High gas useage

imported_jac

Hi

I live in a three bedroomed bungalow. There is usually only one person in the house, so only one bedroom is heated. The gas boiler is about 20 years old and heats the water as well as the heating. I have worked out how much gas we have used in the last year and it is just under 28,000 kwh. This seems very high and eon want to put the direct debit up to £225 per month. Could the problem be the old boiler. Would it be better to have a combi boiler and hopefully recoup the cost of the boiler by saving on gas consumption.

Thanks for any advice.
Jackie

Magentasue

When you say only one bedroom is heated, I assume you mean in addition to downstairs rooms? Old boilers are less efficient but it would probably take years to recoup the cost of a new boiler from the savings.

We have a three bedroomed house, poorly insulated and on three floors. We've averaged 31000kwh which most people would consider high. That costs us about £75 a month.

Cardew

The average UK consumption is 20,500kWh pa.

Bungalows will use more gas than 2 storey house.

Type of insulation has a huge effect of consumption.

Generally it is not cost effective to replace a working boiler as you will not recoup the costs.

Also that there is very little to go wrong with the old type boiler, but plenty to go wrong with the modern condensing boilers that are stuffed full of electronics and it seems that 10 years is a reasonable life expectancy.

The RoyalInstitution of Chartered Surveyors stated recently :

The average cost of installing one of these modern boilers is £1,720, but saves on average just £95 off people's gas bills." See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...erts-warn.html

Couple of threads here.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1376409&highlight=royal+institut ion+chartered

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1423841&highlight=royal+institut ion+chartered

imported_jac

Thanks Cardew. We have just had the loft re-lagged because it was too thin. The bungalow is double glazed and has got cavity wall insulation. I could understand it if a family of four lived here but only three rooms are heated. I think I'll stick with the old boiler after reading your advice and see if I can go onto Staywarm with Eon.

Thanks
Jackie

Magentasue

But how can 28,000kwh a year be costing you £225 a month?

imported_jac

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. That includes paying back the shortfall. We have been paying £82 per month for gas and electric, which seems to have been too low. The electric consumption doesn't seem excessive but 28,000 for gas did seem to be.

Jackie

Barneysmom

Hi, just wondering do you have a large area with tiled flooring, if you do, gets some mats put down?

I think you (and me) need to start planning how we'll cope next winter?

Magentasue

Like I said, our house is poorly insulated with a cold downstairs extension and with six people, so using rooms on all three floors. There's a lot to do to the house so we're limited on what we can do, but these are some of the things that have helped us:

- when we decorated the bedrooms, we put down wool carpet with mega-thick underlay
- heavy lined curtains closed early
- bubble wrap on the windows of the downstairs bathroom
- extra insulation in the loft before boarding
Our gas use dropped noticeably when the carpets were laid. We still use more than most but I'm on a mission to reduce even more next winter.

imported_jac

Thanks Barneysmom and Magentasue. We have got carpets already but we have only just had the loft insulation upgraded, so I'm hoping that will help in the winter. We started drawing all the curtain early last winter, and it does seem to help. We've also had the radiators flushed out.

Jackie

E.ON_Company_Representative

Hi Jackie,

Just a thought in regards to the amount your Direct Debit is set at, E.ON will probably have calculated the Direct Debit with a monthly amount for usage and then another amount for the repayment of the earlier underpayment you mention.

The period your repayments are spread may be able to be extended if you find £225 a month to high, it may be beneficial for you to talk to E.ON about this and ask if the amount could be spread over a longer time frame thus reducing the monthly amount.

If the £225 is manageable, it would be better to leave it at this amount to ensure the underpayments are cleared sooner, as the Direct Debit will then be reduced for just the consumption.

Brian

imported_jac

Thanks Brian. They did offer to extend the period to 24 months but it didn't alter the monthly payment by much so I am going to try to pay the £225 per month. I have changed the tariff to v14 which should save me about £165 per year according to the comparison site I used.

Thanks again
Jackie