an average hour of normal operation.

 

[monga]

Oil filled are 2000w for the normal size. All electric heaters are the same cost for the same heating output.

It clicks off and on depending on the thermostat. Mine was using around 3kw a day heating the office during the day.

This costs 84p in today's cap, but will be £1.56 from October 1st.

Still cheaper than heating the whole house with gas. Electric is 100% efficient, gas is often around 60-70% efficient.

It was just something I noticed at the checkouts, thought they may have been cheaper to run.I guess they’ll be providing them with extra fluffy socks this year .

 

[Yel]

up to' figure, not what the thing would burn through in an average hour of normal operation.

There is so much outright wrong maths and information about energy at the moment. Lots of it originating from blue tickers and media organisations

Things are bad no doubt, but all this fake information is exasperating the situation.

I saw a poll where 90% of people were wanting energy suppliers nationalised. I'm sure most of them don't even understand that energy suppliers buy at the wholesale price and this wouldn't magically fix bills.

 

[Jc456]

I wasn’t sure if it was just our electricity prices we seem to pay more than the mainland but that’s extortion

It was a shock as we thought they were efficient. The house wasn't well insulated which wouldn't of helped. We moved before the next winter

 

[pixxyy]

I saw some cheap Bamboo socks for sale by Seasalt. I've heard they can be good to keep feet warm so thought i'd give them a try.
They were £1.50 & postage but if you are near a Seasalt shop it gave a click & click option for free.

 

[sleeptime]

Very unhelpful bad maths and scaremongering from the new statesmen who are saying WFH will end as it'll now cost £30 a day.

My work laptop uses at most 45w, I'm sure most work laptops are similar and they don't always use this full power. Quite a bit less than the 300w they use for their calculation!

That's way overboard for how much energy to heat a flat, and in anycase people will probably just be heating the one workspace room.

It won't be anywhere near £30 a day, and even if it was my 35 min train ride into london is £26 a day anyway, even if it was true I'd rather pay £4 to avoid all that.

View attachment 1542430


I use an oil filled one when working from home to heat that room, I don't like the kind of air fan heaters give off. But it's more on low to take the edge off than keep it warm.

I saw a similar article online linked from the Telegraph, they quoted more than the gas part of my revised bill for the price rises ...and I know how much is used as the heating was on in the daytime last year and saved money on heating in the evening.

Travel and wraparound care is more than £36 a day for me, wfh is cheaper and I'm pretty sure it won't cost £30 a day. Given the articles are in the Telegraph and New Statesman, its probably linked to their friend's with commercial property interests. The Telegraph one even added the cost of using the oven to cook lunch.

 

[Yel]

Unpopular opinion alert. I'm not the biggest fan of Martin Lewis as his thing is basically saying 1) the situation is bad and 2) the government needs to do more. Well no tit Sherlock.

He could bring something new to the table like calling out lots of these ridiculous scaremongering articles and viral posts, it would be a perfect thing for a journalist like himself with an audience. He only seems to have time to say something when people use his face to spread misinformation.

 

[Saddlesoap]

My current gas rate is 4.46p/kWh and electric is 21.86p/kWh.

Is this high or not, I've got myself really confused!

 

[Yel]

My current gas rate is 4.46p/kWh and electric is 21.86p/kWh.

Is this high or not, I've got myself really confused!

It's a fair bit cheaper than the current cap, if it stays that from October I'd say it's cheap.

 

[Saddlesoap]

It's a fair bit cheaper than the current cap, if it stays that from October I'd say it's cheap.

View attachment 1542692

Thank you. I just went to submit a meter reading and had a little panic.

It's fixed for another year thank goodness.

 

[Jc456]

My current gas rate is 4.46p/kWh and electric is 21.86p/kWh.

Is this high or not, I've got myself really confused!

Seems like a good price. This is mine

 

[Yel]

Thank you. I just went to submit a meter reading and had a little panic.

It's fixed for another year thank goodness.

Very lucky! Although this is why I hate the whole system as the price should be fair to everyone.

My friend was just saying how they're on a low tarrif for a year because their supplier went bust, although she wasn't sure what the price was so I'm not actually sure if it is low. What price are people paying who were moved to a new supplier?

