LPG - how many litres do you use per year

caracraven

Hi all. We recently moved into a house with LPG, and coming from a house on mains gas, I was prepared for higher bills having been advised that LPG generically costs around 50% more overall.
We've been in since 1st November, and have already used 3100 litres. We have the heating on for a total of 8 hours over the morning and evening, at 19 degrees, and the house is 1775 square feet in total, which is 4 bed cottage, not overly large rooms in the main. The family are very limited to their use of hot water as I'd rather be warm than spotlessly clean!
I'm wondering what other people's experiences are with the volume of LPG they use if anyone is happy to share (I realise there are a lot of variables involved with making comparisons).
I think we've got a reasonable price on our gas at 31.5ppl, so to have spent nearly £1000 in 3 months is totally unsustainable for us. I know it will go down over summer, but I only spent £500-600 a year in my old house which was a lot bigger, although admittedly a little better insulated.

collectors

I have a 4-5 bed bungalow with 11 rads, 2 towel rails,160lt hot water tank & gas hob, i use about £125-£130.00 per month in the winter & on for about 7 hours a day, & around £50-00 in the summer for hot water & hob.
I had a normal gas meter fitted wile the boiler was being serviced so i could see more accurately what i was using as my tank has a silly gauge that is like an old style petrol gauge, "new meter is a big help".
Your are also on a good price for LPG at the moment..
Sounds like you need to find out how long your boiler is running every day & it might need a good service to see if its running efficiently. .

thozza

When we first moved to our 2,300 sq ft house, which is a large, detached and over 150 years old with solid brick walls, we were using 6,500l per year, of this 4,500l went on space heating and hot water, the rest on running an LPG AGA. Our heating/hot water (excluding the AGA) usage was split approximately 15-20l per day in winter and 2-5l per day in summer.

We were running the heating 2 hours in the morning and 4 hours at night, the AGA also gave background heat.

We managed to cut our usage by increasing the insulation in the roof, and changing the windows for A rated units, eventually we changed the boiler for a biomass condensing model.

Your usage of 3100l in 90 days would suggest that you are consuming around 35l per day or 217kWh per day, which seems excessive (it is over double our daily kWh usage over the same period).

Have you compared your consumption with the figures given on the EPC for the house (assuming that you have just purchased it?), there is a guideline figure given under the last section 'your homes heat demand'.

It could be that your house is badly insulated or draughty, in which case these are things to tackle straight away at fairly minimal outlay. If not, then it might be a problem with the boiler or radiator system as Collectors mentioned, or potentially a leak, although the smell of LPG is quite pungent, so you'd probably notice.

caracraven

Thank you both for sharing your experiences - it really helps me to gauge where we are at. I will go away and compare our use with the suggestions on the EPC too. We couldn't afford new windows, but will look at other areas for draught proofing/insulation.

Thozza - what are your experiences with biomass? Is it onerous to use? What are the pros and cons?

thozza

We have had a good experience with biomass, however we installed our boiler when the RHI payments were at their highest, the subsidy now is quite a lot smaller, which makes the payback longer (they are much more expensive to purchase than LPG boilers). We have a manual fill boiler, so have to purchase pellets in bags, not particularly convenient, but it does give us exercise. We didin't really have room for a bulk pellet store.

Costs per kWh are comparable to LPG for us at around 5.5p, but given the initial outlay is over £6,000, I wouldn't be buying one now with the lower RHI subsidy, when an LPG condensing boiler is less than £1,000.