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newhome

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Everything posted by newhome

  1. newhome
    Well it looks like Octopus Agile is a no go for me at present as they don't accept 3 phase.
  2. newhome
    Yes it was done via a Scottish grant. Thanks, I will give that a go when I next use the car.
  3. newhome
    I’ve started thinking about what I need to do to move my electricity supply away from Scottish Power. I am currently on the Economy 2000 tariff that has 2 completely separate meters; one for standard use and the other for heating only. Each meter is currently connected to its own consumer unit. Apparently I just need to ask a spark to rewire both consumer units into a single meter. An easy job I’m led to believe? ? Once this is done I believe that Scottish Power will remove the second meter and then I’ll be free to swap suppliers. The tariff I’m considering is Octopus Agile (tariff changes every half an hour) and it’s important that I set as much as I can to run overnight as that’s where savings will be made. I haven’t ever run the dishwasher, washing machine or tumble dryer overnight as I’ve always been quite fire conscious but they all have inbuilt timers so I could do that if I choose to. The heating can be reset to heat my TS overnight so no problem there but my car charger has no timer setting that I can see. It appears to be on a separate RCD so I could just flip it on when I go to bed and off again in the morning but a timer would be much more convenient as I’m bound to forget! Neither the car nor the charger has anything inbuilt to control the times. If it’s plugged in and on then it’s charging. The charger is in the garage and ideally the timer would be in the house next to the CU. Is that possible? I googled and consumer unit timers appear to be a thing?
  4. newhome
    Or the other one people always used to fall for. Some story about needing to pay more money into Paypal than the item is being sold for and they would collect the item and the excess cash from the buyer. Then after collection you find out that it was a stolen credit card and Paypal do a chargeback and you lose the lot. Chargeback is always a risk with Paypal in any event. Never pays to be too quick off the mark to post even if the buyer is pushing like mad. Seeing the money in your account doesn't always mean it's yours.
  5. newhome
    I got banned from Gumtree. Used it to post an ad for our caravan when we had finished with it (used for the build) and the ad got denied as a breach of rules. When I asked what I had breached I got banned ?. OH posted the same ad from his account, all ok and caravan sold to first viewers.
  6. newhome
    3 Phase
  7. newhome
    I did look up some posts about this tariff on a few forums (mostly complaining about Scottish Power) and people were saying that they were led to believe that their storage heaters would provide heating for about 7 hours or more but in reality they were cold after 3, so they had to run the heating for more than twice as long as they had expected. On the Economy 2000 tariff you can't actually run the heating at peak rate as the second 'control' (heating) meter only has a single rate. During the peak times the supply is cut via teleswitch. The issue appears to be how long these folk are having to run their systems for and Scottish Power trebling the cost within 10 years. I only run my heating once a day and it generally takes 2 hours to heat the slab and provide hot water. I have a 24kw boiler so that's still 48kw at full whack, but it tends to ramp down and uses about 36kw per day. If I was paying 15p that would double the cost of my heating.
  8. newhome
    I imagine that they would need permission in anywhere rented because it means altering the meters. I think the other issue is what do you have to actually do to remove one of the meters. I was told by Scottish Power that I should pay an electrician to rewire the 2 consumer units into the standard meter, and then Scottish Power would change the meters (in their own time). In the meantime I would be stuck with all of my heating at the standard rate, so in my case almost 16p instead of 8p. For these guys it would be even higher than that. At the time I also couldn't find a tariff that bettered the 8p I am paying for heating but now that I've looked at Octopus Agile I think that could well be the answer for me. I could take great advantage of the very cheap overnight rates, and when I'm working in the office I'm not here until 6.30pm anyway and could easily avoid running anything costly during the high charging period of 4pm to 7pm.
  9. newhome
    A more local news story with a bit more detail. I feel for these guys. Scottish Power saying that they’ll investigate means feck all. None of these folk should be on 15p heating rates when I’m paying 8p for the same meter set up! That said I only manage to keep my bills to an acceptable level as I keep on top of Scottish Power constantly (due to their many mistakes) and I have worked out how to use the system in the most efficient way, and my heating is zoned in every room so I turn it off in the rooms that I don’t use. There is definitely an art to it but I have UFH and I assume these folk have storage heaters so it may be different for them. https://www.falkirkherald.co.uk/news/people/falkirk-villagers-turn-up-the-heat-as-scottishpower-says-it-will-investigate-high-bills-1-5053785
  10. newhome
    I know that you say that you are limited in terms of lender but worth having a look round for a different one. The list of lenders and what they will accept (assuming this is up to date) is here (assuming England and Wales - there is a different list for Scotland). Some will still accept a certificate from an architect and some seem to not require a warranty if you are not the first occupant. https://www.cml.org.uk/lenders-handbook/englandandwales/question-list/1913/
  11. newhome
    Well I didn’t need to do anything for 4 years as they accidentally left me on a 2014 tariff for 4 years (heating rate was 6p). Then they found out, said that I would move to a new tariff on a particular date (more expensive but it was ok) and then they completely screwed it up by moving me to the standard tariff instead that was £££. I complained and they ‘corrected’ it but right back to 2014 (which they’re not allowed to do) and said that I owed them a 4 figure sum when I had been about £600 in credit before this. I ended up taking them to the ombudsman, got £250 in compensation, my old bills restored and they offered me an expired tariff for 18 months which is what I’m currently on. They are a shambolic company however and I do need to move away from them. It’s a long haul with getting them to issue correct bills and tariffs and I suspect that this may be part of the issue for the people in the article. Scottish Power will put people onto a standard tariff in a heartbeat and often incorrectly IME.
