Gas only used for heating. Switch tarrif twice a year? other ideas?

Lum

Apologies if I come across as a bit of a newbie here, but having recently (August) escaped from an LPG-heated house and gaining a choice of tarrifs, it's taking me a while to get up to speed.

What I've done so far is switched from Swalec to British Gas, who then refused to swap the pre-pay meters for credit meters (apparently you need an Experian credit score >930 according to the guy in their call centre, mine was only 850), so switched to EDF who are swapping them on Nov 26th. If necessary I plan to switch again.

Got British Gas coming to do my cavity wall insulation on 9th December.

Boiler is a Main Combi Eco 25 with no controls, other than a basic on/off timer. I'm running the water temperature at 80 degrees with the TRVs set to their lowest setting, however the house was still too bloody hot (24C) so I fitted one of those fancy Nest thermostats, not the most economical option at 180 quid, but it's a fun little gadget, and I like the idea of being able to set the temperature from a mobile phone app without getting out of bed.

House was built in the 60s, has exterior walls made of concrete slabs, with the entire top floor exterior walls being covered in roof tiles. Loft insulation is about a foot thick, walls haven't been done yet.

Made a little spreadsheet where I'm doing meter readings every couple of days, and gives me a breakdown of costs, including how much of it is the standing charge.

It turns out that for the last 3 1/2 months, I've used a grand total of 8kWh of gas, which on EDF's standard tariff is 11p/month, with a standing charge of £7.50/month! I've literally used more gas in the 3 days between turning the heating on, and fitting this thermostat than I have since moving in to this place at the start of August.

This makes sense as the shower is electric, and the dishwasher is electric, so the only hot water used for 6-8 months of the year is for washing the odd dish and our faces in the morning. Both me and my girlfriend work from home so we do tend to have the heat on during the day as well.

So what I'm wondering is, is it worth switching to a no-standing-charge tarrif (such as Ebico) in March, and then the following November switch again to a provider with a cheaper kWh rate and a standing charge?

Is there any reason why I shouldn't do this? So far I've had no real problems switching, but then that was on pre-pay which doesn't really care so long as you keep feeding it money for your overpriced gas.

Anything else I've missed out or should be doing?

jbuchanangb

I find it hard to believe that you have only used 8KwH gas in 3.5 months. The gas meter does not read KwH, it reads either cu.metres or 100s of cu.ft.
Running only the pilot light on my boiler consumes about 100KwH each month in the summer, roughly 300 cu.ft or 9 cu.m.
Maybe your boiler doesn't have a pilot light, which could explain things.

There's no reason not to switch gas only to a no standing charge tariff in March and back to a different one in September, but a lot of tariffs have cancellation charges if you don't stay the distance.

You'd also have to factor in whether you are switching both electricity and gas, or just gas. You might lose out on dual fuel discounts.

Lum

There doesn't seem to be a pilot light on the boiler. There's certainly no manual lighting, and when the hot water kicks in there's that wonderful wompf sound that you get when lighting a flame. Edit: Boiler specs here.

You are, correct about my usage though. The meter reads in m³ now kWh, so after a bit of googling I apparently need to multiply my numbers by 11.16382.

Even so that means I'm paying £2.50/month in gas and £7.50 a month in standing charge. Thank you for pointing out my error though as that would have mucked up my budget somewhat! (Told you I was new to this!)

Edit: Here's my numbers so far, do they look right?

CashStrapped

A no standing charge tariff only makes sense if you have spend large periods of the year away from the property, or you are a very very light user.

For normal to heavy users, tariffs with standing charges will usually be more competative these days. The standing charge thing can be a bit of a red herring and you should not be distracted by it.

As you only have a limited amount of usage data, you have no annual figures to go by. So, you should initially use UK average figures to make a baseline best guess comparison.

UK average for gas is around 16,000KWH
UK average for electric is around 4000KWH.

Use these in a comparison site like energyhelpline.com and compare to your current tariffs and see where you are at.

Regarding your house being too hot and best use of controls.

This suggests you have the thermostat set too high, or at least an imbalance in how you have it all set-up.

