The cost to run a 4 bed detached house!

Fire_Fox

kezibell wrote: »

However, if making a few changes like restricting computer use, not using a tumble dryer, turning off more radiators, etc, will drop my bill by at least £150 or more a quarter, then I would make them and enjoy spending the savings on something else, but if it will only effect my quarterly bill by no more than £50, then I would prefer to stay as I am, in my cosy home!!!

I have just compared my usage to my parents home (see other thread if you want further detail). They use 10x the amount of electricity we use on the night rate whilst the day rates are much the same. The difference is heating and the tumble dryer.

Don't turn the heating to 18C overnight and expect to feel comfortable. Turn it down 1 degree each week and make a concerted effort to dress more appropriately for the season. You may find, say, 19C is fine but 18C is a bridge too far.

jennifernil

You do need to remember that Oct/Nov/Dec and Jan/Feb/March will be your heaviest quarters. We pay a total of £120 per month by DD for both fuels at present, so almost £1450 per year, but our winter quarter gas bills can be £300 + (we have a Dec/Jan/Feb bill).
We are both retired and home all day now, so we do like to keep cosy. When it drops below zero outside we do tend to spend our winter fuel allowance and turn the heating back on! We are in central Scotland, so for us this has not been an exceptionally cold winter so far.
We have all the energy saving bulbs, switch off lights and computers not in use, but do use the tumble drier a lot. Not till stuff is bone dry, but enough that it can be hung in the spare bathroom to finish drying.
DD is away at Uni, so we are only 2 most of the time, but have decided not to downsize yet as we like living here. For us the killer is not the fuel, it's the council tax.

OP, we are with British Gas for electricity, fixed price till 2010, and Ebico for gas. They were cheapest for us, but recently put the price up 30%. Our DD has not yet changed so we will need to check our consumption to avoid a shortfall. Meantime I am looking to see who could be cheaper for us.

We are possibly not your average couple with average spending patterns. We save by not getting newspapers, rarely eating out, keeping PAYG mobiles for emergency use/others contacting us only, doing most of the repairs/improvements on the house ourselves, not taking expensive holidays, running only one car, always shopping around for the best prices on everything.

dwigg

I have a newish (so well insulated) 4 bed det house in the east midlands, and my bills are Elec £35pm, Gas £40pm. These therefore total £900 pa.

We have the heating on for 45 mins in morning, and 30 mins in evening.
I work from home so sometimes have it on for 1 hr midday too.
(When the sun's out I make sure the blinds are open, and this really warms the whole place up, even if it's in the minuses outside.)

The house used to need quite a bit more heat than this, but I recently balanced the radiators and now the whole place heats up much more quickly, and to a hotter temp than before.

To balance the system I shut the little rad valves (not the thermostatic ones, but the ones on the other end of the rad) so they are only open a small crack on the rads which get the heat from the boiler first.

What used to happen was all the heat from the boiler was going to the first rad and being dissipated into the kitchen, then all the water went from there into the dining room and ditto, and so on through 5 rads until it reached the living room (or through about 10 rads to the bedroom!) where the water was hardly hot at all by then, even with the thermo-valves turned to max.

Since turning these little valves right down on certain rads, all rads heat up at the same rate, and all reach a hot temp real quick. I made sure unused rooms do not heat up, so the volume of water circulating is less, thus heating up more quickly using less gas.

Also, I only need to heat the water for 15 mins in the morning and 5 mins in the afternoon to keep me and the missus in hot water all day, and my h/w tank is set to 50 degrees.

