20/01/2014 Inside Out North West

I see it as part of my pension. We investigate the power thieves who

are stealing their energy and costing us money. They have followed

the wires across the house and they think this electricity is being

stolen from the neighbours. And we challenge to families to see how

much they can save on their bills. It is a competition between two

families. Do you think you're to win it? Yes, we will try were hardest.

`` we will try our hardest. ENERGY FILM one Now, we all know how

the price of energy has rocketed in recent times and that families are

facing growing bills. Tonight, Jacey Normand reports on the extreme

lengths people in the Northwest are going to to reduce their energy use.

Energy price rises seem to be an inescapable part of our society and

recently whilst our consumption has decreased the price we pay per unit

has gone up. But there are some people across our region that are

trying to reduce their bills and they're doing it in very different

ways. Near Helsby in Cheshire, hidden away on a hillside, is this

modest property. Viewed from the roadside it's deceptively small but

it's actually a very cleverly designed and very energy efficient

eco house. Nine months of the year, it is everything you can do to keep

the Playschool. Steve's house is actually very large and you only get

to appreciate the size of it from the air. Its 16,000 square feet in

area which is the equivalent to ten four bedroomed houses, yet it

consumes just a fraction of the energy. The secret to the energy

efficiency is that half the house is underground. It does feel like we're

in a cave. This is the whole point. We're two floors below ground now.

The garden is way up there. The garden runs across the top. The

interesting element is just how warm it is here and we're now outside but

underground. This is the environment the house is sat in. It's sat in its

own thermos, it means the house isn't naturally dissipating its heat

out to the outside. It's in a very comfortable environment. This

subterranean structure means the house is well insulated. The rooms

are kept at a constant temperature and need very little heating to keep

them warm. And this is the boiler, that does 16,000 square feet, but

it's a very conventional boiler Yes. It looks about the same size as

the one I have at my flat! It is. The reality is, it isn't working

that hard. It's got a lot of house to look after but the house isn t

calling for a great deal of heat. It's a standard piece of kit. It's

not out of the ordinary. It's not what you'd think for the size of the

property. The science isn't about the boiler. It's actually about the

rest of the house. It's about creating an environment which

requires less energy to be introduced into it. Steve works in

the construction industry and believes that building better

insulation into our homes is vital to energy saving. I've been in

development for many years and we work on a lot of properties that are

considerably smaller than this. But the technology certainly can be used

and I think with today's building techniques houses are better

insulated and perhaps it's finding more innovative ways that we can

take elements of this and build it into any building. And innovation in

home building is exactly what they're doing in Oldham. They're

taking low energy housing to another level.. This is what is known as a

passive house and it's home to the Momin family. It's been specifically

designed to keep all the heat generated in the home. Nigel Banks

from the building company explained to me how it works. This is the heat

recovery unit in the property. This is used to extract warm moist air

from the kitchens and bathrooms out of the house, and also bring in

filtered fresh air from outside and it recovers 90% of the heat from

inside the house to heat the air from outside for free. All the walls

are super insulated, so there's more than 12 inches of insulation

compared to four inches of a normal new build house. The windows are

south facing and triple glazed to make use of as much of the free heat

from the sun and keep the house warm. And how does this compare to a

house that doesn't have all those adaptations. In terms of bills? So

we expect the heating bill for this house to be about ?20 a year.

Really? Absolutely! ?20 a year? This compares on average to a house of

this size about ?700, so an enormous reduction in bills. It sounds too

good to be true. So the question is why are we not building more of

these properties? Currently it does cost more to build these properties,

to build these homes it's about 20% to 25% extra so the question is

where does that money come from So for every five houses that are built

normally you could build four houses to this standard. So the question

comes to what standard do you want to build you homes and how many

homes do you need to build? The building of this estate was

subsidised by green levy funds. This included the building of four other

eco homes which have enough insulation and solar energy to keep

heating costs down to around ?3 a week. So we can create the homes

that save energy, but it does have a price tag. The passive houses are

the first of their kind in the north west and the tenants, Abdul and

Reema, certainly seem to notice the difference on their bill. Compared

to how it was before from the previous address, it's almost half

of what we used to pay. Do you have the heating on a lot in here? No,

not that much. Winter is here and we can't even tell it's Winter. We

don't have it on that much at all. I don't see why they're not building

more. If I'm saving, everyone should save. Obviously, lowering your

energy usage will really reduce your electricity bill but you can take it

one stage further, and start generating your own power. It's very

windy here today but it's not too noisy. No not noisy, the helicopter

noise you can hear is the sound of the air pressure of the blades going

past the pole. John Leonard lives in Saddleworth, one of the windiest

parts of our region. And he's putting the local elements to work

with his 10kw wind turbine. I wanted to know what motivated him to build

it. Mostly green reasons. I liked the idea after Fukishima exploded.

