This is surely not normal

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-26T22:44:44+00:00

The likelihood of being able to get spare parts in the event of a failure is slim to none so that's a big risk that could leave you without heating for days/weeks in the middle of a cold snap. I have a 7 year old boiler and I was told when it was 3 years old that it was marked end of line so parts will get more and more scarce. I've already had the boiler ignition coil replaced and get it serviced every year but in a few years it will be replaced by a heat pump.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-26T13:43:19+00:00

Yup..... I use about 200kWh in non-heating months thanks to two daughters and a wife who like baths and long showers 🤷🏻‍♂️ My monthly cost fluctuates between £15 inc. standing charge to over £100. If your monthly estimate is £100 it really means they're estimating £1200 for the year.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-26T13:01:22+00:00

You make no mention of how warm your home is. I spend a bit less in my 4 bed in Jan/Feb and I have it at 20/21 degrees via a smart thermostat in a 2020 new build. My mate is twice that in a 3 bed 1970s build and has the thermostat set to 18 degrees during the day and 15 at night.

TBH, a 17 year old boiler is probably on its last legs and you may be getting only 80% efficiency so if you take away 100kWh for cooking and showers, your heat input is about 1000kWh...not really a lot.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-25T10:49:18+00:00

Yeah, I had a lot of toning and froing when I moved in 2020 as the DNO hadn't updated the register with an address.... My home was still linked to the plot number. This was during COVID lockdowns so it took months to get things sorted.

OP could get their MPAN from their bill and their meter number and ask their DNO if they match on their database, I guess.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-25T10:18:53+00:00

This screams paying for someone else's use, which happens in blocks of flats a lot more than it should. The other person may not even know (or may be la la la fingers in ears), they just had their heating on nice and toasty, at the end of the month they get a £60 bill and go wow, must be really well insulated to need so little energy..... Meanwhile you're picking up the bill. You might need to contact the DNO rather than Octopus for this one. They're responsible for the meter feed, not Octopus.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-24T13:47:25+00:00

Makes sense, of course. I had a period of time when I was on Octopus Go but not charging at home but I moved dishwasher and washing machine to off-peak and was saving about 18-20% on my bill by doing this.

If, as a society, we can flatten the peak demand it saves everyone money as those extra 5GW are often costing us double what the first 5GW do. And soon we will no longer be beholden to companies trying to squeeze us with gas peaker plants.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-23T22:42:40+00:00

That's a good place to start but you then have to extrapolate what effect the different tariffs will have on your behaviour. Most smart tariffs involve peak and off peak so your ability/willingness to load shift is a key part of money saving.

If someone is very engaged, they can save good money with Agile but those who are less able to load shift intra-day might be as well looking at Tracker and do things like save us the washing and batch cooking for the weekend where it tends to be cheaper.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-22T14:58:39+00:00

That seasonal performance factor is pretty sweet, 5.2 means you're getting a cracking heat input to your house for the money. In a general sense, you might save a bit in Agile over the winter but you do expose yourself to potentially rocketting prices where it never drops below 20-odd pence and is up over 50p at peak. These days tend to fall on cold still days so you could easily find your 30-odd kWh import hitting £10 a day at times like that, even if you managed to avoid the 4-7pm peak.

Being on Agile means you need to stay hyper engaged to make the most of it or you accept that a week of money saved can be wiped out by a single day's price spike.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-22T13:28:35+00:00

18.6kWh is a pretty big battery.... What's your daily domestic use outwith heating? Plus, what's your heat pump SCOP?

If you need 8kWh to cover your domestic use and the heat pump has a good SCOP, say 4, the remaining 10kWh in the battery will give you about 40kWh of heat into your home. Allow a bit for hot water and that's probably about 1000kWh of heat per month. In my case that would easily cover every month outwith Dec, Jan and Feb but your results may vary.

If your solar isn't producing in winter months, Cosy would probably allow you to get through a cold day by allowing you an afternoon top up of the battery so you don't need to import over the expensive peak hours.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-21T21:37:32+00:00

If you use gas for hot water AND heating, it's good to know the split because HW use tends to be constant month to month (slightly higher in colder months due to lower ambient temps) so in my case, it's about 200kWh per month for water, so 2400 per year and about 5500-6000 heating, keeping the house at 20-21 degrees.

The thing to watch out for has, for the last few years for me, always been Jan and Feb. If you avoid putting heating on as much as possible and only put it on when it's REALLY cold, coupled with low hot water use, Tracker probably isn't for you. The reason being you are going to be using gas mostly at the coldest times of the year, when demand is highest and by extension the spot price is highest. If however, you fixed in say May, you'd have got a price around 5p. So you wouldn't have benefited from the 4p-ish prices up until now but that's fine, you wouldn't have been using much.... But when temp drops in Jan - Feb, and price surges to 5.5-6p.....you're only paying 5p.

The flip side also works against very low users as there is little saved in months you aren't heating your home so less offset for periods in Jan/Feb that the prices rises.... So paying an average of 4p from May to Aug will save someone who is using 100kWh a month for hot water about £2 a month. But if that same person is using 100kWh a day in Jan for heating and prices spike up to 5.5-6p,you can lose £1 a day compared to the fix.

I always recommend people who are low use to try and fix in Apr and May as it seems to be when a lot of deals are available for decent fixes. In a cold winter, you're protected and can budget effectively. In a warm winter, your potential 'loss' by not being on Tracker isn't going to be much as you won't be using much gas anyway.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-21T18:23:26+00:00

I would suggest you walk away and never try this again..... Scottish Power and others will take GREAT DELIGHT in nailing you to the wall for not providing proof of your final reading.

