About what should be the KwH usage for our all-electric bungalow?

jdal

We have a 6r old 3 bed all-electric bungalow and are using about 8000 KwH per year. I was wondering if that seems high? We have an air-source heat pump system. I can't find a site which will let me estimate what we should expect. I was wondering if there is something wrong with our system. We seem to be paying the same as our son who has a 5 bed Edwardian terrace!

grandadgolfer

jdal said:

We have a 6r old 3 bed all-electric bungalow and are using about 8000 KwH per year. I was wondering if that seems high? We have an air-source heat pump system. I can't find a site which will let me estimate what we should expect. I was wondering if there is something wrong with our system. We seem to be paying the same as our son who has a 5 bed Edwardian terrace!

Is your sons house a mix of gas/electric

Mstty

Hi, and welcome to the forum,

If the Air Source Heat Pump was fitted in the property as new and not retrofitted I would expect usage to be between 6000-8000kwh a year so you are at the upper end.

You may want to look at the settings and if there is a compensation curve to automatically adjust flow temp to heat the bungalow as the weather temp goes up and down outside.

You may also want to check you haven't got a separate immersion Tyler heater coming on to aid water heating in the tank and then adjust it to heat up once a day for an hour if there are only two of you.

How well have you got to know your ASHP or have you just left it on the settings it started with?

What make and model of ASHP do you have that may help if you want some help with energy savings on the heat pump👍 

QrizB

jdal said:

We have a 6r old 3 bed all-electric bungalow and are using about 8000 KwH per year. I was wondering if that seems high? We have an air-source heat pump system. I can't find a site which will let me estimate what we should expect. I was wondering if there is something wrong with our system.

When I had a three-bed semi with storage heaters, we were using around 9-10,000 kWh/yr. Mrs QrizB and me were young(er) and hardy(er) at the time so we might use more if we were in the same house today.

Since you've got a heat pump I'd expect your use to be less than that, but it does depend very much on how you've got your heating system set up. A badly-set-up heat pump is barely any more efficient than storage heaters are.

There are a few heat pump users on the forum (see eg. this thread) and hopefully one of them will start asking you about settings, setback and weather compensation shortly.

jdal

QrizB said:  .... A badly-set-up heat pump is barely any more efficient than storage heaters are.

....

Yeah, I was wondering. It's regularly serviced by a Grantt registered engineer, but I was thinking of getting Grantt out to check it.

[Deleted User]

Check your EPC, and then compare what the EPC states against your actual usage. My EPC states the following:

Heating use in this property

Heating a property usually makes up the majority of energy costs.

Estimated energy used to heat this property

Type of heating	Estimated energy used
Space heating	5647 kWh per year
Water heating	2222 kWh per year

Over the past 4 years, we have averaged out at 7800kWh/year ( a retired couple at home all day).

jdal

Mstty said:

If the Air Source Heat Pump was fitted in the property as new and not retrofitted I would expect usage to be between 6000-8000kwh a year so you are at the upper end.

You may want to look at the settings and if there is a compensation curve to automatically adjust flow temp to heat the bungalow as the weather temp goes up and down outside.

You may also want to check you haven't got a separate immersion Tyler heater coming on to aid water heating in the tank and then adjust it to heat up once a day for an hour if there are only two of you.

How well have you got to know your ASHP or have you just left it on the settings it started with?

What make and model of ASHP do you have that may help if you want some help with energy savings on the heat pump👍 

It's a Grantt system, fitted as part of the new build. It's been maintained by a local Grantt registered engineer. We've left the settings well alone. 

We have an immersion heater that is controlled by a thermostat, plus a once-a-week boost to 60 degrees to protect against Legionnaires. What I have noticed is that recently the cupboard housing the cylinder etc is getting warmer. I've ordered some pipe lagging as there are unlagged joints which get quite hot. Also we have a couple of cold taps which have started running warm for longer than usual. As I said in another reply I'm thinking of getting Grantt out to check the system over. I have installed a gas fired CH system in the olden days (1970s - guided by heating engineer father), so I'm not a complete beginner, but these systems have got me stumped!

jdal

ps - it's a Grant Aarona3

k_man

Also depends on your heating settings.
E.g is the room thermostat set to 22C 24/7, or 19C with setback to say, 16C overnight (these are for instances).

Also some people like to have windows open all year, even in winter, while heating us on.

This is assuming power used is mostly for heating.
Do you have monthly readings, to show the drop between winter and summer.
Your potentially high usage (although as above, 8000 seems about right) could be due to something else.

Finally, is the 8000 based on actual usage, or an estimated usage? The latter can be wide of the mark after changing providers.

jdal

Dolor said:

Check your EPC, and then compare what the EPC states against your actual usage. My EPC states the following:

..

Over the past 4 years, we have averaged out at 7800kWh/year ( a retired couple at home all day).

Thanks for that tip, ours says 

Space heating	4267 kWh per year
Water heating	2084 kWh per year

We are retired and in all day as well.

jdal

k_man said:

Also depends on your heating settings.
E.g is the room thermostat set to 22C 24/7, or 19C with setback to say, 16C overnight (these are for instances).

Also some people like to have windows open all year, even in winter, while heating us on.

This is assuming power used is mostly for heating.
Do you have monthly readings, to show the drop between winter and summer.
Your potentially high usage (although as above, 8000 seems about right) could be due to something else.

Finally, is the 8000 based on actual usage, or an estimated usage? The latter can be wide of the mark after changing providers.

Thanks for this. 8000 is accurate (ish), I keep a spreadsheet of meter readings. Heating 19/17. We keep windows closed. There are differences between Winter/Summer - daily usage is 30-35Kwh in winter,  13-20WwH in summer. I have just noticed a bit of a rise in the summer daily use. I need to analyse the data a bit more.