Electricity crisis | Radiators off, shower every week – despite the savings, Sirkka Pinola’s electricity bills are about to explode

Sirkka Pinola, who lives in Siikajoki, may soon have to pay her electricity bill with credit, even though she saves almost everything she can. Kalle from Nokia says he has to take out a loan to pay the electricity bills.

Cricket Pinola has cut almost everything extra from his electricity consumption, but still his electricity bills are growing terribly high.

Pinola lives in an electrically heated detached house in Siikajoki, but he only uses electricity for essential things.

He only turns on household appliances out of necessity, and even then at night. He says he does laundry twice a month and the dishwasher runs once a week.

Pinola does not go to the sauna and does not take a shower every 5–7 days for three minutes.

Pinola does not wash his car. However, giving it up is practically impossible, as the nearest shop is 22 kilometers away.

Cricket Pinola

Pinola retired in July. He got the saved vacations with the money he used to buy an air source heat pump that keeps the house warm. He has not turned on the radiators at all during the winter.

“The floor heating in the washroom must be kept on when there is no other heating,” he says.

Pinola says that he has always saved.

“I have lived in a detached house since 1988 and have always saved on everything like this. It’s not just saving, but ecological thinking. I have always been against the use of natural resources unnecessarily,” he says.

“I myself have chosen to save, but I criticized the fact that we are being killed by electricity bills. Us ordinary people.”

“I’ve decided to survive by whining.”

Pinola was a customer of the electricity company Lumo from the beginning of April until the company went bankrupt. At the same time, he lost a cheap fixed-term electricity contract.

See also  Social media | Elon Musk announced that he will step down as CEO of Twitter as soon as a replacement is found

The contract with the new electricity company first cost a good 15 cents per kilowatt hour, then already 35 cents. In January, the price will rise to 48 cents per kilowatt hour, says Pinola.

In November, electricity alone cost Pinola around 300 euros without transmission fees, he says.

“I calculated that if the electricity consumption at the beginning of the year is 1,500 kilowatt hours per month, which is quite possible in an old detached house, the electricity bill would be 720 euros per month. And on top of that the transfer fees,” he says.

“I have a good pension, but it leaves me with 1,375 euros. If you’re going to get by with that money, you have to cut almost all expenses.”

The temporary reduction of the VAT on electricity from 24 percent to ten percent only brings a small relief to the electricity bill, and Pinola considers the electricity subsidy to be insufficiently small.

He will probably have to pay at least part of the electricity bills on credit.

“I’m not hopeless, that’s my nature. Someone might stress themselves to the point of being sick, but I’ve decided to survive by whining,” says Pinola.

“I only need to bear responsibility for myself, but what about families with children who are in a similar situation? Or people who don’t have a credit account or credit report?”

See also  Basketball For Lauri Markkanen, the second poorest point balance of the season, Cleveland plunged

A Nokian Kalle didn’t realize until a year ago, what kind of uncertainty the rise in electricity prices could throw him into.

At the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, Kalle bought a detached house, where he moved with his spouse and their small child. He had been looking for his own home for several years, until he finally found the right one.

“I had calculated my loan servicing costs accurately. I also took the interest rate cap just in case I didn’t get into trouble, even though it was considered stupid at the time. I have also tried to collect bumpers. I would describe myself as realistic when it comes to housekeeping expenses.”

Now he is divorced and pays the mortgage and the large electricity bills of the electric-heated detached house alone. In addition, there is a four-year-old son who lives with Kalle a few days a week, as well as two dogs.

Kalle does not appear in the story under his own name due to the sensitivity of the matter.

“The bumpers I’ve accumulated have been used up in a month or two.”

For now Kalle has been in a grateful position, because he has had a cheap fixed-term electricity contract.

However, it ended earlier this week.

“Last winter, I wasn’t terribly worried about the future, because I thought that when the contract ends, Olkiluoto 3 will be up and running, and there were no more than inklings of war,” says Kalle.

Kalle agreed with the electricity company on a new one-year fixed-term contract, the price of which is 31.63 cents per kilowatt hour.

See also  Heka | Information from HS: Rent increases in Helsinki are larger than expected

There is a situation ahead where you have to take out a loan to get by on the electricity bills, says Kalle.

He has calculated that the electricity bills in the future, including transfer fees, will be almost 900 euros per month. In the past, during the freezing months, the price, including transfer fees, came to around 300 euros.

“You also have to pay child support payments. The bumpers I have accumulated have been used in a month or two,” he says.

Fortunately, the forest company where Kalle works has promised an interest-free loan for electricity bills.

Kalle says that he has already reduced his electricity consumption by about a third of what it was a year earlier.

He has not kept the radiators on in the winter either, but has heated the house with a fireplace and an air source heat pump. It is currently around 18 degrees in the kitchen. There is a fan on top of the fireplace that spreads the heat into the apartment.

Calculations of future electricity bills are based on the fact that electricity consumption will remain at a minimum in the future as well. Without austerity measures, the bills would be even higher.

“It requires me to be at home a lot and heat the fireplace, because the air heat pump does not keep the room warm,” he says.

“The last time I was on a two-day business trip, the temperature was 14 degrees when I came back.”

#Electricity #crisis #Radiators #shower #week #savings #Sirkka #Pinolas #electricity #bills #explode

Related Posts

Next Post

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recommended