High Gas Bill - 20 metric units a day?!

ginvzt

We have heating for a decent number of hours a day (I think it comes on at 4am in the morning till 8am, and then at about 3pm to 10pm).

With the previous boiler, last winter I kept it running for a few hours a day initially and house was always cold, we even had ice forming on the double glazed patio door (on the glass side to the room!!!). I got fed up and we had a tiny (1.5 year old) visitor for a while, so I just set it to run all the time. It didn't really increased the gas usage that much, but the house was warmer. You could try a test for yourself - set a few days the heating to be on for longer (ok, maybe not whole night) and make note of how much you use, and also take the same amount of time with the current settings and compare how much more you use and if the house feels warmer.

One more thing - again, this is our boiler, our hot water can be set to come on automatically at the same time as the heating, at set times during the day (one or the other - can't remember) or on demand. Well, 'come on' I actually mean the heat exchanger keeps the water hot, so when we turn the hot tap on it takes less time for the water to actually run hot. I saw this as a waste and changed it to come on demand only. Maybe one more thing to look at?

rabbitmumu

keeping the combi on and hot water ready (assuming your radiators are off and you don't actually use any hot water) doesn't actually use that much gas and electricity (my very rough calc is about £10-£20 a year). Because no water is actually being boiled if you don't switch on your hot water tap.

For convenience sake you may keep your hot water ready. But if you wish to save more (like me), i actually set the water heating off at 12pm-7am.

Tupperware_Queen

regarding not having a shower, I too have recently moved, and really missed my shower. I bought a shower mixer tap from argos for £60 and now I can have a shower or a bath!! ( I even tiled round the bath myself!!)