How many units of Gas are you using daily?

Magentasue

RHYSDAD wrote: »

Our meter is in cubic feet and since the 3rd of October we've used 25 cubic feet. can anyone explain how i convert that to kw/h for me please? Roughly speaking we're paying 8.5p for the first 670kwh per quarter.

Approx 25 x 33.1 = 827.5kwh

Theo_Cupier

Eek, another one of these threads that panics me.

Our consumption is between 3-5 cubic feet per day over the last fortnight. That's 95 - 150KWh a day, by my calculations.

Our supplier said that our annual consumption last year (May07 - May08) was 290001KWh (my estimate was 29K exactly, so not far out), but that included needing to reheat and dry out the house after we had some extension work done - no roof during that cold, very wet May/June.

We're gas for central heating and hob. We are double glazed throughout and have very good loft insulation. About 70% of our external walls are cavity insulated. The original external walls are single skin since the house was built in the 1930s. It's a big 4-bed semi with 14 radiators in total.

There is someone here most of the day, every day since my wife and I work at home, so we usually have the heating on constantly from early morning until about 10pm, but regulated by a room thermostat, set at 20C (but with TRVs in every room). I thought this might make for high consumption, but we did an experiment and it suggested this was not the case:

Yesterday we went out for the day and so we set the heating to go off at about 9am and come back on at about 5pm to heat the house for our return. Our consumption for the day was actually slightly HIGHER than it is when we have it ticking over all day. I figure this is because it was cold yesterday and so the heating was still pumping away at 9pm when we got home. In other words, the heating was going solid for 5 hours in the afternoon to get the house warmed up again, (after having lost all the heat from the morning session) rather than warming it up once and then keeping the heat topped up.

Not sure that this makes scientific sense, but it's the evidence our meter reading suggests.

Mazio_2

Theo_Cupier wrote: »

Yesterday we went out for the day and so we set the heating to go off at about 9am and come back on at about 5pm to heat the house for our return. Our consumption for the day was actually slightly HIGHER than it is when we have it ticking over all day. I figure this is because it was cold yesterday and so the heating was still pumping away at 9pm when we got home. In other words, the heating was going solid for 5 hours in the afternoon to get the house warmed up again, (after having lost all the heat from the morning session) rather than warming it up once and then keeping the heat topped up.

Not sure that this makes scientific sense, but it's the evidence our meter reading suggests.

The other thing as you stated is the differential in temp outside to inside which has a significant bearing on usage even if you had kept it on it may well have cost even more because of how cold it was outside ,

You would in my opinion need to try this out over a longer period of time before you can compare.

Theo_Cupier

Mazio wrote: »

The other thing as you stated is the differential in temp outside to inside which has a significant bearing on usage even if you had kept it on it may well have cost even more because of how cold it was outside ,

You would in my opinion need to try this out over a longer period of time before you can compare.

Mazio. True, but I'm making a direct comparison with the previous 3 days, which includes 2 days noticeably colder - when we had 2 inches of snow - and when the heating was on all day (and when we had kids running around the house leaving doors open).

Our consumption over those days varied between 3-5 cubic feet, with the higher consumption day being when we did a lot of cooking with the gas hob.

At worst, our consumption yesterday was no less than a typical day, despite no cooking being done and the heating being off for 7-8 hours in the day when it would usually be "ticking over".

dweeby

stamford wrote: »

Hi - mines a 3 year old J50 Modairflow (Johnson & Starley). House similar 4 bed detached (1979 vintage) also has economy 7 heaters so they are also on low.

Our boiler is a 36 year old (yes, 36!) Modairflow JWD 38/50, house is the same age.

stamford wrote: »

I'd be interested what you do about the water heater bit of the unit - I used to have it timed to come on for half hour or so 4 times a day but my gas bloke who serviced it last week said we were better off having it switched to constant and it just kicks in now and then to keep the water up to temp (in a 3 year old factory insulated tank).

Our hot water is on 24/7 also, but this is because there is no timer at all. The hot water on ours is "gravity fed", which means there are no electrical parts, no pump, nothing - so I don't really know how a timer could be fitted.

