40,640 KWH gas usage- help!!!!!!

jem16

Fire_Fox wrote: »

But it is highly unlikely to be anything like that temperature inside a modern apartment - certainly mine (north facing, Yorkshire) has never measured below 10C, even in the snow! I haven't measured the temperature lately, but it is comfortable in a t-shirt and fleece. :T

Neither has mine but I would not be happy to sit in temperatures like that!

A fleece for me is something I wear outside not inside sitting watching TV.

My main point about the heating was simply to make the OP think about her statement that she could not be using so much energy as she is out for nine hours a day. In fact it sounds like she is using far more heating than the average flat dweller - the two of them work shifts and she likes it warm for months on end.

The main point is that even with the heating on for 9 hours per day she is using far too much energy. Something is wrong and it's not how long she has heating on for!

I live in a 1938 3 bedroomed house with 2 public rooms with heating on for 9 hours a day during winter and still only used a lttle over a third of what the OP has used.

andyfuk

longhauladdict wrote: »

I have the heating on at 04.30 as my boyfriend starts work at 5am and I leave at 8- I really don't think its worth turning off for an hour???

Yes it is worth turning off. As someone said earlier, there is enough heat in the system to carry on heating the house for a while after it has been turned off. You leaving it on for another hour means your house is being heated without you in it.

Let's look at it another way: Lets assume you use 1m3 per hour. I imagine it's more, and you'll have to check, but anyway.... 1m3 costs me around £1. Your mileage may vary, so you'll have to check. So for say, 180 days, that's £180. If your boiler is on full wack, you'll use more than this, say 2m3 per hour, so that'll cost £360... see where this is going?! Costs soon add up, and being a little more frivelous here and there will save you money, whilst not making you uncomfortable.

Andy

RobertoMoir

I think all the energy saving tips are valuable but I still don't see how the OP has used that much energy. Or let me put it another way: Those energy saving tips will reduce the amount used by how much - they won't solve the problem will they? There's a bit more here than can be explained by running the heating a degree or two too high and for hours and hours more than needed.

There's something fundamentally right with the story here - I don't mean the OP is spinning us a yarn (though they may be mistaken about something, not so sure they are though) - because those energy bills seem excessive however you slice it.

andyfuk

RobertoMoir wrote: »

There's a bit more here than can be explained by running the heating a degree or two too high and for hours and hours more than needed.

Well you say that, but turning the temp down by one degree saves 10%, so that's 4000kwh (my annual gas usage BTW- and the house is warm). Who knows what the OP has it set to, so they could easily double or treble that saving.

Stopping the central heating from running by an hour could save around another 4000 kwh p.a. so that's 20% we've knocked off simply by being more sensible. (Or even 30-40% if the temperature is set far too high, as opposed to too high).

If the heating is on 9 hours a day, and the temperature is right up so it's around 25 degs C (that boiler is going to be running constantly), and that boiler is on full whack (say it's a 24 kW boiler) for 4.5 of those 9 hours, we get nearly 19,500 kWh:

Boiler Power [kWh] 24
Boiler on as % 50%
Hours per day 9
Days 180
Total power [kWh] 19440

(Multiply the top lot together to get the total figure).

That's 19,500kWh before we even look at the gas that could be used for cooking and hot water.... so it's feasible, but you'd have to be really careless.

It also depends what radiators they have too. I had panel radiators in my lounge, and they were literally that: flat panels, no corregation at the back. It took an age for the house to heat up- they were just so ineffiecient at distributing the heat from the radiator to the air. I swopped them out for more powerful panel rads with corregation. The house is warmer quicker, and because they are more efficient at distributing heat, the boiler is on a lot less. My gas bill actually dropped this year by £100- and this is with the colder winter we have had and me running the heating a lot longer, and gas prices being more expensive!

RobertoMoir

Fair points Andy. If their system is inefficient and they're running it a bit heavy-handed I suppose it could be that bad. I'm just going by the fact that I spent substantially less than that to run a 1970s build 3 bedroom house... I still think there's something odd here even if it turns out to be the heating being on exceptionally high.

day_trader_99

very interested to hear

fwiw i have a 2 bed apartment and have been quoted ~15,000 kwh for gas (hot water and hob) annual consumpion.

seems high as just me and i am out for most of the day...

macman

Welcome to the forum. But why are you digging up a thread that is 15 months old? Better to start your own thread.
But yes, 15,000kWh pa of gas just for hot water and cooking is insanely high-does that not include heating as well, in which case it's probably about right?

HappyMJ

day_trader_99 wrote: »

very interested to hear

fwiw i have a 2 bed apartment and have been quoted ~15,000 kwh for gas (hot water and hob) annual consumpion.

seems high as just me and i am out for most of the day...

A quote is an estimate and that's about right for a 2 bed apartment including heating. Of course you can get it lower than that by turning stuff down or off.

elektra

the second old post bumped today which has no update from OP.

How frustrating when many forum members put time into helping them.

For this post the OP last logged in 2 months ago.