Gas Usage/Cost - This cannot be right, right?

ChuckNorrisFearsMe

I moved into a new house last Thursday which has prepayment meters for both Gas and Electric. Both are with British Gas but the gas meter didn't have a card with it so i got a new one from the shop, slotted it in and accepted the £5 emergency credit because there was no credit on the meter. That was 5pm Thursday.

8pm Friday and there's 21p of emergency credit remaining.

I'd made sure everything was turned off in the first place, turned off all the radiators and then turned on the two downstairs radiators once the emergency credit was applied because the house was rather cold.
There was also a towel heater on and i ran 2 baths in this 27 hour period.

I called British Gas on the Saturday both to tell them i'd moved in on Thursday and to report what i thought was a fairly obvious problem with cost. The woman i spoke at British Gas was fairly adamant that there's nothing wrong with the meter and that i was most likely using too much gas.
I was then warned that if they sent someone out to check the meter at my request and it turned out there wasn't a problem with the meter that i'd be saddled with a fee.

Irritated i hung up as politely as i could and stocked up on 400/800/1200w halogen heaters from Amazon.

Tonight i decided i was going to top up the gas meter and measure the cost of running a single radiator for the evening. Here are my findings so far.

19:20pm - topped up £10 gas credit, cleared the emergency credit debt to give me £3.68 credit. Spent some time testing hot water temperature.

20:40 - £3.49 remaining. I turn on one radiator to lvl 5 of 5 and set boiler temp to halfway between minimum and maximum.

21:40 - £3.39 remaining. Turned radiator off. Still baffled at that price, maybe it costs more to warm it up.

21:44 - £3.39 remaining. Set timer for 1 hour of radiator heating, same radiator. This time i've set the boiler water temp to 'e' which is about 3/4 to 4/5 towards maximum.

21:59 - £3.30 remaining. lol.

22:20 - £3.22 remaining.

22:44 - £3.15 remaining. Turned the boiler off since it hadn't knocked itself off yet.


So can someone confirm that i'm not simply a cheap ba****d and that this is a ridiculous price to be paying? Extrapolating at 24p an hour for that one radiator at 24p an hour would equate to £172.80 per 30 days if i left it on continuously... that women was right, gas is expensive.

Some info: The boiler type is Heatline Vizo, all radiators are convector radiators and i can't smell any leaks.

macman

You''ll find that standard rate electricity is about 3 times more per kWh than gas, so not really a good move to switch to electric heaters. And 400 or 800W ones will not be adequate anyway.
Tell us how many units/kWh you are using (rather than how much money you are putting on it) and better advice can be given.

Cardew

Is the meter recovering a debt from the previous occupant?

HappyMJ

ChuckNorrisFearsMe wrote: »

I moved into a new house last Thursday which has prepayment meters for both Gas and Electric. Both are with British Gas but the gas meter didn't have a card with it so i got a new one from the shop, slotted it in and accepted the £5 emergency credit because there was no credit on the meter. That was 5pm Thursday.

8pm Friday and there's 21p of emergency credit remaining.

I'd made sure everything was turned off in the first place, turned off all the radiators and then turned on the two downstairs radiators once the emergency credit was applied because the house was rather cold.
There was also a towel heater on and i ran 2 baths in this 27 hour period.

I called British Gas on the Saturday both to tell them i'd moved in on Thursday and to report what i thought was a fairly obvious problem with cost. The woman i spoke at British Gas was fairly adamant that there's nothing wrong with the meter and that i was most likely using too much gas.
I was then warned that if they sent someone out to check the meter at my request and it turned out there wasn't a problem with the meter that i'd be saddled with a fee.

Irritated i hung up as politely as i could and stocked up on 400/800/1200w halogen heaters from Amazon.

Tonight i decided i was going to top up the gas meter and measure the cost of running a single radiator for the evening. Here are my findings so far.

19:20pm - topped up £10 gas credit, cleared the emergency credit debt to give me £3.68 credit. Spent some time testing hot water temperature.

20:40 - £3.49 remaining. I turn on one radiator to lvl 5 of 5 and set boiler temp to halfway between minimum and maximum.

21:40 - £3.39 remaining. Turned radiator off. Still baffled at that price, maybe it costs more to warm it up.

21:44 - £3.39 remaining. Set timer for 1 hour of radiator heating, same radiator. This time i've set the boiler water temp to 'e' which is about 3/4 to 4/5 towards maximum.

21:59 - £3.30 remaining. lol.

22:20 - £3.22 remaining.

