Appear to be using a lot of gas? Can someone take a look?

bflare

I have just moved into a 2/3 bed bungalow from a 1 bed apartment & I expected to use a lot more energy especially as my father moved in & is there throughout the day. Not sure what the boiler is apart from it looks pretty old & it is a Baxi. There is also a water tank in one of the cupboards which I am guessing is for storing hot water?


There are 6 radiators & I have turned 3 of them off. There is also a living flame gas fire in the lounge. I have took a reading every 24 hours for a few days & we are using 3 ft3 of gas per day which at first I thought was very little until I realised I had to convert this into kWh! This converts to 94Kwh which is a lot I assume. I multiplied this by 352 days per year & put that in to a comparison site & it said I would be using around £125 per month duel fuel. Then I realised that the heating will not be on constantly thought-out the year so my experiment is probably not very accurate. So I have a few questions:


1) Is there a percentage or factor that I can use for the gas to work out how much will be used approximately through the winter months vs summer?
2) Would it be cheaper to have the gas fire on in the lounge through the day time when I am at work but my father is at home?

PeterGr

It is tricky to extrapolate annual consumption from a few days consumption. Suggest you keep taking weekly readings and you will soon build a better picture.. Also age of boiler, having hot water storage, and your occupation patterns all influence consumption.


Your summer consumption for 6 months may only be 10 - 15%, which means the average winter month is about 15%. But November is likely to be nearer 10%, and Jam / Feb up to 20%.

AndyPK

make sure you are converting from


ft to kwh
not
m to kwh


I quickly came up with a rule of thumb for calculating costs in this thread.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5922133/how-to-predict-annual-gas-elec-usage-3-months-in&highlight=

Robin9

As has been said read your meters at least weekly and you will get a better picture. £125 is not a lot of money for a winter month.

Have you looked at what tariff the property is on ?

bflare

PeterGr wrote: »

It is tricky to extrapolate annual consumption from a few days consumption. Suggest you keep taking weekly readings and you will soon build a better picture.. Also age of boiler, having hot water storage, and your occupation patterns all influence consumption.


Your summer consumption for 6 months may only be 10 - 15%, which means the average winter month is about 15%. But November is likely to be nearer 10%, and Jam / Feb up to 20%.

I will take weekly readings from now on, thanks.

bflare

AndyPK wrote: »

make sure you are converting from


ft to kwh
not
m to kwh


I quickly came up with a rule of thumb for calculating costs in this thread.


https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5922133/how-to-predict-annual-gas-elec-usage-3-months-in&highlight=

Thanks for that rule of thumb! That makes a lot of sense & helps a lot.

bflare

Robin9 wrote: »

As has been said read your meters at least weekly and you will get a better picture. £125 is not a lot of money for a winter month.

Have you looked at what tariff the property is on ?

I have moved from a 1 bed flat which was costing me £46 / month for duel fuel so I guess I was basically on the very very low end that's why £125 is feeling a lot to me although I factored in £100 a month for gas / electricity so taking into account the summer months with very little heating used I may not be far off which I will be happy with.


The property was supplied by Eon which I did not know until a letter came through. By that time I had changed the supplier to Ovo which I used in my old place & I was happy with there service.

ajbell

94 kwh a day in November is ok if you are keeping the house warm, it's only about 8 units.Around £2.80 a day on my tariff.

[Deleted User]

bflare wrote: »

The property was supplied by Eon which I did not know until a letter came through. By that time I had changed the supplier to Ovo which I used in my old place & I was happy with there service.

This is ringing alarm bells to me.
So when you legally became responsible for the property, who did you give your energy opening readings to?
E.ON or OVO or someone else?
You know that the property went it became your responsibility had a deemed energy supplier and you had to get in contact with them to open an account before switching to whom ever you wanted. (the deemed energy supplier is whoever supplied the last owner/tenant)

bflare

gsmlnx wrote: »

This is ringing alarm bells to me.
So when you legally became responsible for the property, who did you give your energy opening readings to?
E.ON or OVO or someone else?
You know that the property went it became your responsibility had a deemed energy supplier and you had to get in contact with them to open an account before switching to whom ever you wanted. (the deemed energy supplier is whoever supplied the last owner/tenant)

I asked the estate agent if I had to use the energy supplier from the previous tenants & she said no. I didn't know who the supplier was so when I cancelled the energy from my old flat & told them I was moving it asked if I would like to use hem for the new property so I just said yes. It wasn't until I found a letter from Eon saying "to the occupier" that I knew it Eon.


What should I do? Should I phone Eon up & cancel the new supplier Ovo? I have not given anyone any meter readings yet although I do have them.

Robin9

bflare wrote: »

I asked the estate agent if I had to use the energy supplier from the previous tenants & she said no. I didn't know who the supplier was so when I cancelled the energy from my old flat & told them I was moving it asked if I would like to use hem for the new property so I just said yes. It wasn't until I found a letter from Eon saying "to the occupier" that I knew it Eon.


What should I do? Should I phone Eon up & cancel the new supplier Ovo? I have not given anyone any meter readings yet although I do have them.

The Estate Agent was correct.

I don't see why it shouldn't proceed with Ovo - they will be in touch asking for readings