Higer than expected gas usage

sups

Stuc75 -i cant remember seeing the history in units, think it was in Kwh, i'll check again.

I have someone (mum) at home during the day - but i have set my thermostats to turn off between 8am and 4 pm. the hob would be used during this time for about 30min max.
I'm working from home today and i have taken a reading at 10am.. i'll take another reading just before 4pm and see what i find.

I'm actually hope there is something worng and its not just what i need to keep me heated!

jaybeetoo

What is the insulation of your new house like compared to the old one?

sups

much much better, its newly refurb'd.

swanny65

sups wrote: »

I've been checking out the BG website some more especially my account usage history.

BG have calculated that i use £5.20 of gas per day! i find this hard to swallow!

this cant be what I use!!

I have a similar Vaillant Eco Tec Plus boiler, installed last December, and an 11 year old Megaflow. I have a well insulated home, about 230m2 of floor area, with underfloor heating in all areas, and my bill, which i have been monitoring since I switched on the heating this year, is about £25.00 pw. My heating is on 24/7 at between 16c - 18c in each zone.

Use this tool to accurately calculate usage.

http://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/smart_meter_calculator?region=6-Eastern

You also might want to post on here to check if there is a problem with your CH system and get advice on your CH system. Lots of expert advice from heating engineers on there - Argyle is a Vaillant expert

http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=7

sups

swanny65 - Thanks I'll check them links out.
To everyone else....

I have wet UHF in the kitchen which is roughly 26m sq.
I have a further 11 traditional fin type rads and 4 towel rads.

The UHF in the kitchen goes on at 1am - 8am therm stat is set to 21.5 degrees, but the kitchen has never reached this since the cold has set in. they turn on again at 3pm and turn off at 10pm

all other rads turn on at 4am and turn off at 8am. the therm stat is set to 21.5 degrees. They turn back on at 3pm and turn off again at 10pm.

how does this sound to people? am i running the heaters for too long? are my thermo stats set too high?

incidentally, since 10pm yesterday and 10pm today I've used 7 unit (ft sq) whcih according to the energyLinx website equates to 219Kwh. BG charge 0.0773p for the first 433kWh (0.04357p there after).

So technically the last 24hrs has cost me £16.92 :eek: - something has to be wrong!!

Nada666

sups wrote: »

incidentally, since 10pm yesterday and 10pm today I've used 7 unit (ft sq) whcih according to the energyLinx website equates to 219Kwh. BG charge 0.0773p for the first 433kWh (0.04357p there after).

So technically the last 24hrs has cost me £16.92 :eek: - something has to be wrong!!

No, the 219 kWh cost £9.54. Plus a standing charge - only about seven of them cost the extra 3.3p (which amounts to a daily standing charge of around 26p or 29p.) And they do not charge 0.04357p per kWh - you mean £0.04357 or 4.357p. You wouldn't be complaining if they were demanding only 9.54p per day!

As to usage - 11 hours a day is a long haul. At the same time averaging to 2.4 kW continually for each room is high although, unfortunately, not impossible in winter. How warm are the rooms? How warm is the area where the main thermostat is set? Do you have thermometers to measure the temperature in a room rather than what the system is demanding? Are all the radiators being used for all 11 hours or are some of them turned down?

oldskoo1

We moved from a 4 to 5 bed but it is much larger over 3 floors and has 20 rads. When we first moved in the rads were horribly imbalanced, the stat never reached temp, boiler running constantly, living rooms cold, it was a mess and we burnt through a lot of gas.

After balancing the radiators myself and setting the trvs correctly it made a huge difference. Before believe it or not the boiler would be on for 2 hours or more In a morning, now it's less than an hour. I've tweaked the last radiators in the loop that don't have trvs to be nearly fully open and now our boiler doesn't even cycle on/off so all the heat is being extracted and or flow is fast enough.

I strongly suggest you check
- balancing
- setting trvs correctly 2.5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1 unused rooms, 3.5 living rooms
- make sure valves by stat is fully open
- think about your main stat setting
- check boiler is near max output

Our main stat is only at 16.5 but it's in a very large hall. That gives sufficient time to heat the living rooms to 21c and bedrooms 18-19c as per trvs.

Considering we burnt through loads of gas and it never got warm, the system was running constantly when we moved in. Now it's on from 6am to 10pm to suit our needs and we are using 4.50 per day, 5.50 when it gets a bit colder and £7 below freezing.

I thought I'd add my experiences as I can't comment on yours but perhaps you can take something away from how we've tweaked our system.

Ps
We also moved from an older house to a newer supposedly more efficient house. The greater efficiency isn't as relevant when the rooms and overall space is much larger. Just make sure your system is setup efficiently and running well and it could half the time the boiler runs for, it did for us.

bluebaron

I also moved in August to a large 1920's house. It has UPVC windows and had a new fully insulated roof 10 years ago. The boiler is 30 years old but regularly serviced. I cook on electric so gas is only for heating and hot water.

9aug-19 sep - 68 units £102 (£2.49 aday) Heating off totally for period
20 sep - 20 Oct - 76 units £110 (3.67 a day) some heating
20 Oct - 05 Dec - 238 £333 (7.24 a day) heating on

I run my heating and hot water from 06:30-0900 and 16:00-2200.

I was shocked at how much my bill was for he last 46 days £333!!!

and not even cooking with it. I am serially considering a new boiler asap.

Anyone want to take a guess of what savings a new grade A boiler would save me with this usage?

sups

Nada666

My bill actually says:
Cost of first 433.00kWh used at 7.730p = £33.47
Cost of next 6056.96kWh used at 4.357p = £263.90

there is line further down that says:
Standing charge
23 Nov 13 - 26 Nov 13
4 days at 24.770p/day

that's were my figures came from - but I don't fully understand the numbers on the bill 100%

I haven't check how warm the rooms are. the thermostat is in the hallway which is the coldest area and its set to 21.5 degrees.
This lets the rooms warm up to around 22/23 degrees - I'm just guessing here, I don't have a thermometer but I think I'll invest in a few.

All my rads are on for the full 11hrs with two of them turned down slightly, the UFH is on for an extra 3hrs.

I'm not include heating up of my tank because i make sure that i do that while the heaters are on, so no extra demand on the boiler.

The boiler itself was set to 75 degrees, which i turned down to 55degress last night - just to see how that goes.

oldskoo1

55 is too cold, needs to be 68-75... Hotter in winter.

Stat is too high for cold hall

Turn down radiators in rooms that aren't used much - they don't all need to be 23. Only 3 out of 20 of mine are on full.

Set realistic temps for bedrooms

Balance the radiators. The boiler is a decent modulating 90% efficient condensing boiler. You need the system set up correctly.

If the stat is in a cold hall and set too high it will leak heat like a sieve be constantly on and never able to reach temp especially with a boiler flow of 55. That isn't even hot enough to satisfy your hot water.

In response to the person with the 30 year old boiler. This is a 90% efficient model and look what it's causing. If set up well and installed correctly it should yield a decent saving but if your house is drafty, leaks heat and lacks insulation this is a much bigger factor.