After various disasters, I thought there's got to be a better way. The

turbine cost John ?50,000 to install. With a fair wind, he can

expect to recover that investment within seven years. But more

importantly, he'll make a substantial reduction to his energy

bill. I usually use 7,000 kilowatt hours per year. I've already

generated in the five o six months it's been in, 11,700, so I've

already generated more than I use in a year. If you have a particularly

windy month how much can it make you? On a good day up about ?35 to

?40 a day. On a bad day nothing at all because it's not generating

This looks like the brains of the operation. Well, there's six

converters. As the turbine spins, it sends power into these converters

which regulate it, into a constant stream of electricity. This

electricity is then available for John to use or send back into the

national grid for a profit. You always pay for a bit of electricity

because it's often generating electricity when you're not using it

and sometimes, you've got a house full of people, everything on,

people using computers and it's not very windy. So on those days you use

electricity from the grid and buy it in the normal way. What we do do is

look out of the window, to see if it's going before we do washing So

if you're going to put the washing machine on or the dryer you wait

until it's windy. Definitely worth the investment, it's definitely

saving me money on the bills, and I'm feeling smug about being green.

We're trying to only use things around the house when it's windy so

the environment is affecting how we live which is quite rare. All three

of our energy savers have gone to extremes to reduce their costs.

While we can't all build wind turbines in our back garden or build

our houses underground, what is clear, is that as the cost of energy

increases, we will all have to address our energy use in the

future. I see it as my part of pension so we can afford to live in

the house that we like and afford to heat it because energy is just going

to keep costing more and it's nice to generate a little bit of your

own. It's nice to put something back as well.

Coming up, how you can save money on your energy bills. We are making

savings of ?15 every year. Difficult economic climate equals more people

feeling that this is the only way they can get their energy, I feel

the trend is upwards. This is a huge problem, we believe that perhaps

?500 million worth of gas and electricity are stolen a year, in

terms of what that means for a customer, potentially ?30 a yore on

their bills, that is a lot of money, it is money they shouldn't have to

pay P For the next few day, I am riding with Piers and Malcolm, power

theft investigators. The most bizarre case I think I have dealt

with is probably a nursing home When we caught him it cost him 250

thousand. But this is for smaller fry The first three we have are

domestic. A routiner in reading has discovered a single mother of three

tampering with her meter. There was a cooker hose that replaced that gas

meter. Even with gas central heating they

only paid ?15 last year. How many people live in the property? My mum,

two sisters and myself. The meter is back but hasn't been installed

correctly. Because the mother has children she is considered

vulnerable and can't be cut off Potentially this will go to the

police, we try to trace back who is doing it. We find trends where

people are going round estates and tampering with meet meters in the

same way. They will change a range of ?10 up to 5 hundred moun a time

so, so they can do ten to 15 a day. If something happened there it is

the adjoining properties who will be affected by potential explosion

Hard up and hard times may drive some, but we are now in a very rich

part of Essex, homes often sell for over a million, but the team have a

tip`off about an eight bed mansion with ?300,000 worth of cars on the

forecourt. But the house is suspiciously energy`efficient. Can I

come in and have a look to see what you have got? OK. Thank you.

Where is the light switch for this room here? Within minutes of the

team's arrival the power to most of the house mysteriously goes off My

suspicion is that all the back of that house and that garage is off an

unMeathers supply which they have switched off. But where to look for

the illegal supply? I am looking to see if any has been taken up. The

owner insists the meters are the only ones outside. An hour into the

search Piers finds another supply. I can see the pipe. Ah! Another

electricity meter. Moments later... There we have

another gas meter. All the power gas or electricity are used and is not

being billed it appears so they are getting it for free.

For now. But very soon it is a mansion

without power. The illegal supply is cut off. It won't be restored until

an estimated ?6,000 of stolen energy is paid for. These people can

obviously afford to pay for their energy, yet they are not.

