My gas boiler costs me a fortune in electric!

mrpony

I have recently purchased a electricity monitor to try to work out why my electricity bills are so high, and via a process of elimination (turning off circuits one at a time from the fuse box) I have discovered that my gas heating system uses 3p an hour IN ELECTRIC even when neither the hot water or heating are on. Added up this is costing me over £250 per year - and the usage increases when the boiler fires up.
I have a Strebel boiler and a pressurised system with the hot water tank in the garage rather than the loft (not sure why).
Is this normal?? I was absolutely astounded as I had assumed that aside from perhaps a bit of electric for the timer that the heating system would only be costing me in gas............ Any advice would be appreciated.

aelitaman

mrpony wrote: »

I have recently purchased a electricity monitor to try to work out why my electricity bills are so high, and via a process of elimination (turning off circuits one at a time from the fuse box) I have discovered that my gas heating system uses 3p an hour IN ELECTRIC even when neither the hot water or heating are on. Added up this is costing me over £250 per year - and the usage increases when the boiler fires up.
I have a Strebel boiler and a pressurised system with the hot water tank in the garage rather than the loft (not sure why).
Is this normal?? I was absolutely astounded as I had assumed that aside from perhaps a bit of electric for the timer that the heating system would only be costing me in gas............ Any advice would be appreciated.

It will also have an electric pump to pump the water around the systems and if not a combi a motorised valve to change flow from HW to CH

bryanb

It should not be using power when CH & HW are off, maybe as you say a little for timer. Are you sure nothing else is on?

Andy_WSM

mrpony wrote: »

I had assumed that aside from perhaps a bit of electric for the timer that the heating system would only be costing me in gas............ Any advice would be appreciated.

Pump, control valves, fan, circuit boards, gas valve - all of these use electricity.

bryanb

Andy_WSM wrote: »

Pump, control valves, fan, circuit boards, gas valve - all of these use electricity.

Most of them not when the HW & CH is off, see OP

mrpony

bryanb wrote: »

It should not be using power when CH & HW are off, maybe as you say a little for timer. Are you sure nothing else is on?

There is nothing else on the circuit in our garage apart from the heating system, so is must be coming from that.

I became suspicious when having been on holiday for a week and having turned off everything in the house apart from fridge (literally everything....TV, sky box, computer, modem, phone chargers, digital clock on oven etc etc) we had still managed to use over 80kWh of electricity despite having set the hot water and heating to not come on at all during the week. The fridge accounts for some, but its A rated and I've done the same exercise with it, and it actually doesn't use much at all in comparison.

I'm really frustrated as it seems there's a sizeable percentage of my electric bill that I have no control over. Is there anything I could change? I guess the type of boiler makes little difference if there are all these other parts to consider - pumps and valves etc?

HappyMJ

Does the monitor show zero when you turn everything including the central heating off too? I'd go to the fuse box consumer unit and switch every circuit off from there it should then display 0p per hour. There may be something else in the house using electric. The energy monitor's aren't by the way very accurate at low wattages. With everything turned off in my house it still displays 60 watts??? The only thing plugged in and turned on is the energy monitor itself and I know it doesn't use 60 watts.

Andy_WSM

bryanb wrote: »

Most of them not when the HW & CH is off, see OP

If you believe the readings from a mickey mouse energy monitor, which I don't. Also, see post above mine.

I really doubt the figures. The monitors are not accurate enough to give them.

bryanb

Andy_WSM wrote: »

If you believe the readings from a mickey mouse energy monitor, which I don't.

Not at all, what I believe is what I posted - The pump, control valve, & fan do not use power when the CH & HW are off. Nothing about any kind of monitor.

j2011

If you believe the readings from a mickey mouse energy monitor

I have to disagree that the monitors are not any good.

I have recently received one from eon and I find that is extremely accurate, at least mine is, as I am stuck at home I thought I would experiment.

I turned everything off except the PS for the monitor and the reading was 2 watts. I then started turning things on that I knew the consumption for and it was accurate to a watt or so.

11 watt lamp reading goes to 13 watts, add 100 watt TV reading goes to 113 watts, Sky box, reading goes to 151 watts, 2 kWh kettle reading goes to 2151 for length of time the kettle is on then back down to 151 watts.

It even measures the power consumption of the hard disk in the sky box, 10 watts.

As I said I'm bored.

So some are accurate and some are not. Mine does not give a true total of consumption compared to my electricity meter but as it only samples consumption every 6 seconds what do you expect.

It helps to show a couple of teenagers how much electricity all their gadgets are consuming when left on but nobody using them but as for saving money not a lot, about a couple of £s a month.

Perhaps 10 million TVs not on standby would save the planet but not in my house where the standby consumption of my TV doesn't even register on my monitor.

At least the government is going to give me £25 towards the gas I am burning to keep warm while I am not earning, because I am stuck at home because of the snow, roll on global warming.

molerat

Mine tells me I have used 93 kWh over the last 7 days. My meter tells me 72 !!