British Gas costs and usage.

JimBob87

Hi all,

Looking at switching from BG soon as finding them rather expensive but wanted to run some things past the forums which have had me scratching my head many a time.

to sum it up...

- Me and partner moved into our small, 2 bed, terraced property last August.
- Property had a old back boiler, so ripped out and had a brand new central heating system fitted (combi boiler in loft and new rads throughout entire house.
- Our central heating and hot water is the only utility fuelled by gas and thats it.

- No bills are estimated, i provide readings once a month to BG.
- As of March our heating is now on approx 5hrs mon-fri and 6hrs on the weekend. We use hot water in the evenings for washing up and bath/showers every day.

Since our last bill i've been reading the gas meter every couple of days and noting the unit reading, i've done this from 6th of March to 6th of April.
Bearing the above in mind (only 2 of us, house size etc and amount heating is on) i've calculated the cost of our gas this month using my last bill from BG.
Its coming out around £60+ a month using a total of 128 units of gas for the month. Thats just over 4 units a day.

Can someone tell me if this sounds correct? Can 5 hrs of heating, washing up once/twice and showering in the evening really use this amount of units.

Ive compared this to family and friends who live in similar size properties, or 3/4/5 bedroom houses which are 2/3 times the size of ours and they either pay about the same as us or less but have their heating on for double the amount of time we do?

Im a bit confused so just wanted to see what you all think before i call BG and attempt to find a better/cheaper deal from another supplier. Is it possible that there may be an issue somewhere?

Many Thanks

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Assuming you have a metric meter, that's about 1428 KWh, perfectly normal for the time of year. If this weather holds, expect that to at least halve going forward.

Of course you could save money by getting the cheapest possible deal, are you on standard tariff with BG? It's their most expensive.

JimBob87

Thanks for your reply.

yes it is all metric. Glad to hear you think this is all normal, ive got nothing too concrete to really compare it against so ive never been 100%. Thank you.

Yes i am on the standard tariff which is why i want to to change tariff or supplier but wanted to check all this out first.

:j

dogshome

As already posted, it's not good to be on BG's 'Standard' tariff, (or any other suppliers)

The good news is that you a history of accurate bills, which though they don't give a full years history, give you enough data for an accurate Switch

Add up the Kwh consumption on the 6 months Winter bills, then deduct 80% and call that your summer consumption - Add the two together and it will close to your yearly Gas figure for use on the Switch sites.
Your Electric will only vary by around 20% Winter to Summer, so do the annual sum on that basis

Your comment about other bigger houses may be true, but only because of INSULATION - How good is your loft insualtion/Windows (& Cavity walls if you have them

macman

Remember that you can use up to 80% of your annual gas consumption during the coldest 3 months, so your usage will drop hugely once the heating goes off in a month or so. Your £60 per month average is not a year round average.
But even if it was, that is still quite low.

wavelets

macman wrote: »

... Your £60 per month average is not a year round average.
But even if it was, that is still quite low.

£60 pm on gas "quite low"? :huh:

Average gas consumption is 13500kWh per year.
No MSE'er should be paying more than about £500 pa or £42 pm for that.

[Deleted User]

Stick with BG but switch, via the Cheapenergyclub with £30 cashback,to Sainsburys Energy on a dual fuel one year direct debit fix for a 20% reduction on BG standard tariff.

macman

wavelets wrote: »

£60 pm on gas "quite low"? :huh:

Average gas consumption is 13500kWh per year.
No MSE'er should be paying more than about £500 pa or £42 pm for that.

Correct, I had read the £60 DD as covering a dual fuel account, not just the gas.

gazapc

Comparing useage against other houses is not much help unless they are of a similar build. The terrace house may be small but if it has solid single skin walls with single glazed windows and no loft insulation then it could easily require more heating than a much bigger super modern insulated large 4 bed family home.

macman

Even comparing identical properties, with identical insulation, is completely pointless. Different people have totally different hours of usage, and different temperature preferences. Turn the heating up 1C compared to the neighbour and you can add 10% to the heating bill.