First house!

ViolaLass

Our numbers started November last year so I think they're vaguely representative. We barely ever have the hot water on (our hot water tap is broken and too far down the to-do list to have been fixed yet) and used the heating for about two hours a day for maybe two months during the winter. Other than that, putting another jumper on did the trick.

Interesting to have made the comparison though, thank you.

macman

I suspect your gas readings are incorrect. You couldn't possibly have run the heating even 2 hours a day for 60 days for 455kWh of gas. That's only about £22.50.
Are you sure it's not an imperial meter-in which case you've used 1,286 kWh of gas-cost about £65? Still incredibly low.
It was extremely cold last winter through to March-not just November to January.

ViolaLass

The meter says it's in cubic metres - should I be looking for something else?

I agree that it was cold beyond January. We didn't run the heating every day (perhaps 60 days in total but I am guessing as that isn't something we kept track of). What can I say, we must be made of hardy stock!

macman

No, if it says cu m then 455kWh is correct. Unless you have a faulty meter or have misread it.
To put it in context, 455kWh is the average UK use over 10 days.

[Deleted User]

Violalass, you must have a faulty gas meter, it was the worst winter I can remember for the length of the cold. it was still around 2c -4c untill mid april. I dont even have gas central heating and spent much more than your ammount with my gas cooker alone. Do you live in the Scilly Isles ?..We have the latest scam operating now where a gas meter can be " adjusted " in an ingenious way, to deliver 50% to 85% less apparant useage, other than that I have found gas meters which have stopped completely even though the 100ths dial continues going round. 2 hours central heating useage a day would deliver a much higher gas bill than yours. Either way you just stick with that gas meter you ve got now. The suppliers are completely dippy and wont question faulty gas meters or electric meters

macman

ViolaLass needs to clarify her actual billed kWh usage. All she quoted was 40 cu m, which makes me wary of a misread.

ViolaLass

Without getting out my paperwork, (sorry guys, other things are my priority today), I can state that my meter (fitted last November by BG, when we moved in and didn't want a prepay meter any more) states that since then we have used 143 cu m. We're with SP now and they're happy with the amount we pay each month.

We're in Birmingham.

I know the winter was cold, really I do but we didn't use our heating that much. We had just moved from a damp, barely heatable flat that sometimes got ice on the walls. We were thrilled at how warm our new house was and just didn't feel that much heating was how we wanted to spend our money. We were still very comfortable and very happy.

macman

So that's 1,625kWh on a metric meter. Still incredibly low for a whole winter. What about water heating (if you don't use the CH much)?

ViolaLass

Water heating is different for us, if I've understood it, as our shower heats the water itself and the hot tap on our kitchen sink is broken so we never bother heating water. If we want to wash up, we just boil a half full kettle (so a whole boiler's worth would seem wasteful anyway).

I've just found my online account and it says that:

Jan-March: 300kWh
Apr-Jun: 370kWh
July-now: 45kWh

We pay £20 a month and are about £50 in credit at the moment.

Edit: I've just remembered, the meter wasn't changed until the beginning of January so these are figures for this year only.

ViolaLass

OH has just pointed out that we are in a terraced house, flanked by people who apparently used their heating all the time.

We only turned ours on if the house temp got below 11. Above that, we were happy to put on a jumper or a blanket.

When we heated, we would stop when it got up to around 15-16. OH has thermometers around the house so we could be sure of this.

So, there were factors beyond our control (the neighbours) but we also didn't require a really warm house. It was also one of our reasons for buying this house, that we would be so much warmer.