Am I using too much gas?

properbodan

Please help !!

My gas supplier is British Gas, and I have just received my quarterly bill for 28/02/09 to 09/06/09.
I am a single bloke in a 2 bed semi, and I am hardly ever in the house so I don't have the heating on that much, especially now the weather is getting warmer. I don't use gas for cooking so I know the bill is solely for heating.
I have worked out that I put the heating on for an average of 10 hours a week (max), if its a bit nippy in the morning or last thing at night.

My latest bill was for £178, for a consumption of 6276 kWh units.
My tariff is the Essentials Tariff which guaruntees the lowest standard rates.

This seems a bit too much to me, knowing I have hardly used any gas as I am never in the house !!
What do you guys think? Its the first time living on my own so I don't really know what I should be using.
Also, if the consumption sounds a bit overboard, I do have a very old basic combi boiler which I am guessing isn't the best energy saver, and I noticed my meter was spinning round like no tomorrow when I went to get a reading, so maybe the problem could lie there.


Thanks in advance for any input.

Magentasue

Two things to check. One, did you actually use 6276kwh, or was one or both of the readings estimated?
Two, is you meter imperial (cubic feet) or metric (cubic metres) and how many meter units were converted to 6276kwh?

properbodan

one) I actually used 6276 kWh, I gave the last two readings.
two) Its metric and I used 561 units, converted into 6276 kWh.

Thanks

Moglex

Well, that usage is roughly equivelant to having a 3KW heater on 23 hours a day. At this time of year that would make any normal room unbearably hot. (What do you have your thermostat set to?)

Combi boilers do use a lot of gas whilst they are operating because they are very powerful but they (should) only operate for short periods at a time.

I would say there is definitely something amiss here.

Try these things:

1) Note the meter readings over a 24hr period when you do not have the heating on. Does it change?

2) Note the meter reading and then keep an exact log of how long you have the heating turned on over a few days, check the reading again and see how many KWh you are using per hour the heating is on.

properbodan

Thanks for the advice, keeping a log is a good idea.

Magentasue

To compare, we have a combi boiler that heats water for six and we also cook by gas. We use 20-30kwh a day for this in the summer. In the winter, with heating it averages 80kwh a day although cold days it's much higher.

Living on your own and not using the heating, you shouldn't be using much gas at all this time of year. I'd have thought less than a metric unit a day.

properbodan

Thanks Magentasue.