How much is my gas central heating costing me?

sturgeon

Slightly ridiculous question I know.

I've moved into a new build appartment earlier this year and my gas bills were next to nothing, about £15 tops per month which consisted of quite a bit of oven/gas hob use as well as quite a bit for the gas fired boiler for hot water. It's apparently some super-duper efficient new boiler according to the many contractors I asked.

As it's cold now I'm using the central heating, albeit on a working day I have it on for literally 30 or 40 minutes in the morning and maybe the same in the evening, maybe an hour then tops. I can't easily access my meter at the moment as my buildings still half a building site so it's a bit of a faff-even though if I had it I could enter readings online and know how much I've used instantly.

I'm just concerned I'm going to get some massive gas bill as I haven't updated readings since I've used the central heating. Is there any kind of vague finger in the air cost around for using it for literally an hour or so a day as I do? On Scottish Power's cheapest online dual fuel tariff? I mean are we talking pennies a day, or pounds?

The boiler's 23.4 KW.

Going into my online account history, it shows my average until I started using the heating was about 6 units a day, so based on the price which seems more like £0.04 p/KWh tops according to their prices I checked that's about 24p a day. Including a fair bit of cooking and 2 showers a day as well as other hot water usage. As far as I've been told you work it out (may well be wrong) is to multiply the boiler KW (23.4) times hours used (2 max) times cost per kWh (about £0.04 max) and that gets the spend per day (in this case £1.87....which seems very expensive as thats £56 a month just on 2 hours per day heating at the very very most).

Can anyone shed any light?

Cardew

You cannot work out consumption without getting meter readings.

The boiler rating of 23.4kW is meaningless in this respect.

Firstly the high output(23.4kW) is for heating hot water for taps.

Modern condensing boilers, as you have, modulate their output according to the demand.

Rather like your 100bhp car might use all that power when accelerating flat out, but might only be using 50bhp when cruising at 70mph. So the boiler output will drop when the water in the central heating system reaches a certain temperature.

neil9313

Are you with Scottish Power?

Find your meters and read them ASAP they cant be far away also make sure they are your meters as its a new build. Much better to get this right from the start.

notbritishgas

sturgeon wrote: »

Slightly ridiculous question I know.

I've moved into a new build appartment earlier this year and my gas bills were next to nothing, about £15 tops per month which consisted of quite a bit of oven/gas hob use as well as quite a bit for the gas fired boiler for hot water. It's apparently some super-duper efficient new boiler according to the many contractors I asked.

As it's cold now I'm using the central heating, albeit on a working day I have it on for literally 30 or 40 minutes in the morning and maybe the same in the evening, maybe an hour then tops. I can't easily access my meter at the moment as my buildings still half a building site so it's a bit of a faff-even though if I had it I could enter readings online and know how much I've used instantly.

I'm just concerned I'm going to get some massive gas bill as I haven't updated readings since I've used the central heating. Is there any kind of vague finger in the air cost around for using it for literally an hour or so a day as I do? On Scottish Power's cheapest online dual fuel tariff? I mean are we talking pennies a day, or pounds?

The boiler's 23.4 KW.

Going into my online account history, it shows my average until I started using the heating was about 6 units a day, so based on the price which seems more like £0.04 p/KWh tops according to their prices I checked that's about 24p a day. Including a fair bit of cooking and 2 showers a day as well as other hot water usage. As far as I've been told you work it out (may well be wrong) is to multiply the boiler KW (23.4) times hours used (2 max) times cost per kWh (about £0.04 max) and that gets the spend per day (in this case £1.87....which seems very expensive as thats £56 a month just on 2 hours per day heating at the very very most).

Can anyone shed any light?

Do you mean 6 units as read by your meter or 6 kwh which is a different thing.
6 units will be about 66kwh (I presume its a metric meter as it is a new build)
As for your working out of boiler use, it will not be burning all the time so will not be using 23kw all the time. Once the water returning to the boiler reaches the set temperature the boiler switches off until the water cools again.

sturgeon

Sorry I checked online and the consumption does say it is 6kWh per day on average, not 6 units...