How is my energy usage normal?

Abunting

Hello all!
As we are all acutely aware, energy prices are currently crippling the nation! It has however made me look really closely at my own energy consumption and question everything!

I have gone from paying £215 a month for combined energy in 2020 to now paying a whopping £670 a month being with EDF- transferred from a bankrupt green network energy.  

I’m just flawed with this…

Granted, £60 a month is to cover the debt on our account, which is a position we haven’t been in before but this still means A basic payment to keep the lights on so to speak is £610 a month. 

So, like I mentioned before, time to take a closer look….

We are in a 4 bed barn conversion. Old conventional gloworm boiler  from about 2005 and a gas Aga.

So our annual gas usage is ……: just a tad under 60,000 khw per annum.

Geez Louise indeed!

As you can imagine, Aga is now shut down never to see a hot pot again! Or not at least until the world becomes a little more reasonable. So even with the Aga off and central heating not on at all, on a very VERY  good day we are getting through about 80 khw a day. So this is just literally heating the water in a morning and an evening.

Can anyone give me any clues where I’m going wrong? Am I missing something? An average day in my home with heating coming on twice a day and Aga running was clocking up 200 khw in gas a day, I have improved this significantly by turning everything off but this isn’t sustainable through the winter. Is my boiler that crappy that it could be clocking up this much from just a couple of hours a day? 

Any discussion or advice would be greatly appreciated 

theoretica

Why do you need to heat the water both morning and evening? Is this because you are using the hot water, or the tank is losing heat through not being insulated enough.  How many litres of hot water do you use a day?  80kWh should heat a lot of water.

molerat

How are you working out your daily use ? One thing to check.  Find a bill and divide the kWh charged by units used, the answer will be either around 11 or 32.  Look at your gas meter and it will have either cu ft or m3 on the dial.  If m3 the answer in the calculation should be 11, if cu ft it should be 32.  If the wrong calculation is being used you could be paying for almost 3 times the amount of gas actually being consumed.

Abunting

I’m just looking at my smart meter reading in the EDF energy hub and it breaks down my daily gas and electricity consumption in kWh . It is about 4 days delayed but seems to be giving accurate updates 
thank you for that advice however, I shall be certainly checking this in the morning 

Abunting

theoretica said:

Why do you need to heat the water both morning and evening? Is this because you are using the hot water, or the tank is losing heat through not being insulated enough.  How many litres of hot water do you use a day?  80kWh should heat a lot of water.

Good point.. I don’t really know. Habit I guess. I will certainly be trying just heating up in the am and see if the heat is retained until later in the day.. thank you! 

Aylesbury_Duck

How well insulated is the barn conversion?  That would be the first thing I'd be looking at. £215 a month back in 2020 was a lot - I was paying a third of that for a four bedroomed house and even at today's prices, my consumption will cost me around £1500 a year.

Next is the hot water, and as advised above, does it need to be heated twice daily? Is the tank properly insulated and the pipes lagged?

Abunting

It’s a very old barn but converted in the late 90’s so yes things could certainly be updated but they aren’t completely prehistoric. Roof insulation is decent, the walls are approx 2 +ft thick stone so are naturally good insulators, The tank is pretty well lagged I’d say but unsure of the pipe work. I have already taken onboard the comment re the 2x water heating and have now reset the boiler.

with regards to the £215 bill, I’d absolutely dream about this price now! £670 is crippling! 

I’m hugely concerned about the winter and many of these cutbacks are just not going to be possible and the bills are only going one way! (Up)

Ultrasonic

molerat said:

How are you working out your daily use ? One thing to check.  Find a bill and divide the kWh charged by units used, the answer will be either around 11 or 32.  Look at your gas meter and it will have either cu ft or m3 on the dial.  If m3 the answer in the calculation should be 11, if cu ft it should be 32.  If the wrong calculation is being used you could be paying for almost 3 times the amount of gas actually being consumed.

^
Do check this @Abunting. Your gas usage may actually be a more believable 20,000 kWh per year.

BUFF

Abunting said:

 Is my boiler that crappy that it could be clocking up this much from just a couple of hours a day? 

Do you know if it is balanced flue or fan-flued? Condensing or non-condensing? What controls does your system have (these can make a surprising difference) - programmer/roomstat/TRVs?

What temperature is your hw tank thermostat set to?

Sadly, back in 2020 many of us will have been paying ~2p/kWh for gas & now the SVT is ~7.3p/kWh.

markin

2ft stone walls are good mass and radiate heat out over night, but they are Not good insulation. Unless they made a new stone wall with a cavity for insulation you need external or internal insulation.

Have you ever had a EPC or did you buy before they came out?

How big is the water tank if its using 80kwh /day

MWT

Abunting said:

So our annual gas usage is ……: just a tad under 60,000 khw per annum.

Yes, very high, but sadly, it could be accurate.

Do check the bill though, as you have a smart meter that will be measuring in m3 so just look at the last bill and check that the kWh divided by the number of units used comes out close to 11.2 as mentioned above.