First-time house renovation

jimbugalee

Hi all,
A bit off topic but I've just read our gas and elec bill for the past month. Expected it to be really high with the cold weather and Xmas etc. Our boiler must be really efficient as it's only gone up about £20 this month and the heating has been on pretty constantly. However the electric has gone up about £40!!!! Reza thinks about £20 of that may be the underfloor heating. We have it on about 8 hours a day in the bathroom which I think now is too much so we'll change the timing tonight but wow! Anyone else seen rises in bills since installing UFH?

suisidevw

That's not a good thing to hear as ours is being fitted next week, only in a small bathroom mind, yours isn't too big is it Jim? Know what size matt/cabling you used?

I can only imagine ours being on for an hour or so in the morning and maybe a couple of hours pm?! Realistic with it not being a wetroom and also having a towel rail?!

jimbugalee

Our bathroom is about 2m squared. I can't remember the size of the kit - maybe 64m? hmmm not sure.

Yeh I think ours is on way too long - we need to change that. It heats up within about 20 mins and takes a while to cool down. We mainly use it to dry the floor in the wetroom area.

Also - our tiles have quite a lot of adhesive underneath them as the floor wasn't very level so maybe it takes longer to get up to temperature?

I wouldn't worry too much but yes maybe don't have it on very long to begin with and see how your costs go. Maybe it's just us!

TomsMom

jimbugalee wrote: »

Reza thinks about £20 of that may be the underfloor heating. We have it on about 8 hours a day in the bathroom which I think now is too much so we'll change the timing tonight but wow! Anyone else seen rises in bills since installing UFH?

This is one of the reasons we didn't consider UFH and a tiled floor. To me it didn't matter about having it on in the daytime other than first thing in the morning when the bathroom was in use. But I know that I would have wanted it on during the night for my regular noctural visits, and that would have been a waste. So we went for a radiator and vinyl sheet flooring which is suprisingly comfortable if you go bare foot, certainly not as cold as tiles would have been.

Good news about the gas bill.

jimbugalee

Another question for you all - has anyone bought a fixed peice of glass for their shower?

As you know we have the wetroom but we really need a glass screen along half of one side to stop the water going near the sink and more importantly the shaver socket (the council won't like that!).

I looked at this place:
http://www.spiralhardware.co.uk

Prices look quite reasonable

lisal0u

Hiya,

Jim - I hope my bills arent too expensive as weve got it all downstairs and in the bathroom eek!

Im going to give e-on a meter reading when I get in so ill let you know. Could do with one of those meters that tell you how much your electric use is costing!

Weve got ours set to come on at half 6 and go off at 10am then back on at half 4 and go off at half 10. The thermostst shows you how hard its having to work to maintain a temperature so the harder its having to work the more its costing. Does yours do this?

Got a really annoying problem with our oven and washing machine! Cant use either at the minute as they trip the RCD on the consumer unit :mad:

My Dad is an electrician and we took the oven out and connected each part of the oven element, one at a time to see which was causing the trip. Typically it didnt trip so we connected it all back together and it didnt trip. Cooked tea, didnt trip. Turned it on last night, tripped!!! It doesnt make sense!

Need to measure the earth leakage to check there isnt a problem with the RCD breaker.

Anyone else had a similar problem?

Lisa

jimbugalee

We have similar timing on our termostat Lisa. I think really we only need it 8pm - 10:30pm and then something like 6am - 7:30am. I'll see if it has a thing which shows you how hard it's working .... interesting

Sorry I can't help with the oven question ... my boyfriend would probably know exactly what you're talking about but I'm stuck on it. Hope it's fixed soon ... two of the major appliances!

lisal0u

Hmmm might have to alter mine too! Probably 7-9 would do in the morning.

Its quite tricky as if we let the thermostat drop too low then it has to work really hard to get back up to temperature which will cost more. Need to keep an eye on it when its only working at around 20% and keep it at that.

Having no oven or washing machine is a real pain. I can sort of wash as it trips out when the element starts to heat the water which is about 10 minutes into the cycle then once its tripped turn it to the rinse and spin cycle.

Luckily the oven has a five year guarentee but im not sure a faulty element would be covered! Weve had the oven over a year but only started using it at Christmas so probably 4 times. Im sure they will try and get out of the guarentee somehow!

The dishwasher and tumble dryer dont trip the RCD which makes me think the oven and washing machine have leaky elements!

stolt

worrying big styley now, we had underfloor heating installed in the extension ( havent put it on yet as the glass hasnt been sealed around the edges) but its 40m2 of underfloor heating!!!!! i might only be able to put on for 1hour a day.. (i'll have to buy slippers for the missus)

jamtart6

we thought about underfloor heating, then remembered we weren't millionares to actually put it on

SOOOOOOOOOOO excited, the father is "preparing the walls" tomorrow to start the tiling in the bathroom. I could skip! FINALLY we might get the bathroom in, a mere 13 months after we bought the damn thing (still love it though )

Last year, in prep for the bathroom, we bought a box of tiles to try, didn't like them. Forgot to take them back. We bought flooring which we thought we liked but then realised it would be a pest to fit with our bath. Too late to take it back. Bought a blind in the NEXT sale at Christmas, didnt measure the window (having had a total blonde moment and assumed they would all be the same size, yes I did in fact lose my mind temporarily), and decided not to take it back.

We now have matching floor, tiles and blind for the new downstairs loo c/o all the things that were bought in error! Waste not, want not!


Meant to ask: rough price for a roof? 25m2 in size. The roofer said he only fitted tiles not the rafters, we would need a joiner for that. Got £1500 for the roof, unsure on the rafters yet, anyone know a ball park figure?