22:44 - £3.15 remaining. Turned the boiler off since it hadn't knocked itself off yet.


So can someone confirm that i'm not simply a cheap ba****d and that this is a ridiculous price to be paying? Extrapolating at 24p an hour for that one radiator at 24p an hour would equate to £172.80 per 30 days if i left it on continuously... that women was right, gas is expensive.

Some info: The boiler type is Heatline Vizo, all radiators are convector radiators and i can't smell any leaks.

OK I'll say it you are a cheap whatever...it cost you 53p for an evening of heating and you are complaining. This is the secondary unit rate you will also have daily standing charges on top of that. Electric on demand heating is much more expensive.

It could cost 24p per hour if the heating was always on. That is right. For a 24/28kW boiler that is quite reasonable.

ChuckNorrisFearsMe

@Cardew - No, there's no debt being recovered.

@HappyMJ - I appreciate you've taken the time to help but i don't think you read the post properly. It wasn't 53p for an evening's heating, it was 24p for one radiator for one hour. If it was many radiators then fine, but it was one single radiator.
For 2 radiators on for 9 hours last week it took a full 5 pound in a 27 hour period.
The top rate i'm on for gas is 8.07 ish. Now if this radiator is burning at 3kWh then i'm sticking to my 400w electric heater - which, btw, is less power than my PC and actually warms me.

ChuckNorrisFearsMe

macman wrote: »

You''ll find that standard rate electricity is about 3 times more per kWh than gas, so not really a good move to switch to electric heaters. And 400 or 800W ones will not be adequate anyway.
Tell us how many units/kWh you are using (rather than how much money you are putting on it) and better advice can be given.

That makes more sense, i've switched it on for now and the meter is at 928,856m3 (if i've read it properly, could be 928.856m3 but where i've put a decimal point, on the meter there's just a space. ie "928 856")

Once again it's the only radiator on and i'll leave it on until 17:05 and see where we are. Credit's currently at £2.71.

Cheers for the help.

macman

Your gas cost per kWh cannot be 8.5p. 4p is typical. That must be the first tier rate.

HappyMJ

ChuckNorrisFearsMe wrote: »

@Cardew - No, there's no debt being recovered.

@HappyMJ - I appreciate you've taken the time to help but i don't think you read the post properly. It wasn't 53p for an evening's heating, it was 24p for one radiator for one hour. If it was many radiators then fine, but it was one single radiator.
For 2 radiators on for 9 hours last week it took a full 5 pound in a 27 hour period.
The top rate i'm on for gas is 8.07 ish. Now if this radiator is burning at 3kWh then i'm sticking to my 400w electric heater - which, btw, is less power than my PC and actually warms me.

You wait until it is really very cold. I use an 800W mini oil filled radiator in the bedroom. I leave it on all night to keep the chill off the room. It uses on average 400W per hour cycling on and off. If the temperature outside is less than zero then the bedroom temperature will be less than 12 degrees. It can't cope. It can maintain the room at night at 12 degrees for very little cost but once it's cold it can't. I have a 2kW convector heater set on the frost setting for those very cold nights and for use in the morning to bring the room temperature up to 18 degrees.

ChuckNorrisFearsMe

@macman - Yeah, that was the top tier i mentioned. 2nd tier is amout what you said. When i said that that was the 'top rate', top tier is what i meant.

@Happy - That's kinda why i want to get it sorted now mate. I dont want to be shivering in November because i can't afford the £200+ a month to heat two or three rooms.


The house had been empty for 4 years so the gas supply has had minimal use, could that have lead to problems with efficiency? The boiler isn't reporting any faults.

jalexa

ChuckNorrisFearsMe wrote: »

That makes more sense, i've switched it on for now and the meter is at 928,856m3 (if i've read it properly, could be 928.856m3 but where i've put a decimal point, on the meter there's just a space. ie "928 856")

While the decimal position matters for accurate costing, that can be determined later. Meanwhile read the m3 as often as the ££s and post some results.

ChuckNorrisFearsMe

Just a quick post thanking you for helping out. Turns out there's nothing wrong with the supply or the meter but that the back door's seal is compromised which is letting out just about any heat the central heating radiates which is why the highest setting on the radiator isn't warming the room (it's open plan with kitchen, separated by a breakfast bar).

Stuffed the gap with my beloved 'I' newspaper, 14th March edition for those wondering, put the radiator on it's lvl 1 setting and the room temperature is reasonably comfortable and at a much more affordable cost/hour.

Thanks again guys.