Model Boat Mayhem
Mess Deck: General Section => Chit-Chat => Topic started by: Neil on October 14, 2013, 05:28:43 pm
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SSE were the first to announce that they were going to raise their prices in November for the next winter stint at robbing us all blind ............BUT BEWARE, if you have your gas/electricity from SSE
Got my bill today stating that my usage was showing that last year my kWh usage was 11479 kWh and as such my expected bill would be £1725.73p
I found that rather high so checked my meter....................
Funnily, my meter which I have had in the house for the last 10 years, and has never been re calibrated on usage......reads...................... in total 10550....................
So according to SSE I have used last year, 929 kWh ( 11479 ) more in one year than my meter shows I have used in 10 years............
and then in the letter they say that on average they only make less than £2.00 a week profit on the average household energy bill..................
Yeh Right !!!!!!
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Told you to sand by hand :D :D :D
Ned
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Told you to sand by hand :D :D :D
Ned
{-) {-) {-) {-) {-) {-)
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probably a guesstimated bill.
Grendel
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probably a guesstimated bill.
Grendel
nahh, matey...........the thick git came round and read the meter in daylight about a week ago.......................beats me where they get the staff from...
always remember the Boys from the Black stuff saying Gizza job.................I could do better...............
doesn't take half a brain to copy 5 numerals from a black box to a card.............but this muppet seamed to be able to cock it up easily............
WHY SHOULD BRITAIN TREMBLE????
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..............I could do better...............
doesn't take half a brain to copy 5 numerals from a black box to a card......
I suspect that anyone (that isn't a god) going round all day every day reading numbers off meters might occasionally make a mistake. He probably gets 99% right.
Just to keep this in perspective there is another bloke fixing the brakes on cars all day every day, and another fixing aeroplanes :D
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ha FIXING airplains I work not to far from where they build wings for a well known brand of plane whenthey have a break they come over sit in there cars smoking wakkkkkyyyy baaacccyyy then go back to the factory and continue with a rivit gun
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Just to stay with the thread - My meter has been getting read less and less and the supplier, initially, was sending out estimated bills.
To combat this, I now read my meter EVERY DAY (at the same time of day) and record the results on an excel spreadsheet.
As a bonus to this I know how much electricity we are consuming each day and can take measures to reduce our consumption.
As you may be aware, the quarterly bills are (or appear to be) made up of 91 days, 91 days, 91 days and 92 days thereby giving a total of 365 - obviously 2 of the quarters will have to cover 92 days each for leap years i.e. 366 days.
For the last 12 months I have been phoning my quarterly readings through and receiving accurate billing.
Now then, this means that I decide when to cover the 91 or the 92 days - that way, I decide which quarter to allocate the 92 days to. Obviously, I choose the warmer / lighter months when we're consuming less per 24hrs anyway.
I hope the above makes sense - let's face it, on some occasions the meter readers can be as much as 2 weeks late, which of course means you face a bill with an extra 2 weeks worth of electric to pay for in that particular quarter.
One more thing - I make sure that I update my spreadsheet with the new prices on the day they come into force.
...Almost forgot to add this - When I receive the notification of price changes, they usually say they will estimate the reading on the changeover day. I don't allow this - I phone through my accurate reading. :police:
Regards,
Ray.
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...Almost forgot to add this - When I receive the notification of price changes, they usually say they will estimate the reading on the changeover day. I don't allow this - I phone through my accurate reading. :police:
More devious people will not give them an accurate reading on that date, but one that is a bit inflated (or deflated if the price is going down * ), so they get a bit more at the cheap rate. Not inflated enough to trigger the 'misreading alarm' of course.
* yeah, right
(http://www.sol.me.uk/icons/rofl.gif)
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I always phone my readings through, otherwise they add a large percentage to make sure they are ahead. This rapidly builds to a big sum meaning you "lend" them a lot of money at zero interest.
The only way to minimise the regular big price increases is to use less, whilst still staying comfortable.
In the years leading up to my retirement I gradually upgraded our house. Double glazing to replace the old wooden frame windows. Changing the ancient "G" rated boiler for a modern low water content "A" rated one when a £400 government grant became available. No hot water tank, the boiler does that on a separate heat exchanger.
We replaced all the facias and guttering with UPVC for minimum maintenance, then took advantage of a local council offer of free loft and cavity wall insulation. Lastly some 40 light bulbs were replaced with LED's which saves up to 2kW maximum. Our energy bills are massively reduced.
