Gas and Electricity Usage

Emma137

and electric

MWT

If we go by the 2001 date on that gas meter it has been running at a rate of around 36,000 kWh per year from the start, so it doesn't look like a new issue whatever it is.

Talldave

July consumption shouldn't be that high, unless a hot tap was on all month!

MWT

Talldave said:

July consumption shouldn't be that high, unless a hot tap was on all month!

I don't disagree, but whatever it is, the problem doesn't seem to be new...

Gerry1

What was the result of the switch off test?

Emma137

I havent done a switch off test but have been home alone all day today and neither meter has moved much at all today. The electric meter has moved more but I've hoovered the whole house. Very little movement on the gas.
I've emailed Ovo to tell them my concerns aswell

Petriix

Did you say that the shower is running off the gas boiler? Roughly how long do you think you are running hot water for on an average day (including all baths, showers, washing up etc.)?

With a 30kW boiler on for 90 minutes per day you could use in excess of 1000kWh per month just on hot water. Does your daughter spend ages in the shower or have multiple baths per day?

Is it possible that you've been running the heating early in the morning while you're still asleep? You'd almost certainly benefit from a smart thermostat and connected smart TRVs on all the radiators to help you to only heat the rooms you need, when you need to.

Emma137

We all have a daily shower - 3 of us. None of spend ages in there. We run the dishwasher once a day and wash up the odd thing throughout the day,
The heating is turned off. All radiators have  trv's on them. 

Petriix

They'd have to be 'smart' TRVs to be able to help save energy, unless you want to be running around turning them up and down throughout the day.

Something is definitely not adding up. Three showers per day equates to maybe 300kWh per month so no clue as to how you've used another 700kWh without using the heating.

Try turning the boiler off and taking a photo of the meter and then leave it for a few hours and take another photo before turning it back on; then run the shower for 10 minutes and take another photo to get a clear picture of whether it's accurately recording what you're using. Also see if you can find the make and model of your boiler.

matelodave

Emma137 said:

We all have a daily shower - 3 of us. None of spend ages in there. We run the dishwasher once a day and wash up the odd thing throughout the day,
The heating is turned off. All radiators have  trv's on them. 

What do you consider "ages" - 3, 5, 10 mins or longer - try timing yourselves just to see how long you really take - I can manage a full shower and hair wash in 90 seconds, my wife take three minutes (even less when we are in our caravan when we can shower using just 8 litres of hot water mixed with some cold). I'm not suggesting that yo try doing it the caravan way but it's surprising how long people do spend in the shower without noticing. Try setting a five minute timer.
 
A deluge type of shower can dump 150 litres of water in ten minutes, if three of you do it then that's over 400 litres of water and the boiler flogging away at potentially  25-30kwh for half an hour, that could account for around 10kwh a day (300/month) or more before you use anything else.

Combi boilers run at full blast when a hot tap is turned on - even just to rinse your hands or a couple of dishes so ideally you should avoid short run-offs as you are not only wasting the cold water that you pull through but also the hot water that then sits in the pipes getting cold.