Recently moved house - gas usage seems high

girlxface

Hi all


Looking for some advice. Have recently moved into new rental property. It has a combi boiler so has gas central heating and hot water. In my previous properties I have had electric heating and warm air heating so nothing to compare usage to first hand. I live in a small two bedroom mid terraced property with 1 adult (me) and a child.


During the week I am at work 8am - 3:30pm so I have had the heating on a timer. It comes on for an hour in the morning (which is when I heat water too), and then from 3:30pm - 5:30pm and from 7:30pm to 9pm, I sometimes boost the hot water in the evening if a bath is needed but not often.
According to the smart meter readings being sent through to British Gas online portal (I am still awaiting an engineer to come out with my smart meter monitor) I have been using on average between 40 and 45kwh of gas per day during the week. Looking at other users threads this seems excessive considering it is off for most of the day? I thought I would expect that kind of kwh usage if in the house all day with heating on? Can anyone advise? I have my thermostat set to 18/19 so not super high either.




Many thanks

Carrot007

It does sound high.


You should take daily reads just in case BG are getting it wrong. (If something is going to go wrong with smart reads it will be the gas since it is not collected directly, mine has been wrong when I loggged on once). Even if they are right you then have your actuals in case of any doubt.


Also Why/How are you heating water when you have a combi boiler?

System

How 'new' is 'new'? Looking back at my recorded usage for the past week, I used 4CM3s on Monday and 4.5CM3s on Tuesday. Broadly, this equates to 45kWhs and 51kWhs or in cost terms £1.56 and and £1.75. I do not regard this as being in anyway excessive for heating and hot water.

Your kWh usage may well have been less in an electric property as electricity is 100% efficient whereas gas is not. However the inefficiency of gas is offset by the cost savings. My gas costs about 25 to 30% of the unit price for electricity.

wavelets

40-45kWh per week is not bad.

An average boiler (say 40,000 btu) burns almost 12kw per hour on full
Your combi boiler may be larger than this, but may not be operating on full

40-45kWh is only about 4 metric metered units.
If we get through November using 16 metered units of gas we'll be very happy indeed. ... or extremely cold

Edit: Oops sorry, you are using 40-45kWh per day:o
... so 7 times more than I originally assumed
But with the boiler on 4.5 hours per day, not excessive

Robin9

Not at all bad - 45kwh at 3p is £1.50 a day and £45 a month.


Just to make sure you do mean kwh and not m3 ? Gas meters are in m3 (or ft3) and not kwh like electric meters.

girlxface

Thanks all for your replies. Definitely meant kwh Robin9, this is what my BG portal shows


Okay so it's looking like 45kwh per day is not excessive, just me over reacting then. just wasn't sure what to expect with the gas central heating. The warm air heating in my last property was gas, but I use to have that on the same and use less, and I was always under the assumption warm air was more expensive so I think this is why I am shocked.


Carrot007 - I have a boiler control pad downstairs in my kitchen which I can set times for. I assumed this relates to my combi boiler, so I set both the CH and hot water from here. I do have an immersion heater in the boiler cupboard but has never been switched on at the plug since I moved in. I assumed the hot water relates to the combi boiler also? Sorry like I say I've never used one before so still getting my head around how to use it etc.

girlxface

Oops sorry, tried to attached a picture but it wouldn't let me.

[Deleted User]

I dont think 45 kwh s a day in the cold weather is excessive at all. That was my daily average in the winter months from November to April. My yearly use last year was 12000 kwhs and nearly all of that of that was in that period with hardly any used May to October.
You do not need a smart monitor at all. You already have the figures from the meter. Multiply the metric units used by 11.2 to get to kwhs.. The cheaper you can get the kwh tariff the lower the bill.Then look at daily standing charges which can be anything from £50 to £100 a year. In other words , shop around for the best current fixed deals

girlxface

Houbara wrote: »

I dont think 45 kwh s a day in the cold weather is excessive at all. That was my daily average in the winter months from November to April. My yearly use last year was 12000 kwhs and nearly all of that of that was in that period with hardly any used May to October.
You do not need a smart monitor at all. You already have the figures from the meter. Multiply the metric units used by 11.2 to get to kwhs.. The cheaper you can get the kwh tariff the lower the bill.Then look at daily standing charges which can be anything from £50 to £100 a year. In other words , shop around for the best current fixed deals

Hi Houbara


I know all of that, the query was just because I wasn't sure if that sort of kwh figure per day was high or not, considering I am out most of the day. When you say that was your daily winter average, are you at home with heating on during the day for this? Or is it similar to my situation?
Thanks

System

girlxface wrote: »

Hi Houbara


I know all of that, the query was just because I wasn't sure if that sort of kwh figure per day was high or not, considering I am out most of the day. When you say that was your daily winter average, are you at home with heating on during the day for this? Or is it similar to my situation?
Thanks

Don't kid yourself into believing that being out of the house for 7 hours will save you a lot of energy/money. It very much depends on the level of insulation in your home, and the outside air temperature. I have a 24kW boiler that for the first 30 minutes of each day is at maximum output. My monitor shows that my gas consumption in the first hour was 0.83CM3s or 9.31kWhs just to get my home up to temperature. Since then my boiler has been ticking along at a consumption rate of 0.13Cm3s/hour or 1.6kWhs/ per hour to keep my home at 20C(upstairs and down). We have a hot water cylinder as opposed to a combi which re-heats before the heating comes on. This used 0.16CM3s/1.8kWhs this morning. I had a shower after I got up so further cylinder re-heating is included in the first hour's CH figure (0.83CM3s) above. So far today, we have used 2.30CM3s or 25.8kWhs for heating and HW.

The point that I am trying to make is that if you live in a property which is not well insulated, you will end up with two first hour's of heating usage/costs as your home heats up again late in the afternoon. Yes, you will have saved a few kWh/pence by having your heating off but not that much. Modern gas boilers are designed to become more efficient when a property is at a stable temperature. The boiler modulates down and the flow temperature falls. At the moment, my downstairs radiators are barely warm to the touch and my boiler has a flow temperature of less than 50C.

I am not trying to re-open the annual debate on 'is it cheaper to leave my CH on all day': all homes are different as are people's lifestyles.

D_M_E

Try cutting your ON times by half hour each and reduce the tep by at least 2 degrees - this should reduce your gas usage.

That said, your consumption seems normal, given that the boiler has to warm up the water 3 times for the rads.

Also try wearing a pullover if you feel the temp is a little cool - could be a lot cheaper than firing up the boiler.