 

[Doctor_Wibble]

Other stuff noticed while obsessing over the power usage display because when it was shiny and new you spent hours staring at the thing...

A 2kw fan heater was using around 1.8kw when on full.

The 240w rated fridge only ever gets near that when firing up for a cooling cycle and would then run at about 60-80w.

The laptop says 40w on the power supply brick (needed a magnifying glass to read it) but that's another 'up to' thing, being the max rating for it. Not sure of actual usage but it's going to be well under half that.

The (old) desktop PC with the 300w rated power supply was using about 100w normally, but 120w while starting up.

The central heating even when off would do a pump cycle twice a day, for less than a minute at about 40w.

TLDR as noted in various posts, many of the numbers being waved about in the flurry of clickbaity media omg's are total horsebollocks.

 

[Onetwofour]

Proclaiming the end of WFH because of the energie crisis would definitely suit those who own deserted offices. What a coincidence. Could explain why the Tories are not in a rush to announce a plan.

 

[smellsofbiscuits]

Very unhelpful bad maths and scaremongering from the new statesmen who are saying WFH will end as it'll now cost £30 a day.

My work laptop uses at most 45w, I'm sure most work laptops are similar and they don't always use this full power. Quite a bit less than the 300w they use for their calculation!

That's way overboard for how much energy to heat a flat, and in anycase people will probably just be heating the one workspace room.

It won't be anywhere near £30 a day, and even if it was my 35 min train ride into london is £26 a day anyway, even if it was true I'd rather pay £4 to avoid all that.

This is incredibly interesting as it does feed into my theory that part of this massive hike in energy costs is to force a return to a physical office culture.

OH's company did find during lockdown productivity was very high WFH but likely because not many people could go anywhere else! They now have a hybrid set up where employees are required in set days e.g. Monday and Tuesday depending on the department they work in. And those based in the London office actually prefer to come in more often, sadly because many of them are stuck in house shares where they don't have space to work

 

[IfTheCapFits]

we're electric only, South West region & have had 2 suppliers go bust on us, our tariffs were (inc. vat) -

Green - Nov 2020, fixed 1 year - 0.14p kwh & 0.18p standing charge (went bust Sept 2021)

Neon Reef - Sept 2021, fixed 1 year - 0.17p kwh & 0.20p s/c (went bust Nov 2021)

British Gas - Nov 2021, SoLR tariff/capped - 0.22p kwh & 0.26p s/c
British Gas - new capped rate wef 01.04.21 - 0.28p kwh & 0.52p s/c
British Gas - opted to 1 year fixed tariff May 2022 - 0.33p kwh & 0.58p s/c

If we'd stayed on the capped tariff with BG, Oct rates would be - 0.52p kwh & 0.46p s/c (ave. quoted as unable to find specific rates for each region)

2020 fixed tariff 0.14p to Oct price cap 0.52p kwh = 275% increase & same for s/charge 0.18p to 0.46p = 155%

our last years use 1 Oct to 31 May, 8519kw & 242 days -
on our current fixed tariff this will be £2811 kw & £140 s/chg = £2951
compared against price cap for same £4429 kw & £111 s/c = £4540

 

[Web30]

Proclaiming the end of WFH because of the energie crisis would definitely suit those who own deserted offices. What a coincidence. Could explain why the Tories are not in a rush to announce a plan.

My husbands free to WFH or the office as he wants. I have told him hes no longer working from home and he can use works heating and electric

 

[Blond3g1rl]

I do wonder if some offices will restrict working days as they can’t afford their bills.

 

[IfTheCapFits]

I do wonder if some offices will restrict working days as they can’t afford their bills.

i wouldn't be at all surprised by this, it really depends when their contract renewals are, but any business looking for a new contract in the coming months is probably getting around a 400% increase in what they were paying, so many just aren't going to be viable to keep trading.

 

[Blond3g1rl]

i wouldn't be at all surprised by this, it really depends when their contract renewals are, but any business looking for a new contract in the coming months is probably getting around a 400% increase in what they were paying, so many just aren't going to be viable to keep trading.

Sorry I meant it as wfh will be enforced by some employers as they can’t afford to keep the premises heated.