Any ideas what could be using my gas?

lindatoo

I have 6 year old combi gas boiler for CH and hot water which is serviced ever year. I don't have a smart meter. I have been trying to work out the costs of my hot water in advance of using my CH so that I can work out how much heating I can afford when the colder weather comes.

I took a reading yesterday after showering, washing up etc and for the rest of the day I did no more washing up and only washed my hands in cold water, when I checked this morning, my meter reading had gone up by 0.1 cubic metres which I believe is about 1 kwh. So not a lot and maybe not worth worrying about, but Im curious. I have no dripping taps and when I went away for 3 weeks in July my meter reading was much the same as it had been before I left.

I did turn the hot tap on once by accident when washing my hands but quickly turned it off again. I know it probably seems trifling in the scheme of things but I would like to understand it. Thanks.

MattMattMattUK

Yes, it is roughly 1kWh. It depends, does your boiler have any kind of pre-heat/smart-heat option? What kind of meter do you have? I would potentially test again in periods when you are not using any heating via the boiler, you can also test by turning the boiler off and checking over a period of time. 

Rodders53

How many decimal places does your meter display?  Did you make a note of them all or just to the first decimal place?

e.g. if yesterday's reading was 001234.8(94) and today's 001234.9(01) then you'll have seen a 0.1 cu m change but for only 0.005 actually consumed (when you may have fired up the boiler by accident).?

Perhaps.  (Or not).

lindatoo

MattMattMattUK said:

Yes, it is roughly 1kWh. It depends, does your boiler have any kind of pre-heat/smart-heat option? What kind of meter do you have? I would potentially test again in periods when you are not using any heating via the boiler, you can also test by turning the boiler off and checking over a period of time. 

I don't think I have it set for any preheat options but I will go through the manual to see if I can make any sense of it. in terms of meter I don't know what to tell you other than it appears to be standard meter, it doesn't have the old style clock face dials. I've just looked again and it looks like it has used another 0.04 cubic meters in just under 7 hours.with nothing running.  Maybe I'll try  turning it off. Thanks

lindatoo

Rodders53 said:

How many decimal places does your meter display?  Did you make a note of them all or just to the first decimal place?

e.g. if yesterday's reading was 001234.8(94) and today's 001234.9(01) then you'll have seen a 0.1 cu m change but for only 0.005 actually consumed (when you may have fired up the boiler by accident).?

Perhaps.  (Or not).

It displays to 3 decimal points. Yesterday was 122 44.71x  didnt really look at the very last number. this morning 12244.81x.