Central Heating is Costing me £2.48 an hour!! HELP!!

h4zel

Is this right?? I have just had my first gas bill and have avidly started monitoring our gas usage. I have produced a spreadsheet based on the calculations that npower provide on their bill and it all works out nicely. However....

We have a 2 bed terraced house with single glazed sash windows (rented). The water and heating is through the combi boiler and the oven/hob is gas.

We don't appear to have a thermostat in the house or on the rads but on the front of the boiler is a knob to increase or decrease the heat??! ...it's currently set 1/4 of the way in. (no numbers unfortunately!)

Currently we have the heating on 2hrs in the morning and 2hrs at night. 2 adults shower and eat in the house on a daily basis. The gas meter shows us that during a 24hr period this uses 5 units of gas and this is going to cost us £12.40 A DAY!!!! ..that's a monthly bill of £376... surely there is something wrong???

GetRealBabe

Hi

Take a meter reading and put the figures here :http://smartmeter.ukpower.co.uk/

philbostavros

Hi

Check whether your gas meter is a newer metric one or older imperial type.

If it's the old type then check that your supplier is billing you for the correct unit type (they should indicate the correct type of conversion calculation method).

Phil

FrugalTopCat

h4zel wrote: »

Is this right?? I have just had my first gas bill and have avidly started monitoring our gas usage. I have produced a spreadsheet based on the calculations that npower provide on their bill and it all works out nicely. However....

We have a 2 bed terraced house with single glazed sash windows (rented). The water and heating is through the combi boiler and the oven/hob is gas.

We don't appear to have a thermostat in the house or on the rads but on the front of the boiler is a knob to increase or decrease the heat??! ...it's currently set 1/4 of the way in. (no numbers unfortunately!)

Currently we have the heating on 2hrs in the morning and 2hrs at night. 2 adults shower and eat in the house on a daily basis. The gas meter shows us that during a 24hr period this uses 5 units of gas and this is going to cost us £12.40 A DAY!!!! ..that's a monthly bill of £376... surely there is something wrong???

Hi there,

I think your decimal point is out and you're looking at more like £1.24 a day...I've done a quick calculation based on the assumption that 5 units of gas means 5 traditional gas units as read off the meter.

Got my workings out wrong here - sorry. See corrected post below.
IGNORE figs in this post!!

Converting this to kWh based on my own billing info from BG turns the 5 gas units into approx 20 kilowatt hours.
On my tariff that varies from 6.222p for the most expensive usage down to 2.866p on the cheaper rate that kicks in after a certain amount.

This equates to between £1.24 and 57p a day depending on how it averages out over the year. Obviously, your figures will vary depending on your provider and the equivalent charges per kWh, but I can't believe it can be THAT wildly different.

EDIT - b*gger, not sure how on earth I cocked this up but checking this again vs NBG's post it looks like I have - so sorry (I'd best leave my original post here as it's been quoted from now). Please see corrected reply below!!

victor2

As already mentioned, check if your meter is metric (cubic meters) or imperial (hundreds of cubic feet). It might be as simple as getting them mixed up. 5 units on a metric meter is about 1.8 on an imperial one, so it does make a difference.
Have you checked your spreadsheet against an actual bill. That's the proof to get a pretty accurate idea on what you will be billed.
If it is imperial, the consumption sounds high for the usage you describe. However, not having a thermostat will mean the boiler is running pretty much flat out whenever it is on. Could a central thermostat be fitted to the boiler? You can get wireless ones now, so there shouldn't be too much involved in fitting one. Individual thermostatic valves on the radiators could get a little expensive and I don't suppose the landlord will oblige as he's not paying the gas bill!
Can you temporarily put some sort of secondary glazing over the windows as well? That could make a difference.

notbritishgas

Here is another calculation that will put your mind at rest, but not as much as Frugaltopcat.
5 gas units on an imperial meter will be approximately 5x31.5=157.5kwh.
On a metric meter it will be approx 5x11.2=56kwh.
I would guess that you have a metric meter (m3 on the meter) and if we take a typical tariff of 3p per kwh then your daily cost is £1.68.
If you have an imperial meter (cu ft on meter) then the cost will be 2.83 times more expensive.

notbritishgas

FrugalTopCat wrote: »

Hi there,

I think your decimal point is out and you're looking at more like £1.24 a day...I've done a quick calculation based on the assumption that 5 units of gas means 5 traditional gas units as read off the meter.

Converting this to kWh based on my own billing info from BG turns the 5 gas units into approx 20 kilowatt hours. On my tariff that varies from 6.222p for the most expensive usage down to 2.866p on the cheaper rate that kicks in after a certain amount.

This equates to between £1.24 and 57p a day depending on how it averages out over the year. Obviously, your figures will vary depending on your provider and the equivalent charges per kWh, but I can't believe it can be THAT wildly different.

Hope this helps. Go back and go through your figures again!

The conversion for a metric meter is;
1 unit x calorific value x correction factor divided by 3.6 works out at

1 x 39.4 x 1.022640 / 3.6 = 11.1922kwh

An imperial meter would be 2.83 times greater.

The figures can vary ever so slightly because the calorific value does vary slightly from day to day.

h4zel

Thank you all very much.. .I see what is happening now! All my calculations were correct BUT npower have been billing on the wrong meter (was imperial) and 'forgot' they put a metric one in so I am talking about metric units and they are talking about imperial units.. hence the price difference. :j ...should be a lot cheap now!!

FrugalTopCat

Starting again - 5 units of gas (if IMPERIAL meter) converted to kWh
5 units x 2.83 x 40 (approx) x 1.02264, then divide by 3.6
= 160 kWh. Based on my tariff that would vary from 6.222p for the most expensive usage down to 2.866p = between £9.95 and £4.58 a day.....yikes

Hopefully it's a metric meter as highlighted by NBG above - then you're down to about 58 kWh for your 5 units = between £3.60 and £1.66 a day.

This is all rough calcs based on MY tariff per kWh but it gives you a rough idea. Sorry again for my dodgy workings out above!!

macman

Good, but it would still be a wise investment to add a wireless room 'stat and TRV's to your existing sytem, not that expensive to do, and the greater control that would give should pay for itself in a couple of years.
If you've just had your first bill, remember that the last 3 months will not be typical of the year as a whole-it depends when you switched your CH on. Typically you will use 80% of your annual gas consumption in the 4 coldest months, say Nov to end of Feb.

charlie792

GetRealBabe wrote: »

Hi

Take a meter reading and put the figures here :http://smartmeter.ukpower.co.uk/

I have to say that might not be the most accurate mind - it says my standing charge is 0.2p a day...its actually 33p!