£65 Gas bill in less than 3 weeks in a cottage!

DreamerV

I agree with Dunroamin. I'm surprised it's not higher when you have it on so much. I understand people sometimes keep the heating on all the time and control with thermostat - I would think that would work better with well-insulated houses. For me, if I leave the heating on when not home, the heating would just dissipate by the time I got home anyhow. I pay around £500 per yr for gas (most of it is from winter use) and only have the heating on around 3 hours a day on about 17 or 18. I have it on at night but only on 12 to 13 celsius as if it drops colder than this, if I get up in the night, I can't get to sleep again.

MerseyLad

Excuse me if I explain this using poor terminology....

The heating is set to be on from 5am until 11pm.

However, we were told to turn it down to about 10 degrees when we sleep and when we are at work and then turn it up to 21-23 when we are in the house and want it to be steady warm.

We work shifts so we are in the house and awake at strange times, so using timers seemed to waste gas for large parts of the week.

So....for example, this week we have been on nights.

We get in at about 7:30am and go straight to bed so the heating is on 10 degrees from when we left at 8:30pm the night previous. We sleep from 7:30 until about 2pm and when we wake we have turned the heating on to 22 for an hour or so. Then back to 10 degrees. We have gone about our afternoon and then from about 6pm we have turned it back up to 22 until we leave for work at 8:30pm when it goes back down to 10 again.

When I say its on 10 degrees....the rads dont feel warm or like they are on for the most part, but the house just seems to stay at a steady temperature. All rads have their own thermostat on them and are set at 3 or 4 out of 5 in all the rooms downstairs and on 2.5 upstairs.

Hope this makes a bit of sense.

It may well be average, and I have nothing to compare it to other than what my friends and family say. I appreciate that over the year it will average out as we use less and less as the summer draws in. But for such a small house I was suprised by the bill. Considering my parents live in a large 4 bed detached house and pay £60 a month and my friend lives in a massive 5 bedroom house with 3 en suites, a conservatory and huge rooms and only pays £80 a month - I just felt that we would be paying a touch less.

northernsoul

My house used 8 metric units a day or £3.20/day over the same period. Thats 144 units and about £58. 2 bed + bedroom attic terrace house, on 2 hrs in morning and 6 hours at evening. Temp set at 16C during sleeping (practically off) and 12C from 8am to 5pm ie off.
Afraid insulation makes quite a lot of difference. When i see the small size of radiators in new houses compared to mine i am envious!
Edit to say- set at 21C morn and eve

DreamerV

MerseyLad wrote: »

Excuse me if I explain this using poor terminology....

The heating is set to be on from 5am until 11pm.

However, we were told to turn it down to about 10 degrees when we sleep and when we are at work and then turn it up to 21-23 when we are in the house and want it to be steady warm.

We work shifts so we are in the house and awake at strange times, so using timers seemed to waste gas for large parts of the week.

So....for example, this week we have been on nights.

We get in at about 7:30am and go straight to bed so the heating is on 10 degrees from when we left at 8:30pm the night previous. We sleep from 7:30 until about 2pm and when we wake we have turned the heating on to 22 for an hour or so. Then back to 10 degrees. We have gone about our afternoon and then from about 6pm we have turned it back up to 22 until we leave for work at 8:30pm when it goes back down to 10 again.

When I say its on 10 degrees....the rads dont feel warm or like they are on for the most part, but the house just seems to stay at a steady temperature. All rads have their own thermostat on them and are set at 3 or 4 out of 5 in all the rooms downstairs and on 2.5 upstairs.

Hope this makes a bit of sense.

It may well be average, and I have nothing to compare it to other than what my friends and family say. I appreciate that over the year it will average out as we use less and less as the summer draws in. But for such a small house I was suprised by the bill. Considering my parents live in a large 4 bed detached house and pay £60 a month and my friend lives in a massive 5 bedroom house with 3 en suites, a conservatory and huge rooms and only pays £80 a month - I just felt that we would be paying a touch less.

Given what you've just explained, I actually do wonder that it's a bit high. Although when comparing to your parents and friends, it's not like with like. Let's say your parents pay £60 a month i.e. £720 a year for gas. This sounds about right - my parents pay this for a 4 bed detached in Scotland. Your useage equates to £115 or so per month, which would be for about 2 very cold months - Jan/Feb (£230 total). Nov/Dec/Mar most people use a fair bit less - say this is £90 a month - £270 total. April/Oct - £70x2. And the remainder 5 months at £20 (£100 total) - This would make a total of £740. Not far off your parents, especially given that gas prices have been rising, and your cottage may well not be as well insulated.

Obviously my figures are completely made up, but they are within the realms of reason - and are to illustrate that it seems perfectly plausible that the meter is correct and you are using that much.

You could try to save some energy - e.g. better insulation, foil behind the radiators, etc. And also double check with the company that your meter readings are correct (just in case).

Cardew

macman wrote: »

You are quoting 'units'. but we don't know what sort of unit-is your meter imperial or metric? An imperial unit is about 2..83 times the size of a metric unit. .

