What is average gas usage?

beebuzz168

Evening all

Looking for a bit of advice on average gas consumption as ours has just gone down dramatically in the last quarter.

Background re house - it's a two bed 1850s cottage that we are currently doing a renovation on. When we moved in, there was no central heating and the gas boiler was only used to heat water (all baths as no shower). Our use for the first two quarters in the house were approx 1100 units per quarter (Dec - Feb & Mar - May).

We had a new boiler fitted in early June, so for pretty much the whole of the past quarter and now do have gch (though it hasn't been used) and our usage has only been 94 units!!

Does this sound crazily low, or was our use crazily high previously?

Note - no other use for gas as our cooking facilities are a camping stove powered by calor gas!

Thanks for your opinions, have never had gas in a house before so no idea what constitutes average.

HappyMJ

June just gone? That's fine. Summer is always very low. I'd say the previous usage was far too high. 1100 units is more for a house with gas central heating not just for water. Were the meter readings that were taken correct?

macman

What do you mean by units? Gas meters read in either 100's cu ft (imperial), or cu m (metric). Which do you have (it's marked on the meter)?
But unit rates and billing is in kWh's-are you referring to 1,100kWh's or something else?
Average usage for a 3 b/r house with gas CH and DHW is around 17,500kWhpa.
94 kWh (if that's what you're saying) per quarter is either a reading error or meter fault-that's about 25p per week.

HalloweenJack

except last year my 3 bed used 8200 but were elec heavy at 5100

macman

I repeat-the OP cannot be referring to kWh units. 94 Kwh in 12 weeks, even in summer, for all hot water? Come on.

bengasman

There is no such thing as average or normal gas use. You could calculate the the median use or the use per household over the UK, but it would be as useless as the statistic of 1.8 children.

beebuzz168

Thanks for the opinions so far... I just had another look at the meter and it's a cubic metre meter (?!). Also took another reading and it's gone up 6 "units" in 4 days.

Does it sound like me meter is broken? Or is this about right usage for a brand new boiler that is only heating a bath of water a day, plus a little bit of washing up?

HappyMJ

beebuzz168 wrote: »

Thanks for the opinions so far... I just had another look at the meter and it's a cubic metre meter (?!). Also took another reading and it's gone up 6 "units" in 4 days.

Does it sound like me meter is broken? Or is this about right usage for a brand new boiler that is only heating a bath of water a day, plus a little bit of washing up?

6 "units" is about 66kWh. That's fine for 4 days of hot water.

macman

beebuzz168 wrote: »

Thanks for the opinions so far... I just had another look at the meter and it's a cubic metre meter (?!). Also took another reading and it's gone up 6 "units" in 4 days.

Does it sound like me meter is broken? Or is this about right usage for a brand new boiler that is only heating a bath of water a day, plus a little bit of washing up?

OK, so quote your usage in kWh (i.e. what you are actually billed for) and all will be clear.

beebuzz168

Ok... I am officially a gas meter fool!

I didn't realise that there was any multiplication to be done to get to actual usage from the meter reading.

So,, I took the difference in the meter readings (94) to mean usage and compared to my usage from the previous two quarters online (which was actual usage, not meter readings). Are you with me?!

Just checked online again and SP have kindly calculated my usage for me which was only slightly down on the previous quarters.

Thank you for all your help guys, and I have definitely learned my something new for today!

ic

Your usage should be massively down in the last quarter compared to the previous two. Unless of course you run your heating on full blast through summer or run a commercial kitchen? You should be comparing to the same quarter in the previous year - not winter to summer.