Read this to understand how all your controlls work.

http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/domestic/content/thermostats-and-controls

For the boiler, I usually have it set so that the hot water from the taps only requires a small amount of cold water (if any at all) when you have a bath. If the hot water is so hot that it burns you and requires a lot of cold mixing in, it is far too hot.

Lum

At the time the house was too hot, I didn't have a thermostat, just TRVs which were set on their lowest settings. I now have a nice thermostat and am running at 20C.

You're right that I don't have much usage data, we only moved in in August, but I do know that from when the gas meter was replaced (mid-August) until the night before I actually gave in and switched on the heating, we'd only used 8 M³ or 88kWh. I was putting about a tenner a month into the meter of which £7.50 was standing charge!

I suspect now that we do have a thermostat there will be more usage in October and March, unless we get really stingy and just turn the heating off again.

Baths aren't an issue, as we both only get showers so during the warm times of year it's literally just washing hands&face as the only use of hot water from the boiler. I have the hot water set to 50C as any higher actives an "intelligent pre-heat" feature that causes it to heat the water at the same time next day, useless for us as we have unpredictable schedules.

Still getting conflicting search results about the optimum water temperature for the central heating, with some saying it should be lower for a condensing boiler, and others saying it should be higher so the radiators work more efficiently and allow the boiler to shut off quicker.

CashStrapped

The bath thing was just an example for hot water temperature. Some people have it burning hot and mix in loads of cold just to get to the right temperature etc.

You are correct about condensing boilers. If yours is a condensing boiler, they work by extracting heat from the waste gases by condensating it on a heat exchanger. It operates more efficiently the cooler you are able to run your central heating system. This allows the water vapor to more easily condense on the heat exchanger. If it is too hot, it will fail to condense.

Some boilers will tell you when they are operating in the "most efficient" window. It all depends on how your system is set-up.

In the mean time, use those average yearly figures and see what tariffs you have available to you and if you are on the cheapest available.

Lum

Hmm, so I should lower the central heater temperature even more? Currently it's set to 70.

Right now I know for a fact I'm not on the cheapest tarrif. The only available rate for pre-pay is the standard tarrif, but at least I'm getting the meters swapped for free.

Hopefully by then I'll have a bit more data, and I guess should re-assess it around May or June next year when I have more figures for warmer times of year.

Only thing I really need to hear now is if switching is still as much of a horror story now as it used to be way back when. I've already had one issue with EDF who ignored the meeter reading I gave them, 1, and put it down as 100, but they said not to worry about it since it's pre-pay.

AndyPK

Hot water temp is usually controlled to 65c

I don't think I would be switching tariffs more than once a year. It can be painfull and take 2+ months.
They are also changing so much that you don't know what's going to be available in 6 months and you could end up loosing rather than winning.

Just use https://www.energyhelpline.com to work out the best price over 12 months.

I would set your nest to be 17 during daylight hours.
Then 18 from 3:30pm
Then 20? From 5:30pm

jbuchanangb

You're right, you haven't got a pilot light, you've got an electronic igniter.

I have an ancient boiler (22 years old) energy rating worse than G. But I also have a solar panel hot water system, hence I do not use the boiler to heat water in the summer.
The gas boiler heats the tank to 55 degrees. On hot days the solar power heats it to 75. After a couple of cloudy days the electric immersion heater holds it at 45.

I paid £7 for my gas service in September, of which about £3.50 was standing charge and £3.50 was the gas itself. I am forecasting using 12633 KwH over 12 months, and paying (excluding 5% VAT) £480, of which £46 will be standing charge and £434 for the gas.

Obviously the standing charge seems disproportionate in the summer, but, as others have said, you should really always take a 12-month perspective.

Pincher

Looks like you are in a very well insulated house any way.


I would just have more baths using hot water from the combi, to benefit from the cheaper gas per kWh.


I think you are suffering from lack of economy of scale.
A family of four pays exactly the same standing charge as you do. It IS annoying, but the same goes for the car, etc. Living alone is NOT efficient, and therefore ILLOGICAL, captain.

r2015

A family of four pays exactly the same standing charge as you do. It IS annoying, but the same goes for the car, etc. Living alone is NOT efficient, and therefore ILLOGICAL, captain.

Completely agree, it costs the same to heat the house with 2 people in it than 4, as I have found out since my children have left home.

Even the electricity usage did not go down all that much.