Living gas fires - are these expensive to run?

aarjay777

Hi there,

I've just moved house and have received my first bill. Upon querying the amount I have received more bad news that I am using around £50 a week in gas. You can imagine the horror.

We have a gas central heating system as well as 2 living flame fires. The room i use for working in doesnt have a radiator so I had the living flame fire on a lot of the day. Only cause this is the coldest room in the house.

I got the usual response from the call centre that it's because it's winter you are using more. It's not even that cold yet!!!

The house is a similiar size to our last house which was costing us £75 a month to run both gas and electricity.

We have moved to an old house so the system is older compared to that in a new house which we had previously.

In the last 14 days we have used 118 units of gas.

We have only been in a short time so we havent even had time to think about switching suppliers.

We expect to pay more to heat an older house but no where near this amount of money.

We have been told before that Living Flame fires are expensive but even at this we didnt expect such a dramatic increase.

Can someone please empower is with information on this so that we can determine if this is the root cause and if so they wont be getting used again.

Thanks in advance.

cattie

I worked out last year that my inset living flame gas fire worked out roughly at around 5p hour on low setting & 10p hour on high setting.

I worked mine out from the documents supplied when I bought my fire, so maybe you can do the same with yours. It gives you the relevant info on what the output is on the various settings & you can get an idea of how many kw of gas you are using each hour for the fire that way.

aarjay777

Thanks for the response Cattie. Only problem is that the previous owner didn't leave us that documentation.

I think I'm going to have to resort to some old fashioned techniques like standing outside and watching the meter spin for an hour whilst we burn the fires.

I'll ask one of our guests to do it on Sunday before they sit down for their turkey.

espresso

I don't think that you can generalise with these living flame gas fires. Some are more for the flame effect, than for actual heat output and with this type most of the heat goes straight up the chimney! The ones that are more efficient at putting heat into the room tend to be the ones that look less realistic or may have a glass front and a convector system above to extract more heat into the room.

aarjay777

Hi espresso,

These fires are the flame effect which look impressive but as you state a lot of the heat is lost via the chimneys.

As we have emptied our piggy banks doing the house up we will need to look at a cheaper alternative in the short term.

f107btx

aarjay777 wrote:

Hi there,

I've just moved house and have received my first bill. Upon querying the amount I have received more bad news that I am using around £50 a week in gas. You can imagine the horror.

We have a gas central heating system as well as 2 living flame fires. The room i use for working in doesnt have a radiator so I had the living flame fire on a lot of the day. Only cause this is the coldest room in the house.

I got the usual response from the call centre that it's because it's winter you are using more. It's not even that cold yet!!!

The house is a similiar size to our last house which was costing us £75 a month to run both gas and electricity.

We have moved to an old house so the system is older compared to that in a new house which we had previously.

In the last 14 days we have used 118 units of gas.

We have only been in a short time so we havent even had time to think about switching suppliers.

We expect to pay more to heat an older house but no where near this amount of money.

We have been told before that Living Flame fires are expensive but even at this we didnt expect such a dramatic increase.

Can someone please empower is with information on this so that we can determine if this is the root cause and if so they wont be getting used again.

Thanks in advance.

Is 118 units of gas imperial or metric.Seems ok if metric.

aarjay777

Not sure, the bill states it converts units used x imperial to metric. If this calculation was designed to confuse then it works.

Cardew

aarjay777 wrote:

Hi there,

I've just moved house and have received my first bill. Upon querying the amount I have received more bad news that I am using around £50 a week in gas. You can imagine the horror.

In the last 14 days we have used 118 units of gas.

Are you sure your new house has not got a metric meter?(Cubic Meters instead of Cubic Feet)

118 units(assuming metric) of gas is only £25-£30 or so. If it is Imperial it is 2.83 times more.

aarjay777

Cardew wrote:

Are you sure your new house has not got a metric meter?(Cubic Meters instead of Cubic Feet)

118 units(assuming metric) of gas is only £25-£30 or so. If it is Imperial it is 2.83 times more.

I have just phoned Scottish Gas and they have confirmed that it is a Gas Imperial Meter that I have.

Taking this on board am I right to be concerned?

f107btx

Try this site http://www.ukpower.co.uk/staywarm.asp

for how to work out your gas bill looks like you are going to be multiplying by 2.83. Not good news.

aarjay777

I havent used the living flame over the last 24 hours and already noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of units burnt. I have set up an excel spreadsheet and will monitor my usage over the next couple of weeks to try and determine a pattern.

As I have only been in a short period of time it will be difficult to do an accurate comparison at this moment.

Many thanks for your input in the meantime.