I also did some sums and found out it costs me 1p per minute to run my central heating, but 1p for 5 mins to run the gas fire in my living room. This means I can run the living room gas fire for 5 hours and use the same amount of gas as my central heating takes in 1 hour.

allan673

the electric bill seems sky high to me? £293 per quarter seems really expensive.
ours is a 3 bed detatched and electric bill weve just had is £80 with n powers standard tariff. our december gas bill was £245 with british gas standard tariff. heating on for 3 hrs in a morning and 5 hrs at night.

jennifernil

I would agree, £293 is a lot for electricity. We are paying £56 pm and are in credit on our electricity.

markharding557

kiezibel i noted in an earlier post you said your rads went cool when the thermostat was set at 18.c well this is exactly what should happen the thermostat cuts out when it detects the temp being at the set limit

richardc1983

My partner has just got his gas bill for the last 3 months ( he submitted a reading) it is £1200!!!! He is fuming, turns out he has programmed the boiler in an evening 6-11 and morning 6-8 with a flow temp of 65C and his housemates while hes not there have been turning it upto 80C and leaving it on constant most times, they are forever turning the radiators on in the bedrooms that are not used and drying washing on them!!!

He is not impressed to say the least!

BettySpaghetti_2

Have you checked that your immersion heater hasn't accidentally got switched on and left? It's often easy to switch it on by accident (our switch is on the floor of the airing cuboard) and not realise. Then your water is being heated by electricity rather than gas. That consumption does sound excessively high for a modern house, even with several people in it.

We have a 3 year old, 3 storey detached house, 4 beds plus upstairs study, with 2 people living there (hubby often works from home too) and our gas bill was £90 for Sept/Oct/Nov and electicity £100. We often have 2 PCs on (hubby often leaves his work one on), fax machine/printer, electric cordless phones, alarm, use the washing machine & tumble dryer 3-6 times per week, have lights on timers (with energy saving bulbs) and don't always switch off the video/satellite at night. We have a number of energy saving bulbs around the house, but not in all of the lights.

The heating is on 5:30-7am and 5:30-9:30pm in the week, 7:30-10am and 4-10pm at weekends. The thermostat in the hall is set at 20 deg, with the radiator thermostats set at about 3 (1 in the bedrooms). Our sitting room is on a separate heating timer/thermostat. That only comes on in the evenings (no point heating up a room not used in the morning) and the afternoon at weekends. That's set to about 22 deg, seeing as you're sitting in there and get chillier because you're not moving. The hot water is on 5:30-6:30am and 6:30-8pm weekdays, 8-9:30am and 6:30-8pm weekends. I think you can see that, while we're not excessive in the heating/hot water we don't really scrimp either - so your bills do sound big.

I hope you find out what's the cause of the huge bills!

Fire_Fox

richardc1983 wrote: »

My partner has just got his gas bill for the last 3 months ( he submitted a reading) it is £1200!!!! He is fuming, turns out he has programmed the boiler in an evening 6-11 and morning 6-8 with a flow temp of 65C and his housemates while hes not there have been turning it upto 80C and leaving it on constant most times, they are forever turning the radiators on in the bedrooms that are not used and drying washing on them!!!

He is not impressed to say the least!

:eek: :eek: :eek:

space_rider

I live in East Midlands in 3 bedroom 3 storey semi which is 3 years old. I use 11 gas meter units when its really cold and the heating is on 24/7. It goes down to 6 when the temperature is what it should be. Ie not freezing. I use imeasure and it tells me that my electric units which are about 6 in the summer and 9 in the winter per day, is below average but my gas is above average. I like to be warm so my thermostat is generally set at 23 when we are in the living room and 21 when I`m dashing around the house. I have the heating on 5-7.30am and 3-10pm weekdays. Weekends its on 7am-11pm. Last winter my electric bill wasn`t too bad but my gas was £299. I expect my gas bill to be around £400 for this quarter.

Regarding your electric. I have 2 teenage daughters with the usual hair things and gadgets. There is a television in every bedroom and my teenage daughters spend alot of time in their bedroom. All 4 of us have lap tops and we don`t leave anything on standby. I do have a tumble dryer which is in the garage and I only use it to dry bedding and towels for a couple of hours once a week. Whilst I don`t mind paying for the gas to keep warm I see a waste of electric as unnecessary expense. I have all energy saving light bulbs and even my 8 year old will turn lights off, even if I`m still in the room!