Is this Gas bill reasonable for me

JackSnap

Ok I had my gas bill from EDF today, its not gonna kill me, but i just cant understand why its so high, and wonder how other people would cope with this if there were in all day. (I work all week.)

I have gas central heating, a combi boiler, instant hot water that kind of thing, no hot water tank.

Electric shower, and electric cooker, so its just hot water and central heating. I Shower every day, so no baths using the water. (with gas)

3 bedroom semi, but dont use the one bedroom, or front room so turn radiators off, leaving just 6 radiators on. (all but one have thermostat controls too) heating comes on for 1 hour in the morning, and i get home from work at about 7pm each night, then may have heating on for a couple of hours, maybe 3 but more often then not i turn it off i get hot easily. Weekends perhaps its on longer, but not very much more.

Boiler temperature shows about 60C.

So the bill this quarter is £200, thats almost £70 a month, and im never there!

The units on the bill are 212, which does appear to match the meter readings,
thats 2.35 units a day. Does that sound about right??

Meter reads in cf3
EDF say they convert the Feet to meters by multiplying by 2.83 , i dont quite understand this as wouldnt you multiply by 0.0283 (feet are smaller than meters?)
Im perhaps misunderstanding something there,

Like i say its not like the bill is gonna kill me, but just seems a bit high for what i use, plus im on a mission to understand exactly how this works out.
Im monitoring it almost daily at the moment, to see if theres any clues,
Any advice and comparisons would be welcome,

Heres a copy of my bill for info...

How your statement is calculated
Tariff: Dual Fuel Gas Tariff (Ref. Code: ****) Cubic feet

Meter reading period: 24 October 2006 to 31 January 2007

Meter readings Gas Used
Present 8663 E (very close to real reading)
Previous 8451 A
Calorific ValueMj/m3 39.36140
100's Cubic Feet 212
Cubic Metres (blank)

Tariff Rate
kWh Pence per kWh Cost of Gas Used £

1589 3.930 62.45
5119 2.472 126.54

Total Cost of Gas Used: £188.99 (Then VAT)
Conversion factor: 1.022640

masonic

JackSnap wrote:

Meter reads in cf3
EDF say they convert the Feet to meters by multiplying by 2.83 , i dont quite understand this as wouldnt you multiply by 0.0283 (feet are smaller than meters?)
Im perhaps misunderstanding something there,

I believe imperial meters measure hundreds of cubic feet. 100 cubic feet > 1 cubic metre.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.

First answer is easy! 1 unit on the meter is 100cu ft.(which is 2.83 times more than a cubic meter)

Actually to have used 6,708kWh in 14 weeks of the winter is not excessive by any means and means you will probably use less than the national average of 20,500kWh per year.

Your gas rate is not bad but Ebico at 2.55p(including VAT) for all units would be cheaper.(by £27)

The other factors are the efficiency of your boiler and how well you house is insulated.

JackSnap

Thanks for the reply. So its not so unusual after all, its costs a fortune lol!

i looked into Ebico, seems a good company, but had recent price rises. going to do some sums to see its its worth me changing.

Many thanks for your help

carol_a_3

I am home quite a bit of the day but try not to put my heating on until the evening but it's on quite a bit at the weekends. Old style boiler with 10 rad central heating and hot water. My daughter loves her baths but me and DS shower. Electric cooking. I just had my quarterly bill (British gas) and it was £112.83 so your's does seem high to me.

jennifernil

We have a large 5 bedroom house , have the CH on about 7 hours per day, and pay £60 per month, but that is over the whole year so a total of £720. We are with Equigas.

anniecave

I would presume jacksnap's bill will be a lot less in the summer as I would assume most of the £200 will be going on the heating.

Does the elec shower definately not take from the hot water? I thought at my previous place it did? But I may be misremembering....

hopingforahouse

To be honest that doesn't seem too bad. We live in a two bed flat (one room is the spare room, and no rad though), with 5 radiators, and aren't excessive with heating. Bill just in from EDF is £179, but we're on fixed prices though, so quite cheap. In comparison from our bill in August, which was £16. Heating is just bloomin expensive! And I have a bath about 5 times a week. Have you got high ceilings? Decent curtains on the windows? Any drafts? You can compare your own house to others when looking at bills, but it's never going to be the same, unless you lived there, and your own habits translated into their house IYSWIM? Go to EDF's website, and make sure you're taking all the energy efficient measures they suggest.

ManAtHome

To put things in context, it's probably less than a (pub) pint of beer a day, a takeaway a couple of times a week, your council tax bill...

neetugopal

Hi all,

I was also wondering if my gas consumption was average. I moved to British Gas Click Energy tarrif on 15th December. The last actual gas metering reading (taken by PowerGen, can't confirm as we were on holiday in Dec.) when transferred to BG was 7424. I had a letter from BG regarding passing my meter reading to them sometime in early Dec. but I only checked meter reading on 2nd Jan as were away all December. The metering reading on 2nd Jan was 7788 (7788-7424=364 units in 18 days - 15th Dec to 2nd Jan!!!) which I could not believe as 364 units in 18 days. All this time we were not in the house but we had heating turned on for an hour at 16 degrees C.
I checked the meter reading today (14/02/2007) and it was 8140 (8140-7784= 356 units in 42 days). Again this seems quite a lot.

We live in a 3 bed newly built detached house and keep heating on for around 7 hrs a day.