Help! Huuuuge gas bill

Blusher81

Please help me, last year I lived in a one bed flat with my partner, my combined gas and electric was £25 - 30 per month. I moved in August to a 2 bed detached bungalow, which is very cold so I have the heating on approximately 10% more than I did in the flat. I have just had my bill through - based on an actual reading. For the duration of 6 months I have used 2612 kwh of electricity which seems a lot to me but I now work from home with comp on all day where I didnt used to in my flat. I do however switch everything off at the plug socket whenever anything is not in use - absolutely everything, I am very economic with the kettle etc only filling it enough for one of 2 cups etc all the money savings things, barely ever any light son etc etc. Anyway, I was coming round to the idea that I guess yes I must be using that amount, the comp must be taking more electricity that I thought, plus I now have a dishwasher.

Then.......I looked down at the gas part of the bill................OMG!!!!!!!!

It says that I have used 25000 kwh!!! I have checked the meter over and over again, I am aware that the meter is cubic metres and my bill illustrates the conversion of cubic metres into kwh, there is no confusion there, everything seems correct, but please tell me how 2 people that have heating on 5am - 8am, then 6pm - 9pm, have one short shower each per day and cook one meal on gas cooker per day can use 25000 kwh! arrghhhhhh. Can this seriously be true????!!! This makes my combined gas and electric £195 per month instead of the £25 -30 a month that it was in my flat! I understand there would be a difference between a detached house and a flat but I could never anticipate this!

I am testing today to see what causes such high gas usage. So far this morining I have put the heating on for 1 hour, this used just under 1 cubic metre of gas - is this normal?? there are 6 small radiators

Magentasue

Blusher81 wrote: »

I moved in August to a 2 bed detached bungalow, which is very cold so I have the heating on approximately 10% more than I did in the flat.

Then.......I looked down at the gas part of the bill................OMG!!!!!!!!

It says that I have used 25000 kwh!!! I have checked the meter over and over again, I am aware that the meter is cubic metres and my bill illustrates the conversion of cubic metres into kwh, there is no confusion there, everything seems correct, but please tell me how 2 people that have heating on 5am - 8am, then 6pm - 9pm, have one short shower each per day and cook one meal on gas cooker per day can use 25000 kwh! arrghhhhhh. Can this seriously be true????!!!

I am testing today to see what causes such high gas usage. So far this morining I have put the heating on for 1 hour, this used just under 1 cubic metre of gas - is this normal?? there are 6 small radiators

Several things here. 1) You say the house is very cold and you've only used the heating 10% more. Hmm. It's a bigger space so more gas needed to heat the space and it's colder so even more gas needed to achieve same temp. You may think you're only using a bit more, but in your old place your boiler might have been kicking in now and again to bring your flat up to temp, and now your boiler might be full on trying to maintain the same temp.

2) You use more electricity than us (and there are six of us!) - do some daily readings and see what you use per day.

3) 25000kwh of gas for a year in a cold house seems reasonable. For six winter months, seems high. Look at the number of metric units and the number of kwh. Is the number of kwh roughly 11 times the number of units?

4) The one hour unit of gas is a bit meaningless - you need daily readings for this because you'll always use more when the heating first comes on.

Back to the meter reading, I think.;)

KimYeovil

Having four walls radiating to the world is, unfortunately, more expensive than having party walls to share and save each others heat.

You are doing the right thing in the final paragraph - testing just how much your heating uses. Hopefully, once the house has warmed up subsequent hours should cost less. But 1 cubic metre = 11 kWh so 2 kWh radiator is not unreasonable. It depends on insulation and a dozen other factors how much it takes to maintain that.

Remember that if it is too enclosed and not aired then it will be damp and seem colder than it really is - the same walls that keep the heat in will also keep the warming out. As someone is at home during the day make sure you don't miss out on using the sun to warm (or at least dry) the house (even when it's freezing).