Theft is being made all the easier by the internet. There you go. Going

slow now. Video guides on stealing energy a

new local scam can go global in days. It is a cat`and`mouse game.

Close one scam and another quickly opens. The latest comes from Chinese

community newspapers. They openly advertise telephone numbers for

someone to come round, and medal with your meter.

Take control of your Meath ers with these supermoney saving device.

Especially suitable for take away, restaurants and households. That

Chinese scam has spread across Britain. We are from British Gas,

come to inspect the meter. Piers and Malcolm think they have found nit

this shop. Put something on gas That is good, yes. Doesn't seem to

be moving. We will take that and leave you off supply, so cut off the

gas. Piers unravels the crude scam from

China, that is being uncovered in restaurants across Britain.

Rights. OK. Remove that. Now we are going to remove the index mechanism.

He exposes the cogs that drive the meter mechanism. It is the moment of

truth. I don't know if you can see that. It has teeth that have been

taken off. Cut off half the teeth and you halve the bill. This one has

just a single tooth left. So only a fraction of the gas is being

recorded on that. You still don t know anything about it. You don t

know anything about it? Or who could have done it? Malcolm produces an

estimated bill. It is ?1782. 10 for the past four months. Can you pay

that now? Otherwise I have to tell theening sneers to make sure that is

capped off. We will walk away with the meter. It sounds tough, but they

can only charge for the few months he has been with British Gas. This

former Merseyside detective warns that thieves keep changing supplier.

If you can change supplier easily, as it is now, if you get caught

abstracting electricity from one company, you can leave and go to

another one, this is a problem. If you say to them, right, there is a

?1 million of electricity been abstracted. Their profits will be

the same, because that ?1 million loss will be spread over all the

honest bill paying customers, so they have lost nothing. Back at the

chip shop the owner's credit card means this is one bill we won't be

picking up. Incommunity from prosecution not included.

`` immunity. There is one area of power theft

where police not power companies take the lead. Step away from the

door. Nationwide, police uncover over 20

cannabis farms a day. Most stealing their electricity It

is thought a third of the electricity stolen in Britain goes

on cannabis farms. So they followed the wires round the

house and they think this electricity is being stolen from the

neighbours. You can see there is a power cable, that is coming from

next door so they have spurred the power from next door.

Police are under orders to destroy everything that makes growing

cannabis possible. Power theft. Whether on cannabis farms or the

chip shop it is booming, and unless detected we get the bill. A total

invoice amount is ?700. Catching the thieves is costly. Few will ever see

prison, here cheeky enough to ask for a discount. We don't offer

discount. It is too much. Do you want to get

the electrician in? The lights go out but the bill is still on us Cut

the electricity off. OK? And finally, if you are counting the

pennies after Christmas, as the utility bills roll in, listen up. We

have got some tips on how you can save money, lighting and heating

your home legally. We sent Michelle out with their calculator for

advice. Billions of people facing higher

energy after one of the big firms puts up prices... It is the story

the moment. Frightening headlines about the spiralling cost of energy

bills, if like me you are worried about how to meet the price rises

don't panic. I am going to show you how to save hundreds on those bills.

So cuddle up, keep warm, sit tight, and take note.

I am going to set two families against each other. It is a North

East`north`west competition to see who can save the most from their

electricity bills. First up the Clodes from Cumbria.

Ruby the cocker spaniel. Mum and dad Debs and Andy, 11`year`old Ethan,

and Gracey who is nine. The recent headlines have forced Debs to have a

rethink. I have had my estimate in for my next year's bill on average,

and enough is enough, it is dead money to me. We are not seeing

anything for it. They live in a four bedroom house and spend round ? 25 a

month on gas and electricity. So what have we got in here? In here

we have got freezer. Washing machine. Tumble drier. Ice making

machine. An ice making machine? An ice making machine and another

fridge. A A lot of electricity going on, how often do you use the tumble

drier? Three times a day. We just walked into the room and the TV was

on but no`one is in the room: Children. They can leave the TV on

and walk out of the room. Yes. So that is something that needs to be

stamped out. Yes. How often do you have this on? All day. All day? Yes,

the only reason it is on is I don't know how to programme it so go off,

so there is another... This isn t good. It is not. This is an energy

hungry family. Even Ruby uses electricity. How is she going to be

involved. We leave the radio on for Ruby, so she has a bit of company.

