£400 for one month Gas

ireynolds1982

Hi all.
We recently moved into a 4 bed Bungalow - bigger than our last house.
We estimated that our bills would grow from approx £70 a month combined to around £160 / £200 at a push in winter.

The new place has gas C/H through a non combi boiler, and gas hob. Everything else is electric.

Once we got in, we shopped around, and changed energy supplier to get the cheapest for the area.
As part of the change I provided the meter reading on the 18th December.
On the 1st Jan I gave another meter reading, then they estimated it (lower than actual) on the 18th January at a gas cost for the month of £350 :eek:

The Thermostat is set to 20 degrees, and the house never ever feels warm - I don;t think it can even get to 20 degrees.

I have checked the gas meter when the heating is off and it doesn't change.
I have had the boiler checked, and the guys said it's plenty big enough for the house (Vailant ecopro28e)

I have been up in the loft and added more insulation to make it over 300mm across most of the loft.

I simply can't understand why the house cannot warm up and the gas is just burning money.
Any ideas?

Could it be that the meter is not caliberated properly? It looks pretty new!

[Deleted User]

Check that the supplier has nt billed you for the wrong type of meter. This happens when you would have a metric meter measuring in cubic metres and they bill you as if you had an imperial meter which measures in cubic feet..It would be a bill inflated by approx 2.8 times..£400 bill would be £140

merchcon55

Can you let us know KW used from 18 December to 30 January - so around 6 weeks.

Give us an idea how many hours a day the boiler is on.

Unfortunately an older boiler can use A LOT of gas.

Few simple checks - are all radiators getting nice and hot all over?
See if any radiator hot just at top or just at bottom? See if any air in any radiator.

It is possible there is "sludge" in some of radiators - may need a power clean.

Are the radiators old or new? Possible you may need some replacements. Also - they could very well be undersized for the rooms.

We had an issue with heat in our kitchen - the room never got warm. Decided I would put in a radiator twice the size - PRESTO - nice warm kitchen !

It was one of the obvious "looks you right in the face" solutions.

Considering upgrading a couple of our radiators as although they get nice and hot, they are quite old type, and probably not as efficient as a new radiator would be

ireynolds1982

Thanks for the replies.

so far (since 18 dec) my meter has gone from
23813 (18/12) to
25159 (30/1)

I instantly thought it was the metric usage issue - and have checked, but the calculation they are using seems to be correct on the bill.

During this period I had the boiler on "all day setting" which was the only thing that could warm the house up past 15 degrees.
I've subsequently replaced the thermostat and controller with a hive system and it runs just in the morning (4:30 - 7:30am) -> (4:30 ->10:30pm) with a min setting of 16.5 otherwise it simply cant warm the house to a liveable (albeit in 2 jumpers) level.
Compare this to my old house where I had a combi boiler that was on 24/7 and the thermostat set to 23 degrees, and my bills were super low - very confused.

Most radiators are new. there's a couple of old ones that I've already flirted with the idea of replacing.
All of them heat up except one - which I have someone looking at on Friday - just wanted to get as much advice to fuel that conversation as possible.

If I go down the route of replacing rads, I will of course over size them -

I've bled all radiators- they are now all super hot all over. The same problems remain.

The boiler is about 7 years old. it's a condesing one - so shouldn't be that unefficient.

Think I've answered all questions

jk0

Bungalows are cold in winter. It's because all the rooms are spread out, rather than the bedrooms getting the waste heat from downstairs.


Any insulation in the walls?

ireynolds1982

Some walls are insulated, some are not. I'm wondering if it will make that much difference for the cost of external wall insulation.

The EPC guide we got with the house estimated (based on existing insulation) of £1200-1500 a year. which seems low to average...and in line with our estimates.

I just can't believe you can even spend £400 in a month on Gas!