£727 For 69 Days Gas And Electricity!

formidablelady

I wish I knew if this was right . The Gas was £551 and electricity £136. We hava a new build 4 bed detached which is small as new builds are. The gas is on a timer and comes on 4hrs morning and 6hrs night. We rang Scottish Power and I was told we are using a lot of gas. Most people only use it 2hrs per day. The figures are as follows in KWh2

Bill Period No. of Days Total3(cubed?) Daily Average

08/01/09 - 17/03/09 69 12895 187

22/09/08 - 07/01/09 108 12104 112

17/09/08 - 21/09/08 5 223 45

02/09/08 - 16/09/08 15 1047 70

12/07/08 - 01/09/08 52 1326 26

02/04/08 - 11/07/08 101 5171 51

21/12/07 - 01/04/08 103 13945 135

04/10/07 - 20/12/07 78 8796 113

25/06/07 - 03/10/07 101 3599 36

20/03/07 - 24/06/07 97 6176 64

30/12/06 - 19/03/07 80 8006 100

30/09/06 - 29/12/06 91 10423 115

If anyone understands this and can advise me if it sounds right I would be most grateful.

Cardew

Put simply you are using a lot of gas, an average of 33,500kWh pa over the last 2.5 years.

The UK average is 20,500 pa. That said it is only 50% more than average

Your summer usage(presumably for Hot water only? no cooking?) is not too bad, so everything is down to heating.

A new build must have good insulation, and a modern boiler should be pretty efficient.

As your house is not large, even though a 4 bed detached, it seems that you must have very warm rooms and/or you don't switch off/ switch down radiators in unused rooms.

Fire_Fox

Heating for ten hours a day is an awful lot!! :eek: It may not be a large house, but you don't have the benefit of immediate neighbours to insulate the property. Are you readings all actual or are some estimated? Are you playing catch-up with this bill?

Magentasue

We have a three bed, poorly insulated, Victorian mid-terrace on three floors and use about 31,000kwh a year. The house is always warm, hot water for six and cook by gas. I consider us to be high users but am looking to cut down by 10% over the next year without making sacrifices, just by turning the heating down/off a bit more often.

formidablelady

Thank you for your replies I had no idea I was a heavy user. I thought because it wasn't on all day we were light users. Sorry if this sounds blonde but will switching radiators off in some rooms make a big difference. I have changed my timer so the heating is only on for 4 hours a day now. Do you think I may have a bolier problem as my daily average has shot up to 187 last period and I can honestly say we haven't had it on more or turned it up. I wonder if we should abandon the gas and get an electric heater.

Magentasue

Electric heater = bad idea. Electricity is about four times the price of gas.

Turning some radiators off or down will save some money but you'll save more by reducing the amount of time the boiler is on. Two ways to do that - turn heating off or turn thermostat down so boiler doesn't come on so often/so long.

You could leave your CH on same settings every day for a month and you would use different amounts of gas every day. You'll have used more in last quarter because it was so cold.

Read your meter every day so you know what you're using. We're using between one and two imperial units (30-65kwh a day), but were using 150kwh some days this winter (5 imperial units).

I'm aiming to be using less than a unit a day once the evenings aren't so cold.

Cardew

formidablelady wrote: »

Sorry if this sounds blonde but will switching radiators off in some rooms make a big difference.

I wonder if we should abandon the gas and get an electric heater.

Firstly if you abandon gas and get an electrical heater, your heating bills will triple!!!

Secondly, switching off radiators in some rooms will make a huge difference.

formidablelady

I begining to think the only way is lots of jumpers and more housework. Probably do me good lol. Thanks for enlightening me and for your tips.I will try all of them. I certainly can't keep paying bills that high. It works out at nearly £3000 a year!!!!!!!!!! No wonder I can't afford a holiday.

Mike_by_the_Sea

Do you have thermostats on your radiators, if not, that might help to keep different rooms at different temperatures (closing doors as well ).

Cardew

Mike_by_the_Sea wrote: »

Do you have thermostats on your radiators, if not, that might help to keep different rooms at different temperatures (closing doors as well ).

All new builds must have TRVs(Thermostatic Radiator Valves) fitted I believe.

The problem is many people(presumably the OP as well) think that central heating costs the same to run regardless of the number of radiators in use.