She can have Jeremy Vine on. So how is the competition going to work? We

have got these gadgets to measure how much it is costing. It's a

competition between two family, the Cumbrians against the Geordie, do

you think you will win it? Yes, we will try our hardest. I will see you

in a week. Good luck with it. Next up the opponents the Geordie,

the Haley family. Dad David, mum Sam, and 17`year`old

Jake. This is another energy guzzling house. With bills of about

?250 a month. There is a lot of lights in the house. A lot of power

being used. A lot of wastage. You mention the gadget, take me through

the list. How many you got? IPads, iPods, laptops, Xbox. I have been

known to get to work and realise that I haven't switched them off and

had to ring somebody up to go and switch them off. Oh dear, how often

does that happen? Er... Regularly! Now this is a pretty big TV isn t

it. Yes, it is a decent size. Yes. And usings a lot of power, there is

so much going on I hadn't realise draws so much power. So it is eating

up energy. So what is the plan to do with this then? When we are out

this stuff is still working away but it is on stand by, and it is using

power, so we will be using a timer. So how often do you use this tumble

drier? We use in probably once a week, all day on a Sunday. All day?

Yes, it just goes from first thing in the morning right through the

rest of the day. Do you think you can win? Without a shadow of a

doubt. In fact switch that camera off! Yes, get the lights off now. So

the challenge has been set. Can you knock the lights off

upstairs sweetheart? It is judgment day for Ruby. I know you are asking

who is Ruby. Her dad is working out how much it costs to run the radio.

Well... The cloed family are keeping the radio on just for you. In

couple. It is telling me it costs 2.3 persons per day. On that basis

we can leave it on for her. It has been a week since I saw my two

families so I am back to see how much they have saved. I have brought

a friend alone. Catherine dug prn the Energy Saving Trust.

And it is just as well she has come. Her advice is badly needed. Your

electricity use has gone up and gone up by a considerable amount.

And this could be one of the main culprits. Lovely free Debs. How many

sets of lights have you gone on there. Four sets of one hundred So

four hundred lights on one tree What is better? This is congratulate

over your the fireplace you have some of the modern light, you can

say 85% by using them Debs hasn t worked out the time forethe

underfloor heating in the bathroom Great if you can get it down from

24/7, that is huge, that will be huge on the bill. What we can do is

maybe switch the one off downstairs. Definitely, I think that sounds

amazing, you will see a huge drop. She has a money saving plan for

washing. I have purchased a pully, an old maiden's pully, that will go

up in the ceiling, if we are the heating on it will generate enough

for them to be dry. If you can use that all the time, I know that might

not be President Obama I `` practical, if you use it half the

time you will see a massive saving when we come back. That is the my

biggest downfall. In the North East electricity consumption has been

going the wrong way. Plasma TVs on a much Scottish Football Associationer

sail would cost ?95 month to run. Switching to an LCD TV would knock

two thirds of the bill off. Bay individual has promised to fit a

timer to his telly. You might have considered washing the loads on 35

degrees. That can save you ?13 a year. Do you think that is something

you can consider and work in? Yes, we could try that. In the bathroom

there is a big saving to be made. My son likes to be in the shower longer

than I, but yes, so they are used twice a day. People don't realise

within one day if someone has shaved off one minute per shower a day that

is saving ?15 a year. You are looking at ?90 and ?120 a year. I am

back to see if they have listened. Do you think you have won the

challenge? I would like to think we have. Perhaps the drier has done it.

Tumble drier doesn't get used any more. I would love to think we have

beaten the other family. I am trying to read your face and I am not sure.

Unfortunately you have lost. Oh no! You haven't managed to save enough

energy. You guys won. Get in! Get in! How do you feel about that? That

is good Perhaps this year we will turn it off in the summer.

So you have saved ?7 a week which is nearly ?360 so that is impressive.

It is. When you say it in terms of ?7 a week it doesn't sound a lot but

you start to think about the annual amount it does mount up I makes a

difference. So congratulations to you and your family and keep it up.

Thank you and the Geordies have won. So without even changing your

supplier acting on the simple tips and being more thoughtful you too

could save yourself hundreds of pounds. Why not give it a go. I

think I will try some of those tips myself. Well, that is all from us

for this week but we are back next Monday at 7. 30. Until then,

goodbye. Next week, David Hockney's muse and

60s fashion I concealia birth well recalls growing up in Salford. Used

to see Lowry going up the step, the crescent reminds me of him.

Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your 90-second update.

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