Big J

There is something about snow and frost that sends dogs into an excited frenzy.

Interesting thread. I can't say much about the gas, as we're not had mains gas for almost 15 years and now live in a country where it doesn't seem to exist. I agree though that the way it's charged for is unnecessarily complicated. We're principally electric heating. A ground source heat pump that does the central heating. An air/air source heat pump, which does the main living space. And a stove for the kitchen/dining and upstairs. We're trying to be super economical with the electricity as the price has shot right back up again here. I think it's averaging about £0.40 per KWH this month, up from about £0.21 a month ago. So geothermal is set to 15c, stove is on continuously and the air source in the living room is set to 16c, but temperature is actually about 18.5c. Kitchen is warmer. It's cooler than I'd like, but until I start working in January, we have to watch the pennies. We have a lot of wood that hasn't cost anything. We're using on average 23-26 KWH a day, so it's costing £9-10 a day to heat and power our house. But for context, the high temperature outside today was minus 5c and it was minus 11c at 09:00 this morning.

Only a minute really. It's just to maintain that cold water tolerance. You do get a bit of a buzz from it when combined with sauna. Did 35km on the bike in minus 10 this morning. It was really very pretty. Some beard ice issues though!

It does. I took my younger daughter to nursery by bike, and whilst it felt like my beard froze in about 20 seconds, it was beautiful. The Swedes hate plus temperatures in winter. They just want snow.

First double digit minus temp since moving here ☺️

Light snow and minus 1 overnight. Made for a nice bike ride

The electricity prices have gone back up again, so now resolved to using the stove more again. One basket lasts us one day of constant burning and it's 17 baskets to the cube. I anticipate at this rate I'll burn about 7 cube up to the end of March, which is fortunate, as I only have 9 cube for this winter! We've got minus 18 on our long range forecast though, so I suspect the fire will be fairly well cranked for that.

The 16 day forecast is looking pretty epic for us here. Just in time for when my wife's parents arrive for Christmas too

I think it goes both ways in the North. We're a fairly long way from Norway here in the South.

The snow is all but gone now, but due to return in a big way at the weekend. Dropping temperatures with snow most days, with minus 13 on the forecast for the middle of December. Fingers crossed for a white Christmas for the kids.

I agree. It's just a question magnitude.

In real terms, everyone is worse off at the moment compared to just about any recent time period, and Brits are about to see the worst ever reduction in living standards. Worst fall in UK living standards since records began, says OBR | Economics | The Guardian WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM Spending watchdog says Britain is in recession and unemployment will rise by 500,000

It contributes to overall inflation: 1) the building work becomes more expensive, so the end product is more expensive 2) the brickies have more spending power, so will put more cash into the economy, so will thus cause more inflation. If everyone is paid more and everything costs more and the bank keeps printing new money, inflation rapidly becomes a serious problem. The UK's problem at the moment is 'stagflation', where the cost of everything is going up against the backdrop of reduced GDP. This is the worst scenario of all.

I guess it still shouldn't preclude the idea of building properly insulated homes. We had friends who were in Devon (now Cumbria), one of whom was Swedish, from Mora (the start of the Northern Wilderness, close to the Norwegian border). She said that her parents visited in winter in Devon, they hated it and complained about the cold. Keep in mind Mora is a good 10c colder. Combination of the damp, the wind and the crappy houses. I was looking at the UK government data for new builds and energy usage. 2017 figures are 125kwh/square metre per year. That's a little over 4 times what our 65 year old house uses. How can the developers be allowed to build such atrocious houses in the 21st century? And to hark back to an old bugbear of mine, I think all season tyres are the best choice for the UK. You're not stuck up shit creek without a paddle in winter conditions.

Very interesting! If only the mass house builders took your approach of energy conservation. I've tried challenging them on occasion through Facebook, but their media teams are always incredibly vague about any environmental standards and just say they adhere to regulations etc etc. The UK climate, whilst mild, is actually quite difficult at times for maintaining a warm home. We always found (in the succession of shitty old farmhouses we lived in) that a few degrees above freezing with wind driven rain stripped the heat so quickly. And that is pretty much the typical weather of a British winter. It's been a bit damp and grey here this month, and we had a chunk of snow, but it's nearly always close to being perfectly still. Lack of wind also helps with lack of drafts too. We have a few windows open all the time, but it doesn't have much bearing on the warmth of the house. The geothermal heating system has a curious thermostat system on it too - it's external. It's preprogrammed to provide a certain amount of heat at certain temperatures, meaning if we use our secondary heating, it doesn't affect the heat output of the geothermal. So we set the geothermal to 17c and use the heat pump and fire a bit. Living areas are kept at 20c, bedrooms 18c and basement about 15c, though all windows are open a bit in the basement for drying clothes.

Nice. You've hit the nail on the head I think. The heat source is secondary in importance to the insulation. The UK has never had the incentive to insulate properly because of the relatively mild climate and ample supply of North Sea gas. Times change though. Here, highly effective insulation is none-optional. Your typical Wimpy home wouldn't last a single winter here, and we're in the mild part of Sweden! I wish your wife a speedy recovery

I am not sure. There is a lot of hydro production in the north of Sweden, and it's generally cheaper up there.

I reckon you're seriously underestimating the kwh in your logs and oil.... 1kg of 20% MC wood contains 4 kwh of energy, of which 3.2 - 3.5 kwh will be emitted to the room/heating system (assuming 80-88% efficiency). So, I reckon that our two heat pumps are using 20 kwh (the rest is hot water, dishwasher, washing machine, general house stuff) a day at the moment (at an average external temp of 0c, which would be considered a cold snap in the UK) which is roughly equivalent to 6kg of logs. I regard that as extraordinarily efficient. Similarly, 20 kwh is 2 litres of heating oil, though our heat pumps have a COP of around 4, so we're actually getting about 80 kwh to the house, which is equivalent to 8 litres.

It averaged £0.215 on the bill for October, but it might be a bit lower this month. We aren't on a great tariff as we bought our house just as everything kicked off in Ukraine with the subsequent energy crisis. The south of Sweden doesn't have much hydro and is more reliant on gas and to a lesser extent nuclear. Either way, it's probably one of the cheapest countries for electricity right now. Or least expensive, depending on which way you look at it!

I think it'll be about £175-200 for the month. Not certain as the tariffs are rolling.

I think you misunderstand. 30 kwh is the total electricity usage for everything. That's 98% of our heating too. Our house is about 240 square metres.

A lot less now than we used to. It's been averaging about 0c here for the last ten days (day and night average). We use the stove(10kw, in the kitchen, which is 35 square metres and open to the upstairs) to supplement a bit. I reckon we've maybe used a barrow a week so far. The primary heating is geothermal and the other secondary heating is an air to air heat pump in the living room. Total power consumption is about 30 kWh a day at the moment. If our house here was as thermally inefficient as our last house in Devon, we'd be utterly f**ked

Current polls put: Think we were right to leave: low to mid 30s % Think we were wrong to leave: low to mid 50s % Around 12% answer that they don't know. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/11/17/one-five-who-voted-brexit-now-think-it-was-wrong-d