Switching gas heat on and off=higher gas bills?

Robert2009

If anyone is interested here is my experience of turning the heating off when not needed and leaving it on all the time and increasing the loft insulation

2 years ago my wife retired so was in the house all day. Before that the heating came on at 7 am for 2 hours and then again at 5 pm until 11 pm. we used approx 21,000 kWh of gas per year, I do not have separate figures for summer and winter.

So the heating then came on at 8 am until 11 pm and the gas usage then became 22,000 kWh per year. In other words it increased by 1000 kWh per year.

Then in July 2008 I more than doubled the loft insulation from 100 mm to 270 mm. B&Q had a deal with 170 mm loft insulation that year.

The gas usage for that year, July 2008 to July 2009 was 17,700 kWh whereas from July 2007 to July 2008 it was 19,000 kWh.

This winter because of the increased insulation the house is not cooling down so quickly so I decide to switch off the heating at 10 pm instead of 11 pm and also turn the thermostat down to about 15 o C when I go to my bed, usually after 12, so that in the morning when the heating comes on it only heats up to 15 o C and we turn it up again when we get up.

Also when we go out we turn the thermostat down, it is easier to do this than turn the actual heating off. Then when we come home it is turned up again.

So far doing this the average gas consumption per day based on weekly readings is 72 kWh of gas compared to last year 2008 which was 83 kWh and the previous year 2007 was 90 kWh.

So my findings are:

increase the insultation, which made the biggest difference

then turn it off when not needed and especially at night as I remember when my grandson was born 13 years ago in Feb and was staying with us from then until June that year we used 26,700 kWh because the heating was on 24 hours per day.

So for 4 months continuous heating we use 5,000 kWh extra gas over and above what we would have used as the heating was normally off during the night until then.

Rob

macman

There would be more of a case for leaving a hot water tank on longer to maintain the temp, because it's easier to prevent heat loss from a well insulated tank than from an entire house! But leaving the CH on when unoccupied is just wasteful. Use the timer to switch on at an appropriate period before you are due back if you don't want to come back to a completely cold house. I have an old house without cavity walls, and I generally find that within 20 mins of switching on the CH the temp is up to an acceptable level from cold.

espresso

Robert2009 wrote: »

If anyone is interested here is my experience of turning the heating off when not needed and leaving it on all the time and increasing the loft insulation..............


This winter because of the increased insulation the house is not cooling down so quickly so I decide to switch off the heating at 10 pm instead of 11 pm and also turn the thermostat down to about 15 o C when I go to my bed, usually after 12, so that in the morning when the heating comes on it only heats up to 15 o C and we turn it up again when we get up.

Thanks for posting your findings. You may want to consider fitting a programmable room stat for extra convenience. They are available for not much more than a standard room stat now e.g. this one here for less than £30, very easy to fit, only two wires to connect.



It's very easy to back off the temperature setting in half degree steps until you find the cheapest comfortable setting required for the time of day.

ixwood

My old wireless thermostat doesn't seem to want to connect to the boiler now. If I can't fix it, could I just replace it with a new programmable one? Do you get a new sender bit too with them?

espresso

ixwood wrote: »

My old wireless thermostat doesn't seem to want to connect to the boiler now. If I can't fix it, could I just replace it with a new programmable one? Do you get a new sender bit too with them?

Only wireless stats have a 'receiver bit' that is connected to the boiler. The example above is a replacement for a wired stat.

I assume that you have checked the batteries?