Too many people doing this kills the energy suppliers profits, which is the real reason why they jack up the bills to compensate.
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Just to stay with the thread - My meter has been getting read less and less and the supplier, initially, was sending out estimated bills.
To combat this, I now read my meter EVERY DAY (at the same time of day) and record the results on an excel spreadsheet.
As a bonus to this I know how much electricity we are consuming each day and can take measures to reduce our consumption.
As you may be aware, the quarterly bills are (or appear to be) made up of 91 days, 91 days, 91 days and 92 days thereby giving a total of 365 - obviously 2 of the quarters will have to cover 92 days each for leap years i.e. 366 days.
For the last 12 months I have been phoning my quarterly readings through and receiving accurate billing.
Now then, this means that I decide when to cover the 91 or the 92 days - that way, I decide which quarter to allocate the 92 days to. Obviously, I choose the warmer / lighter months when we're consuming less per 24hrs anyway.
I hope the above makes sense - let's face it, on some occasions the meter readers can be as much as 2 weeks late, which of course means you face a bill with an extra 2 weeks worth of electric to pay for in that particular quarter.
One more thing - I make sure that I update my spreadsheet with the new prices on the day they come into force.
...Almost forgot to add this - When I receive the notification of price changes, they usually say they will estimate the reading on the changeover day. I don't allow this - I phone through my accurate reading. :police:
Regards,
Ray.
great idea Ray, pm sent.
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:-)) :-)) :-))
hello
monitor counters is a great idea
I'll be watching:
electricity
gas
water
my phone
my wife's
one of my eight children
it will give me money to buy kits boats
if I have time I would build {-) {-) {-) {-) {-) {-) {-)
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Eight children? I am surprised you have time for anything!!!
Bob
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Too many people doing this kills the energy suppliers profits, which is the real reason why they jack up the bills to compensate.
Without wishing to hijack this thread, Noticed how the price of Diesel rocketed since the advent of small "Car" sized units became generally available? Has the LPG option increased?
Regards Ian.
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{-)
Eight children? I am surprised you have time for anything!!!
and I walk for a diesel bus
Poverty is on the horizon
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and has anyone noticed the price of vegetable oil went up to the same as diesel as soon as it became well known that you can use it to run a diesel engine at least mixed with some diesel.
Grendel
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Guys....in OZ.....all of the fish shops have their used & burnt vegetable oil collected for free & its recycled & used in diesel engines.......you can always tell them....the exhaust smells like >>:-( >:-o Murray river carp & chips with vinegar {-) Derek
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Hi all
you anit seen nothing yet. Power stations are shutting at an alarming rate. Yesterday Decomissioned Tilbury. This country is heading to a serious power shortage.
New houes being built + shops etc add power stations closing. The current leader and previous bang on about wind/solar green wast of time . That doesnt start to bridge the short fall. To give you an idea a few years ago we had about 14% over genration cappacty we are down to about 2 to 4%. As we all now the law of supply and demand. SSC was first out of the blocks with an above inflation rise.
enjoy
john
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I would just hope when they start the power cuts
They would work out someway that the people who complain and campaign against new
Power stations could be taken off line first.......
If anyone has a complaint regarding their utility bills and have to call to complain
PLEASE, PLEASE ensure you remember to tell them how it is stressing you out, that you have been
Up all night worrying, trying to work out if it is food or electricity etc...LAY IT ON THICK!!!
A lot of people don't realise this but each call operator has a set amount of compensation allocated to them to use each day to compensate for the stress caused. My mum worked with one of the large electricity providers and her allowance was £3000 a day to use on her own judgement. What she found was it was people who had the big fancy house, who didn't pay their bills, allowed the bills to pile up then complained and demanded compensation when threatened with being cut off as they knew this fund was there were the people trying to get it.....
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You think you have it bad! I'm on prepay for gas and electric! No debts on the meter. I pay upfront for both use o line purchasing and smart cards and get charged more per unit and quarterly billed houses!
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:-))
lack of electricity = no television
no television = free time
the birth rate will increase
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Hi all
you anit seen nothing yet. Power stations are shutting at an alarming rate. Yesterday Decomissioned Tilbury. This country is heading to a serious power shortage.
