What's the actual cost of having the heating on? 16 October 2022 at 6:56PM in Energy 30 replies 2.1K views

k_man

Gas units (from meter readings) are usually m³ rather than kWh.
1m³ is approx 11kWh.

Can you check your units?

Naomim

k_man said:

Gas units (from meter readings) are usually m³ rather than kWh.
1m³ is approx 11kWh.

Can you check your units?

Yes I thought that couldn't be right. going to check my units again.

Naomim

Ok, so for Feb & March we used 2243.00 kwh in 59 days so used that as a guage for January to make ours 3641 kwh for the quarter. 

Spoonie_Turtle

aoleks said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

TRVs on the radiators would hugely help for the rooms that don't need to be heated.

What temperature is the heating set to?

You say they're stuck in their ways, which unfortunately is a common complaint for adult children up and down the country.  The question is, which is more painful: changing, suffering unnecessarily, or a massive bill?  (The answer to that of course will be different for different people/families.)

unless you have a room that's consistently/permanently unused, TRVs are not meant to be adjusted multiple times on a daily basis. they take time to adjust and are intended for longer term use, if that makes sense. turning a TRV off for half an hour, while I heat up the rest of the house, then turning it back on for later, might not have the desired effect.

Indeed.  Maybe I misinterpreted the 'rarely used' part of the original post.

Spoonie_Turtle

aoleks said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

TRVs on the radiators would hugely help for the rooms that don't need to be heated.

What temperature is the heating set to?

You say they're stuck in their ways, which unfortunately is a common complaint for adult children up and down the country.  The question is, which is more painful: changing, suffering unnecessarily, or a massive bill?  (The answer to that of course will be different for different people/families.)

unless you have a room that's consistently/permanently unused, TRVs are not meant to be adjusted multiple times on a daily basis. they take time to adjust and are intended for longer term use, if that makes sense. turning a TRV off for half an hour, while I heat up the rest of the house, then turning it back on for later, might not have the desired effect.

Indeed.  Maybe I misinterpreted the 'rarely used' part of the original post.

theoretica

Naomim said:

Ok, so for Feb & March we used 2243.00 kwh in 59 days so used that as a guage for January to make ours 3641 kwh for the quarter. 

So they used about 50% more than you - but it might have been less if January was colder than March and had a higher daily use.  Not unreasonable from what you describe of their system and how they use it.  I would expect that halving the difference would be reasonably achievable with minor interventions and no loss of comfort.  But there would be *change* which it seems they might resist.

Naomim

Spoonie_Turtle said:

aoleks said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

TRVs on the radiators would hugely help for the rooms that don't need to be heated.

What temperature is the heating set to?

You say they're stuck in their ways, which unfortunately is a common complaint for adult children up and down the country.  The question is, which is more painful: changing, suffering unnecessarily, or a massive bill?  (The answer to that of course will be different for different people/families.)

unless you have a room that's consistently/permanently unused, TRVs are not meant to be adjusted multiple times on a daily basis. they take time to adjust and are intended for longer term use, if that makes sense. turning a TRV off for half an hour, while I heat up the rest of the house, then turning it back on for later, might not have the desired effect.

Indeed.  Maybe I misinterpreted the 'rarely used' part of the original post.

They have two spare bedrooms but the grandchildren are older and rarely sleep over any more, one of the bedrooms is a box room, the other is slightly larger and has the airing cupboard in. They also have a "front room" but generally use their larger back room extension for watching tv etc.

Chrysalis

k_man said:

Chrysalis said:

Yep I have the 24/7 pilot light problem.  That combined with gas SC means most of my gas bill is not for actual usage.  I am sure I am not the only one in this boat.

Mine is about 0.014 m3 per hour, so about 3-4 KwH a day if my maths is right for pilot light.

Not sure why Octopus dont just put KwH usage on the usage dash for gas it be easier.

The Octopus app, and the Bright app both show kWh. Albeit the latter may not be the actual caloric value, it won't be far off.

Check the website. The gas usage dash on there shows m3.

I have uninstalled the Bright app now, logging in every time I open it is far too tedious.  I do use the Octopus app still though which I think is better than the Bright app anyway, so whether I use website or app depends if I am on my computer or not.

Spoonie_Turtle

Naomim said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

aoleks said:

Spoonie_Turtle said:

TRVs on the radiators would hugely help for the rooms that don't need to be heated.

What temperature is the heating set to?

You say they're stuck in their ways, which unfortunately is a common complaint for adult children up and down the country.  The question is, which is more painful: changing, suffering unnecessarily, or a massive bill?  (The answer to that of course will be different for different people/families.)

unless you have a room that's consistently/permanently unused, TRVs are not meant to be adjusted multiple times on a daily basis. they take time to adjust and are intended for longer term use, if that makes sense. turning a TRV off for half an hour, while I heat up the rest of the house, then turning it back on for later, might not have the desired effect.

Indeed.  Maybe I misinterpreted the 'rarely used' part of the original post.

They have two spare bedrooms but the grandchildren are older and rarely sleep over any more, one of the bedrooms is a box room, the other is slightly larger and has the airing cupboard in. They also have a "front room" but generally use their larger back room extension for watching tv etc.

In which case it sounds like TRVs would be ideal, to allow heating on the rare occasion one of those rooms is used.

k_man

Chrysalis said:

k_man said:

Chrysalis said:

Yep I have the 24/7 pilot light problem.  That combined with gas SC means most of my gas bill is not for actual usage.  I am sure I am not the only one in this boat.

Mine is about 0.014 m3 per hour, so about 3-4 KwH a day if my maths is right for pilot light.

Not sure why Octopus dont just put KwH usage on the usage dash for gas it be easier.

The Octopus app, and the Bright app both show kWh. Albeit the latter may not be the actual caloric value, it won't be far off.

Check the website. The gas usage dash on there shows m3.

I have uninstalled the Bright app now, logging in every time I open it is far too tedious.  I do use the Octopus app still though which I think is better than the Bright app anyway, so whether I use website or app depends if I am on my computer or not.

I know the website doesn't show kWh, and was just pointing out that the app does, at least in Android (Sarah's mode).