Monthly gas + electricity bill over £600 for 3 bedroom semi??

k_man

makara said:

Robin9 said:

@makara   You are well on the way in explaining the electric but what of the gas  which is not only high but excessive?    Do you run the house hot  -  over 20 and also day and night ?

Possibly we were doing so over winter and spring

- and yes possibly also through the night too

(my mother prefers using the Central Heating radiators to hang wet clothes on to to dry - rather than our tumble dryer...and being 80 and female she seems to feel the cold a lot)

However in terms of our Gas hob - she hardly ever uses it now, as due to her age and infirmity we now nearly always order delivered food - so I would have expected the gas costs to have come down / or at least neutralised with the hob getting hardly any use now.  

Or perhaps Central heating usage far outstrips Hob usage generally in terms of Gas?

Hob usage will barely register on most users gas bills a few % at most.
Gas hobs use around 1-2kWh per hour.
1 hour for a hob to on full would be unusual, but even if it was, and the same every day, that is still only a few hundred kWh.
The average gas usage is 10000 to 12000 kWh. Yours looks to 4x that.

Saving on gas cooking can be worth reviewing (turning down gas to simmer, lid on pots etc), but that is somewhere down the line.
Also worth noting, cooking on a gas hob is nearly always cheaper than electric over, microwave, or fancy electric powered countertop magic oven!

theoretica

What I think will be worth while is getting a MUCH more advanced control set up for your central heating.  Something that won't use energy keeping the whole house boiling just so the one room your mother is in is warm.  And definitely something that runs the boiler off a thermostat, not turning it on until it feels too hot.

Also, checking the basics of how good your loft insulation is, and for drafts.

markin

Are you saying the isn't a house thermostat? Is the boiler in the house? With that much gas, have a leak, or is it a huge house, 4 baths a day?


Your mother may have to have a free pass on the heater for now but don't ever use heat on the others.

As your brothers is rated at 1200w is it a portable A/C unit with a exit hose? That will use around 7kwh over 24hrs cooling, Worth every penny in my eyes, Some have electric heater elements but some can reveres the heat flow getting possibly 2 units of heat per kwh but probably still not worth it when you have gas, make model?

The year Elec average is 22 kwh a day! The 3 month Jul-Aug last year was 17.6 kwh a day.

BUFF

makara said:

My father passed away earlier this year. He always paid the gas and electricity and other utility bills, so this is all new to me. 

We have not yet informed any utility providers of his passing as we are still trying to deal with inheritance and probate etc. 

But his latest G and E bill from SSE / or rather from OVO who we have just been moved to is for over £600 for what I presume is just a month. 

My condolences. However, you really ought to tell the utilities (they have department/procedures for this) & his banks/building societies etc. (& I say this having gone through the whole rigmarole fairly recently myself).

Also, can you get your mother to dry her clothes in front of the radiator rather over it? It will have a noticeable effect on it's efficiency at heating the room.

makara

BUFF said:

My condolences. However, you really ought to tell the utilities (they have department/procedures for this) & his banks/building societies etc. (& I say this having gone through the whole rigmarole fairly recently myself).

Also, can you get your mother to dry her clothes in front of the radiator rather over it? It will have a noticeable effect on it's efficiency at heating the room.

Many thanks for the kind words - and I reciprocate.

I informed "OVO" yesterday, and they made my Mother the account holder / with me as "additional" account holder.

I informed his banks a while back.

Re. her drying the clothes - I suspect her goal is the speed the clothes get dried at (versus the rest of the room also being heated) - but I'll pass this on.  Thanks for the tip.

makara

markin said:

Are you saying the isn't a house thermostat? Is the boiler in the house? With that much gas, have a leak, or is it a huge house, 4 baths a day?


Your mother may have to have a free pass on the heater for now but don't ever use heat on the others.

As your brothers is rated at 1200w is it a portable A/C unit with a exit hose? That will use around 7kwh over 24hrs cooling, Worth every penny in my eyes, Some have electric heater elements but some can reveres the heat flow getting possibly 2 units of heat per kwh but probably still not worth it when you have gas, make model?

The year Elec average is 22 kwh a day! The 3 month Jul-Aug last year was 17.6 kwh a day.

When you say "House thermostat" - are those the digital display little screens that are on a wall?  If yes, then no we don't have one.

The boiler is in the house.  

Normal 3-bed semi (with a rear extension about the size of another room - not huge)

One shower a day.

We have Air coolers / as distinct from Air Conditioners - so I manually fill their removable containers with water when it's hot - and as they work to cool / heat the room - it gets evaporated.  No inlet or outlet pipes.

What is the significance of -

"The year Elec average is 22 kwh a day! The 3 month Jul-Aug last year was 17.6 kwh a day"

Alnat1

An average household will only use around 8 or 9kWh a day, your usage is double that.

BUFF

makara said:.

When you say "House thermostat" - are those the digital display little screens that are on a wall?  If yes, then no we don't have one.

The boiler is in the house.  

Norma

l 3-bed semi (with a rear extension about the size of another room - not huge)

Do you know the make/model of boiler?
A room 'stat may not have a digital display screen, it may just have something like a rotary dial.

Heating controls can make a truly surprising difference to energy usage if installed & used properly.

makara

Vaillant Ecotec Pro - installed about 2010 I believe

I've not heard good things about these, and yet people keep having them installed.  Maybe it's just the people having problems who write reviews 

makara

We had to have the pump replaced about a year back as the original kept stopping.  The guy put in a reconditioned pump, saying a brand new one would be very expensive, and not worth it on a decade old boiler that might need to be retired in a couple of years.  No issues with the reconditioned pump though. 

That said he did say we messed up the PCB by forcing re-ignition too many times when the old pump was dying.

I have no idea if the pump or PCB issues or age of the boiler makes a difference to our bill, but letting you know in case