Another year done, a brighter year

As the previous year, my energy bill was minimal in 2025. I didn’t keep any good records of the actual costs for 2025. Roughly speaking, my fixed costs were £272 in standing charges and I figure I’ve paid £255 in energy costs on top of that

My total net energy bill for the year was around £255 – £21.25/month (£43.93/month if you include the standing charges)

In 2022, my monthly energy direct debit was £200/month. In 2023 I increased it to £250/month. This remained at £250/month in 2024 (first full year with solar) as I wasn’t sure what impact the solar panels would have on costs. In 2025, I reduced the direct debit to £100/month. For 2026, I have reduced it again to £50/month. Considering prices always seem to rise I’m quite happy that I’ve been able to reduce my outgoings

3 brief graphs:

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Infrared heating – Good, bad, or ugly?

A couple of years ago (yes, this has taken me a couple of years from idea to implementation) I was thinking of re-doing my bathroom and decided that I didn’t want a radiator on the wall anymore, so I started to investigate what other types of heating were available. There was under floor heating, in-wall heating, or infrared heating

All appeared to have their plus and minus points. My original intention was to eventually convert all the upstairs rooms to use whatever I decided to go with, and maybe even replace heating in the whole house. Idealy, I didn’t want to use the boiler (and therefore gas) as I didn’t want to rely on gas, and I can hear the boiler (even though it’s been replaced recently with a far quieter one) when it’s being used. The only noise I want in the house is noise I make (for) myself. TV, music, whatever. I don’t want a background hum of some device

I started looking at infrared heating. Everything I found was a ‘thing’ that you had to mount somewhere, losing precious wall or ceiling space – All the reading I did also stated that you shouldn’t have anything in front of the infrared heater, so that severly limits which walls are suitable to mount any heating to

Mounting something the ceiling seemed more viable, but all the heating options I saw were frankly ugly and intrusive. They were also set off the ceiling so they would be dust and condensation traps which didn’t sound like a great idea

After many fruitless searches, I finally came across a company called ASTECtherm who provide an infrared heating solution which you plaster in to the ceiling. I already had some great electricians from SolarOrb who had installed my solar panels and battery system. This solution seemed like a good option for me to try

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