Our gas usage is 85 kwh per day at the mo', partly due to half term holiday. How much of this is due to the 36 year old boiler I wonder... That's heating on for ~15 hours, hot water 24/7 and the gas hob.

Stamford, I'm just about to message you.

espresso

You have not used 25 cubic feet since 3rd October, you have actually used 2500 cubic feet, because imperial gas meters register 100's of cubic feet. To convert to kWh, an imperial unit (100 cu FT) is in the region of 32kWh and a metric unit (1 cu M) or approx 11kWh. If you want a more accurate conversion see here.

greenbee

bockster wrote: »

yeah, just registered on here, we should form an mse carbon club:beer:

There is already a MoneySaving Carbon Club on imeasure being used by over 80 people on two other threads, one in OldStyle http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=247646

and one in Green & Ethical
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=980757

Type in MoneySaving and you should be able to find and join it.

tightperson

Magentasue wrote: »

Ah, do you mean you've used 3.5 meter units a day?

Hi there, today the penny dropped while I was out, so I've come on here to correct myself and see you have realised what I have done, doh. The 77 Kwh for the summer was cubic meters.

So if I'm right this time from the 29th May 2008 to 30th Aug 2008 we used 77 cu m which is 859.6 Kwh of Gas which sounds more like it.

Then to correct what I said earlier;
I took our meter readings today and I've worked out our usage from 30/08/08 to 31/10/08, 2 months.

Gas was 221 cu m which is 2467 Kwh about 41 Kwh average per day
Electric was 978 Kwh about 15.7 Kwh average per day

What doesn't help our gas usage is thank our boiler and hot water tank are both in the garage so both CH and HW have a long way to travel.

I have just measured one days usage 12pm to 12pm and we used Electric 15 Kwh and Gas 82.6 Kwh.

tightperson

shammyjack wrote: »

Please be aware that a modern freezer needs a minimum surrounding air temperature to work properly and is unlikely to work properly in your garage as your old one did. You could find that it actually defrosts as the garage temperature falls !


shammy

Hi there, I am very glad you posted this. I was wondering about this as I seem to remember being told this a while ago in a shop and was worried I have done the wrong thing. I have paid for it but may be able to get out of it. I have now found out that the Indesit freezer in question states a room temp of 10 to 38 deg c. You clearly know more than me about this, should I try and get out of it or the what about this option. I was going to put it next to the boiler which is in the garage and then put a piece of kitchen worktop stood on it's end behind the freezer to insulate against the brick wall, then place thick cardboard down both sides and on the top to trap the warm air behind the freezer to keep it all warm. I assume the issue is that the new enviromentally friendly gas , I forget the name, freezes at temps below 10 deg c. then doesn't circulate properly reducing the efficiency of the freezer. What do you recon??? Thanks very much.

tightperson

Theo_Cupier wrote: »

Yesterday we went out for the day and so we set the heating to go off at about 9am and come back on at about 5pm to heat the house for our return. Our consumption for the day was actually slightly HIGHER than it is when we have it ticking over all day. I figure this is because it was cold yesterday and so the heating was still pumping away at 9pm when we got home. In other words, the heating was going solid for 5 hours in the afternoon to get the house warmed up again, (after having lost all the heat from the morning session) rather than warming it up once and then keeping the heat topped up.

Not sure that this makes scientific sense, but it's the evidence our meter reading suggests.

We went out today from 1pm to 7pm and I turned the thermostat down to 16 deg then back up to 20 deg on our return. I agree with you that once the house is warmed up in the morning it is cheaper to keep it ticking over if you go out rather than turn it off & start all over again. This is what my tests have shown last year, our chief engineer at work has always said it is cheaper to keep our factory boilers running at night and the whole plant ticking over at night when not in use than starting from cold each morning. Our MD disagrees with this and 12 months ago got the chief engineer to shut the boilers down in the evening and restart in the morning. On the coldest days of the year I leave the boiler on overnight with the stat at 14 deg or so.