Electricity Costs

From today my electricity bill is going up. I understand that and expect an increase for every kWh I use. What I find curious is the fact that my standing charge is more than doubling.

Looking up what's causing this I find that it's to cover the 'supplier of last resort' scheme. Still seems rather excessive, especially as the failure of smaller power companies is bringing business to the ones left standing. There again, I suppose they have to swallow the costs involved in maintaining previous tariffs, which were loss makers, and resulted in the smaller suppliers going to the wall.

I can see that I'm going to have problems with any direct debits, as the direct debit annual cost calculation does not take into account my 1/3rd reduction in electricity usage in the last 12 months.

That said, the kWh tariff will increase by only some 4.5%, which is not untoward, so saving on electricity won't make a great difference to the total unit rate bill. What will hit is the daily standing charge, which is totally independent of my usage. That will equate to £197 year, even if I don't use any electricity at all. 

Regardless, and in preparation for next winter, I'm starting to split the large logs resulting from us felling several large trees last autumn. They'll be used on the log burner which, at 12 kW, adequately heats the whole house, with the sole exception of the AirBnB, which we can heat electrically, if necessary. 

One season of seasoning might not be enough, especially as they are fir logs, which are noted for depositing tar into chimney linings and are a noted cause of chimney fires. 

I found a good way of splitting them, using an axe and a sledgehammer to drive the axe head into the wood, but I managed to break the axe handle in the process. The axe head isn't quite deep enough for a good split, so I've ordered a proper splitting wedge. They're not expensive (between £8 and £20, depending on what it's made of).