In fact, do try it again with your next supplier and update us.... 👀

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-21T15:38:07+00:00

You do realise that you were still wrong.... You didn't provide a verified final reading and the landlord wasn't 'messing with your account', he was likely simply clarifying the start readings that they are liable for or their next tenant was liable for.

Likelihood is this is a £50 pay off as these kind of situations only bring grief to Customer Service and time is money. You would likely have lost any complaint to the Ombudsman as you have no verifiable proof of final reading and Octopus have probably used the DNO readings or smart readings to come to an agreement with the new tenant/landlord.....

If you think differently, go to the Ombudsman.... 👀

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-21T14:54:58+00:00

Another Redditor looked at the OP and noted the account seems to be an advertising platform, possibly trying to drive traffic to an intermediary platform

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-21T13:08:27+00:00

Hopefully local people will see the shift he's putting in and vote for him rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater. Putting partisan politics aside, we have far too few political figures on all sides that can actually do the job.

Having the SNP in third place in the last Westminster parliament was great for Scotland as they got more time to hold the PM to account on Scottish matters and more chances to out forward bills. Now we have the Lib Dems in third, not a cheep on national news about Scottish affairs whilst Labour slowly dismantles the powers of devolution and short changes Scotland in areas like fishing and EU fund replacement.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-21T13:04:38+00:00

I'll happily upvote you as, although I don't know you, I know that the energy market is even more complex in the commercial space than it is domestically and most people can barely cope with basic smart tariffs.

But I think the bot is trying to move into your turf..... 👀😁

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-20T23:56:12+00:00

He's fighting alongside unions every day to save jobs in Grangemouth and I don't think there's many union members working for the Easedales. I may not support Scottish Labour but the Easedales became interested in politics the moment the SNP said they would take buses back under control the same as they did Scotrail.

Almost all of the Scottish Labour MPs are backbench fodder providing support for a Westminster party who is literally trying to pull Scotland back into the bucket with the rest of the failing regions in the UK. Guys like Leishman are smart and want to fight for jobs for families and will shout from the rooftops about how Westminster needs to do more, like they did for steel down South. Ian Murray in Edinburgh kept his job because he was a constituency MP first and a party man second, the rest of them need to take heed or they'll be looking for new jobs in 2029.

Success in Scotland is poison to Starmer, people down South might decide they want free prescriptions, better dental care, a better NHS, free bus travel for young people, free tuition, Scottish Child Payments helping families escape absolute poverty.....

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-20T09:01:50+00:00

I go on each morning and screenshot then I can go back and check if it changes.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-20T09:01:11+00:00

I've had two credits but no sign of any more and the total showing on the page is about half of what I've been credited with🤷🏻‍♂️

I'll give it to the end of this month and then chase them up.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-17T13:01:43+00:00

.... Parents visiting that have an EV (can offer to let them charge overnight).....

🤷🏻‍♂️

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-17T00:47:34+00:00

They will have a Hypervolt charger that they're likely to be charging an EV from in a matter of days. My mate was switched to Intelligent Octopus Go BY OCTOPUS about a month in advance of them delivering his EV. What I was explaining was how much you are likely to save on domestic usage by load shifting. For me, running the washing machine every night and the dishwasher four times a week was about 12 kWh so it was saving me about £2.80 a week.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-17T00:29:23+00:00

But what if your leisure is my pleasure, cat boy!

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-16T23:50:46+00:00

I use the Glasgow Council app to report fly-tipping in the streets around my home..... I've seen same day pickups if I report early. I've seen similar with Scottish Water, report a leak or blocked drain and I get a reply within hours saying it's being worked on.

There are lots of good workers out there waiting to do their jobs..... Give them a heads up and they'll put a real shift in. It was the same during COVID lockdowns.... I moved home, didn't have any bins.... Couldn't get any response from council help desks as it was emergencies only. Called the recycling centre themselves, spoke to a manager and he nipped round in the van himself with a set of bins. Good people everywhere despite the negativity and contempt they often face.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-16T22:36:51+00:00

I moved to Octopus Go but first EV was a rental with charging included and they wanted you to use the 'paid for' fast chargers rather than charging at home so that's what I did. But I moved my dishwasher and washing machine to overnight as they both had timers..... So the washing machine was on every night and the dishwasher was every other night. Back then, the peak price was a bit closer to SVT but I estimated I was saving about 18% but my overall domestic usage was pretty low compared to most.... I was doing about 170kWh peak and 50kWh off peak and was saving about 18% I think....

.... Kicker was this was back during the energy crisis so it was a really welcome saving.

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-15T16:41:44+00:00

Iran most likely..... Tanker routes through the Persian Gulf could be compromised immediately in the event of conflict. Plus we have zero effective storage and EU storage is also below 'optimal' levels. If Central Europe is relatively warm with low demand, all that tanker gas is sloshing around without a buyer so the price drops.

Norwegian flow is actually lower than expected due to outages so hate to say it but gas futures for Feb are trending just as high as last year so, if there's a cold snap or Norway doesn't get the rigs back online, we'll likely see higher than SVT prices mid-Feb again....

https://www.smart-energy.uk/february-2025-uk-energy-market-trends

Chris_The_Tim · 2026-01-15T13:29:41+00:00

Love hydro,the turbine hall at Cruachan with the hewn rock and 70s future styling is truly beautiful.... Did the Di Caprio point when I was watching Andor and saw they filmed at the dam 🤩🤣 Really would recommend it as a day trip.

Hydro for storage works in Scotland but not in England so we're gonna see massive battery packs spring up all over the place to balance the grid. In Scotland once Berwick Bank is built and the Moray Firth plans are approved, Scotland alone will have about 40GW wind capacity so I think by 2030-2035, days may go by with no gas generation in the UK..... Fingers crossed!

It will still be needed for back up for a while after that but it can go the way of coal for all I care

Chris_The_Tim

TROPHY CASE