  12. newhome
    It’s a REST API. Plenty of links but here’s one. https://octopus.com/docs/octopus-rest-api My colleague uses this app. He was going to write his own but seems to be little point with this available. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/appadvice.com/app/octopus-energy-watchdog/1439618267.amp You need to have a Smart meter installed that I didn’t really want but I’m prepared to compromise on that if it saves me money ?.
  13. newhome
    Yes that’s the tariff I’m on from Scottish Power. I still don’t pay huge amounts for heating from a tariff perspective but I have a big TS to heat (475l) so it’s not particularly efficient in summer for example when I have to heat the tank just to take a shower. In hindsight putting an electric shower somewhere would have been advantageous. Here are the details of the tariff I’m on. For ‘control’ read ‘heating’. I have been thinking of changing but haven’t found the right tariff yet. But a colleague has moved to Octopus Agile and apart from 3 hours where the cost is £££ the rest of the time the tariff is much cheaper. I may do some experiments and see whether heating the TS up overnight will allow me to run the UFH in the afternoon in an economical way. Almost all of the tariffs are less than my current rate, I just have to avoid running heavy usage things between the punishing hours of 4pm and 7pm. The standing charge is cheaper than mine. Apparently they let you know the tariffs 24 hours in advance so if you’re organised enough you can change the heating timings if you have a storage boiler. Next step is to find someone decent to rewire my 2 consumer units into a single meter. I may just wait until the weather improves before I swap though as running heating at 15p instead of 8p in the interim will be ££££. I also need to work out how to charge the car overnight as currently I just plug it in when I get home. That would be in the £££ period so maybe I would need a spark to put in some sort of timer. I don’t think my unit in the garage has that although in truth I’ve never actually looked at it. Example Octopus Agile tariffs below. On one day it even went minus!
  14. newhome
    When I say 'swapped' I meant I took out a new policy with a different insurer. I went through a broker and explained the stage that the work was at and what was left to do. I ended up with a 'normal' buildings insurance policy (it was with the Halifax) but with a bunch of extra information about the house and the building work added to it that I had declared when I went through the policy details. It was a long time ago though and whilst I know that others have managed to get similar policies I don't think they are much cheaper than self build insurance policies these days. Mine cost circa £450 I think.
  15. newhome
    Because with self build insurance they know that you are pretty much tied in so the renewal price shoots up. Self build always takes longer than you think generally so it's always worth taking out an initial policy for longer than planned (think they provide policies of 24 months or even longer). I got caught in this trap (my policy was 18 months) but luckily all of the main structural was complete so I swapped it to a 'normal' buildings insurance policy (albeit for more money than a normal one given the stage of the build).
  16. newhome
    Good to see they can do some things quickly!
  17. newhome
    If you decide to sell the plot and it is sold to a self builder ensure that you don’t so anything that the LA can consider to be a material start on that plot or it may affect the self builder being able to apply for an exemption. Some LA’s appear to be playing hardball and doing all they can to ensure that CIL is paid.
  18. newhome
    You can’t transfer a CIL exemption to another person, they have to apply for a CIL exemption in their own right. If the LA determine that work has commenced then I guess that the point at which CIL exemption could have been applied for has passed.
  19. newhome
    I thought you could only have separate primary residences if you were not married or civil partners?
  20. newhome
    Yes I’m sure that’s the best approach. Agree what, if anything, you can do (you might want to do some clearing while the PP application is in for example), and get EVERYTHING in writing.
  21. newhome
    Turns out that there was an original PP, they got a CIL exemption for that, sent the commencement form in, dug a trench and laid the stones. They then decided to change the house design so put in a brand new planning application that was passed. A new CIL exemption was applied for and they sent the commencement form in but dated 3 days before the council received it so the council queried the start date. They hadn’t actually started anything at that point but the council claim that laying the gravel (before the new PP was even issued) is a material start. They are going to appeal. 32k at stake!
  22. newhome
    Also what happens if someone tidies up a plot with full PP before marketing it? Are the new self builders who purchase the plot laying themselves open to having purchased a plot where a CIL exemption is disallowed from the get go on the strength of a bit of tidying up of the plot being considered a ‘material start’. Surely a material start should be what’s needed to lock in PP by making a proper start and I doubt that gravel at the entrance would qualify.
  23. newhome
    A post from Facebook shared with permission. Councils seem to be on a mission to find any reason to disallow a CIL exemption. This is another example where the plot owners laid stones at the entrance to stop mud getting on the road.
  24. newhome
    There is a very recent thread in the regular member’s sub forum that is discussing a barn conversion and VAT. @PeterW any chance of increasing @bmt216a‘s post count to allow access please? It’s here when you get access You won’t need the invoices that your builder has been given when he purchased the materials from a merchant (he will need those for his own VAT accounts) but you will need supply & fit invoices from him charging you 5% on the whole invoice amount and presumably detailing the materials he has supplied so windows, roof tiles or whatever so that you can send these to HMRC.
  25. newhome
    Same here and it’s been down about 7 years. No problems with it upstairs either (laid over joists and UFH).
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