Cost cutting tips. So with the spiraling cost of food and electricity I thought this would be good.

I got a SuperSer heater today. Never thought I ever would, but I considered the possibility of power cuts and the cost of town gas use in very cold weather. No log burner or open fire here either.

So with the initial outlay I'm very happy to have another source of heat, it's already paid for and power cuts won't affect it.

It has auto shut off and oxygen detector, so all the safety features you would expect. Tried it earlier and it has no residual odour either. Glad to have a back up now.

Yes that's right, I got the €150 FloGas one in PC and it is quite neat to look at, not that it makes much difference as long as it does the job!

The initial outlay on the gas bottle was a few bob alright, but I didn't have an empty to swop out, so that was €70 odd, but that will be around half the price or so when I can return the empty. I didn't shop around for the bottle, just pulled into the first garage I saw that had FloGas!

I honestly haven't a clue, but someone else on the thread might. I was more concerned about having a back up source of heat in a power cut, and something to heat just one room where needed in very cold weather.

Anyway, I have it now, the fuel is paid for and I won't care when it snows or the electricity goes out.

I would expect the price of cylinders to go up significantly as winter progresses.

Been diving into the rabbit hole of gas boiler efficiency the past couple of weeks and I've learned that simply lowering your thermostat from 22/21/20 to 19 helps, but not nearly as much as one may think.

Your boilers flow temperature has far more impact on the amount of energy used. Assuming you have a condensing boiler, you'll want to adjust the flow temperature down so your boiler can enter condensing mode more often. This will increase the boilers overall efficiency and therefore decrease the amount of gas used to generate heat.

Achieving condensing mode is somewhat complicated because it depends on your boiler system. Combi boilers (hot water on demand) is the easiest to achieve by setting the flow temperature to 55'C but there are caveats to this.

Regular boilers (where your house has an immersion tank and a cistern in the attic) is more complicated because you need to balance keeping your hot water at a suitable temperature to prevent https://www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices/legionella.htm. But in general, setting your flow temperature to 61'C should help the boiler enter condensing mode more often.

Regarding the caveat; Closing the radiator valves to the rooms you're not using may not be the best idea. In order for your boiler to hit condensing mode, you'll want the return temperature of the water to be as low as possible. If you're closing radiator valves throughout the house then the hot water returning to your boiler most probably won't be below 55'c and the boiler wont enter condensing mode. You will want more condensing to occur, which gives more latent heat absorbed and the more energy saved.

Another caveat is how many zones your home has. This will also affect the flow temperature and return temperature. There are complicated maths you can perform to calculate the ideal flow temperature but this will change as the weather becomes cooler as we head into winter.

What I'm learning from all of this is that there isn't a "catch all" solution for everyone. Every house is built differently, has its own insulation factor, different zones, radiator sizes, radiator positions etc.. etc.. It gets complicated when we're all looking for a one button press solution.

To make matters worse, we're potentially getting a White Christmas (https://www.irishmirror.ie/news/irish-news/ireland-could-see-first-white-28192320). Those who turn off their radiators may find their pipes bursting :(

Get those extra thick jerseys and thermal underwear ready! We're in for one hell of a winter.

LPG prices have not gone up as much as other fuels. I'm still filling my car for 84c a litre

Probably get banned for this but do women understand all those? My wife spends HOURS in the shower every day (I wish I was exaggerating there), followed by long periods using the hairdryer....Lights are turned on randomly and left on indefinitely. Heating is turned on when it's actually warm outside...and while wearing scant clothing and open-toed footwear.... Food is regularly thrown out. Also, one that wrecks my head is making really elaborate dishes using a lot ingredients which then produces a one-off meal which is over in minutes and then requires loads of washing up and throwing out of things. I favour things like curries, stews, casseroles where you fire a load of stuff in a pot and you get at least a couple of meals out of it for a group and it can be paired with rice/pasta etc. to bulk it up. Rant over.

I came home from work today to discover my wife had left the immersion on (for 10 hours), the lights were on in our bedroom (ceiling and a lamp) , the spare room, and the bathroom (ceiling plus mirror light). The toilet under the stairs had light left on (and ceiling fan with it), in the sitting room the TV was on (but on mute!) and a lamp.

For. F*ck. Sake.

I've had the conversation many times and honestly she seems to think I'm a sergeant major penny pincher. Doesn't register with her at all. Then she gets odd with me that I get frustrated with things like that.

Back in the spring I came home. It was 20 degrees outside...actually was!! Not exaggerating. Came in to find the heating on!! Argh.

Why can't you just reuse those towels, it's wasteful putting them in the wash after single use.

This is honestly one of the funniest threads Ive read in a long while, first few pages had me in stitches laughing

Use shades on all lamps so light does not get wasted on unnecessary areas such as ceilings, hence reducing electricity costs.