New houes being built + shops etc add power stations closing. The current leader and previous bang on about wind/solar green wast of time . That doesnt start to bridge the short fall. To give you an idea a few years ago we had about 14% over genration cappacty we are down to about 2 to 4%. As we all now the law of supply and demand. SSC was first out of the blocks with an above inflation rise.
enjoy
john
this is something (having worked in the industry) that everyone has been saying for the last 20 years or more - we needed to start building the replacements 15 years ago, most of the coal fired power stations are at or past end of life, when they wanted to build a brand new coal station near me a few years back the protesters complained and got the project axed, never mind that the existing station is innefficient, and no longer can be brought up to a standard required, we wont build a new plant that will run a great deal cleaner due to new technology - because coal fired = bad, instead we will just have to keep using the old one that was worn out 10 years ago. wind power - oh no, dont want any of those things round here spoiling the view - yet the protesters will be first in the queue to complain when they cant heat their home.
the same is true for all the different types of power, everyone wants the power, but nobody wants it to be generated near them.
the solution isnt one single type of power - you need diversification, lots of small local power stations (less transmission losses if its local) wind, solar, water, coal, nuclear, - a bit of everything so that you have some resilience, the more local the better.
I saw an interesting article about how solar cells could be fixed at the sides of the glass of office windows, and a special coating allowed the glass to divert some of the light to the edges, just think if every building used this to generate a lot of its own energy, export any spare to the grid.
yes decisions made years ago are coming back to bite us now, maybe we should all get our roofs converted to solar power, at least we would have something when the power went off - keep all those old lead batteries to make up battery banks to power your houses folks.
Grendel
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ps added to that there is a great shortage of experienced electrical engineers to work the network - staff cutbacks and savings on training, and whoops, all the existing engineers coming up to retirement age = shortage, quick, train some new ones, what 5 years at university, another five in house training to get them fully authorised, - oh they retire next year --- umm.
Grendel
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Electricity….and the price we pay.
Pay, but not necessarily all in cash terms.
This monster is situated on the seaward side of Blyth (Northumberland) harbour. It’s also dead in line with the length of the main street.
It must really have taken much thought by someone who hates Blyth with a vengeance to plonk this thing where it is. Even the local council must have a grudge against its own citizens to allow it to be built.I just hope that I’ve managed to resize it correctly…..I’m still getting to grips with my new system! BY
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Unbelievable >>:-( >>:-( >>:-(
Bryan,
If I doubted your integrity, I would be saying 'Photoshop'
Ned
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Power cuts would mean I can't charge my model boat batteries, and thus no boating >>:-(
Shock horror !!!!
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Not all Bob.
Totally "unshopped".
It really does look that threatening when driving down that road. Almost impossible to avoid looking at it...especially when it's turning. Can't help but wonder how many "fender-benders" it's been resposible for.
Bryan.
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you think that's bad try the roads round the docks at dunkerque (france)
Grendel
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Not all Bob.
Totally "unshopped".
It really does look that threatening when driving down that road. Almost impossible to avoid looking at it...especially when it's turning. Can't help but wonder how many "fender-benders" it's been resposible for.
Bryan.
Granted no photoshop, but how much zoom? Was it taken from the corner of Cypress and Waterloo? Big they might well be, but they are at least on the other side of the river, and on a spit of land that nobody has really found a use for. Probably a lot easier to maintain than those planted offshore, too.
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Oh dear....I forgot about you non-believers and conspiracy theorists!
No zoom used. It was taken as a full frame shot and the centre part cropped out and saved. Proportions etc. are exactly as are seen by any street user.
I quite resent some of the insinuations.
I just thought that at least some of you would find it "interesting". Don't know why I bothered now. BY.
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should seen the ones around the nissan site in washington NE, most dont seem to be rotating half the time.
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Oh dear....I forgot about you non-believers and conspiracy theorists!
No zoom used. It was taken as a full frame shot and the centre part cropped out and saved. Proportions etc. are exactly as are seen by any street user.
I quite resent some of the insinuations.
I just thought that at least some of you would find it "interesting". Don't know why I bothered now. BY.
No conspiracy theory, Bryan. Just didn't remember it being that overpowering. Even just cropping a full natural frame can introduce an unexpected perspective. But they do say, "If you are going to have a thing to generate power, have a big 'un".
Big as it is, it isn't as scary as those little ones on top of the Solarium building on Blackpool prom. When those things are at it in a strong wind and you are inside the building you are very, very aware that they are only a few yards away.
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I like the little vertical ones that look like egg whisks whizzing away on top of the roofs of buildings.
(wouldn't want to go near one though) Grendel