Greenhouse Heating

 


For the last few years my husband has heated his greenhouse with a 2kw
natural
gas heater.  He brings on vegetable seeds in a heated
propagator but needs the
heating as we live in Scotland.  Gas prices
are expensive at about 12p per kw
hour and we are expecting them to go
up.  Also for the last few years he has
also bought plug plants in
April which need the heat to bring them on (yes it's
sometimes still
cold here in April and May).  As a way of helping towards the
cost we
used to sell some plants but people want them for virtually nothing and
the cost outweighs any profit he makes.  Tonight he has decided he is
not going
to do this anymore as he does prefer growing veg.  However,
he loves his hobby
and I don't want him to get depressed about it.  I
bought him one of these jumbo
propagators for Xmas and he also has two
other propagators which are very cheap
to run.  He feels like packing
it all in.  Is there anything I can do to help
him maintain his
interest in growing veggies and still use his greenhouse.  Any
suggestions would be gratefully received.  Forgot to mention the
greenhouse is
insulated and is 8ft x 6ft.




--
the swede

 

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 00:29:45 +0000, the swede wrote:


Find a different gas supplier. You say "natural gas" which I take to mean
mains gas rather than bottled. 12p/kWHr is about 4 times what you should
be paying for mains gas and is more in keeping with upper range
electricity prices... 3 to 4p/kWHr would be more realistic, and about what
British Gas charge and they aren't know to be the cheapest.

Take a look at a few of the utility switching sites, eg
http://www.uswitch.com . Though having just looked at that to check the gas
tarrifs available I can't see were you can find the figures they use to
calculate the "savings". *Always* check the small print, conditions, short
term offers etc. and actual unit prices of a tarrif before deciding to
switch supplier. Paying by monthly direct debit, managing your account
online and without paper bills are all ways to attract "discounts" on your
bill.

--
Cheers                                              new5pam@howhill.com
Dave.                                             pam is missing e-mail

 


For me, in the past year  British Gas have been the cheapest supplier
(dual fuel, direct debit, paper-less billing etc.) so don't necessarily
rule them out because of past pricing policies. However,  I wouldn't
trust the b*******s as I have just changed from one BG account to a
cheaper BG account that they have introduced recently. - they don't
inform existing customers that there are new accounts with lower charges
:(


The _only_ way of knowing which supplier is cheaper is if you know your
annual consumption of Gas/Electricity in kW. The better utility
suppliers will have web sites where records of their customers meter
readings can be viewed for the past few years.

--
Alan
news2006 amac f2s com

 

On Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:04:25 +0000, Alan wrote:


<snip>

Very few companies tell existing customers of new tarrifs. It may also be
tied in with ticking the box to stop mailings of "other services and
offers that you may be interested in".


Or look on old bills were all the information required to make a
comparision can be found. The cost per unit meter readings, standing
charges (hidden or open).

--
Cheers                                              new5pam@howhill.com
Dave.                                             pam is missing e-mail

 


I find uswitch pretty rubbish myself.

When I switched before I found  <http://www.energylinx.co.uk/>  the best
- they were the only comparison site I tried that flagged up that two
separate single fuel tariffs were cheaper than a dual fuel one.

You can find a link to the tariff details on EnergyLinx if you follow up
the link for one of the selected comparison results

--
Chris French