It will be Metric as 126 Imperial units(approx 4,000kWh) would be way more than £65.

Like most above I don't consider approx 1,400 kWh particularly high.

Wywth

MerseyLad wrote: »

Excuse me if I explain this using poor terminology....

The heating is set to be on from 5am until 11pm.

However, we were told to turn it down to about 10 degrees when we sleep and when we are at work and then turn it up to 21-23 when we are in the house and want it to be steady warm.

We work shifts so we are in the house and awake at strange times, so using timers seemed to waste gas for large parts of the week.

So....for example, this week we have been on nights.

We get in at about 7:30am and go straight to bed so the heating is on 10 degrees from when we left at 8:30pm the night previous. We sleep from 7:30 until about 2pm and when we wake we have turned the heating on to 22 for an hour or so. Then back to 10 degrees. We have gone about our afternoon and then from about 6pm we have turned it back up to 22 until we leave for work at 8:30pm when it goes back down to 10 again.

When I say its on 10 degrees....the rads dont feel warm or like they are on for the most part, but the house just seems to stay at a steady temperature. All rads have their own thermostat on them and are set at 3 or 4 out of 5 in all the rooms downstairs and on 2.5 upstairs.

Hope this makes a bit of sense.

It may well be average, and I have nothing to compare it to other than what my friends and family say. I appreciate that over the year it will average out as we use less and less as the summer draws in. But for such a small house I was suprised by the bill. Considering my parents live in a large 4 bed detached house and pay £60 a month and my friend lives in a massive 5 bedroom house with 3 en suites, a conservatory and huge rooms and only pays £80 a month - I just felt that we would be paying a touch less.

Turn it on when you need it, turn it off when you don't

This article explains more:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-saving-myths

MerseyLad

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Dunroamin

MerseyLad wrote: »

Excuse me if I explain this using poor terminology....

The heating is set to be on from 5am until 11pm.

However, we were told to turn it down to about 10 degrees when we sleep and when we are at work and then turn it up to 21-23 when we are in the house and want it to be steady warm.

We work shifts so we are in the house and awake at strange times, so using timers seemed to waste gas for large parts of the week.

So....for example, this week we have been on nights.

We get in at about 7:30am and go straight to bed so the heating is on 10 degrees from when we left at 8:30pm the night previous. We sleep from 7:30 until about 2pm and when we wake we have turned the heating on to 22 for an hour or so. Then back to 10 degrees. We have gone about our afternoon and then from about 6pm we have turned it back up to 22 until we leave for work at 8:30pm when it goes back down to 10 again.

When I say its on 10 degrees....the rads dont feel warm or like they are on for the most part, but the house just seems to stay at a steady temperature. All rads have their own thermostat on them and are set at 3 or 4 out of 5 in all the rooms downstairs and on 2.5 upstairs.

Hope this makes a bit of sense.

It may well be average, and I have nothing to compare it to other than what my friends and family say. I appreciate that over the year it will average out as we use less and less as the summer draws in. But for such a small house I was suprised by the bill. Considering my parents live in a large 4 bed detached house and pay £60 a month and my friend lives in a massive 5 bedroom house with 3 en suites, a conservatory and huge rooms and only pays £80 a month - I just felt that we would be paying a touch less.

Sorry, I may be being stupid, but it still sounds to me as if you have it on all day and all night.

If that's the case, why not just control it manually and (using your example above) turn the heating on (not up) when you wake up at 1400 and off when you go out, turning it back on again from 1800 until you go to work at 2030 when you turn it off completely.

Have you asked your friend and parents how many hours they have the heating on as I'm pretty sure they're not running it 24/7 as you're doing if they're only paying the amounts you give.

DreamerV

Dunroamin wrote: »

Sorry, I may be being stupid, but it still sounds to me as if you have it on all day and all night.

Just wondering (as I genuinely am not sure either way), will the heating actually come on much with the thermostat set to 10 celsius? My house doesn't retain heat well (at all) but when I set mine to 10 at night, anytime I've got up in the night ever, I've passed the radiator and it's been ice cold. I guess it depends on the outside temperature, and how much heat the house retains.

That said/asked, I agree. I also suggest just putting the heating on at the times you'd usually turn the heating up.

Gloomendoom

MerseyLad wrote: »

I have recently moved into my first house.

It's a small, quaint, 2 bedroom cottage. It has 6 radiators in total and a gas fire and the hob on the cooker is gas. It is a 200 year old cottage with old style small windows (single glaze).

This could be the problem. What is it made of?

Our house is a stone cottage of indeterminate age. The walls are stone and vary from 3-4 feet thick at ground level to 2 feet thick at the eaves. It takes ages (well over a month) for the place to warm through and during that time we use a lot of gas. Once it has got up to temperature it stays warm and the gas consumption drops.

A few years ago the main gas main to the village was cut and the boiler went out. It was two days before I noticed despite the outside temperature being -7°C overnight. The thing is a giant storage heater.