Energy usuage and prices

crookey5389

How often/long do people have their central heating on and how much do you pay each month? I will give you some back ground to why I would like to know....


My first house was a mid terrace new build. I hardly put the heating on, just to dry the washing and I managed to get away with paying no more than about £45 a month for both gas and electricity!!!


In the summer I moved into a large Edwardian semi-detached house with high ceilings. I have been putting the central heating on for 2/3 hours an evening, keeping unused radiators on low and I am paying £124 a month. Naively I didn't realise my usuage would be different. I have realised it is cheaper to put the fire on instead for a few hours and an electric radiator in the back room where the washing is drying, than putting the central heating on. I can afford to pay this, but I'm worried it willl cause issues in the future i.e when I will need to buy a new car, and my husband and I wanted to have our first baby next year but I am worried how we can do this if we can't afford to put the heating on for a long time.


So how much are people paying? Is £124 (about £3 a day) a fair amount to pay for just having heating on for 3 hours? Also taking my circumstances into account. My dad says he has his heating on 24/7; his house never goes below 19 degrees and they are only paying about £5 a day.


Thanks - it is really worrying me!

molerat

crookey5389 wrote: »

My first house was a mid terrace new build.



In the summer I moved into a large Edwardian semi-detached house with high ceilings.

Two completely different ends of the housing spectrum there. You cannot compare a modern well insulated low ceilinged house with an old high ceilinged probably poorly insulated one. I live in a 1980s 3 bed detached in N Scotland, have the heating on 24/7 in winter with rooms set to between 18 and 20 degrees, and my daily gas use generally varies between £2 and £3 and might push to £4 in a really sub zero spell. The problem you will have is that heat rises and with a high ceiling a lot goes up there and takes more energy to heat the lower space which you occupy. All you can do is look at the insulation and reduce draughts, you probably have larger windows as well so heavy curtains may help at night.

System

Hi - welcome to the forum. The answer - I am afraid - is in your question. Your mid terrace new build was a well sealed/insulated box sitting between two other well sealed boxes. Your new home would appear to be big, and not particularly well insulated. In simple terms, a room will only reach 20C and stay there when the heat coming into it equals the loss of heat from it. Comparisons are to be avoided as no two homes are the same and people use energy in different ways.

The way to get your bills down is to look at ways of reducing heat loss. Apply the KISS principle. A heavy curtain behind the front door may well save you a few £s each year. Other, more expensive, improvements include topping up your loft insulation; checking your wall insulation and going for replacement windows.

It is also worth bearing in mind that turning on CH for 3 hours is not very efficient if the fabric of the house is cold. The boiler will run at full output until the set temperature is reached: once reached, the boiler output will reduce to maintain the set temperature.

crookey5389

Yeah we have heavy curtains in the living room and over the front door. We are using draught excluders. Our loft is well insulated but obviously do not have wall insulation which we could look into. The temperature never reaches its set temperature; if I waited until it did the heating would be on all evening, probably costing at least £7 a day. I cant believe we didnt think this would happen.