First month of heating: reduced gas usage by 33%

SuzeQStan

That is a conundrum about the hedge OP (while thinking on that heavy door curtain was useful during the heatwaves - stayed closed for days!) Are you mainly in living room in evenings? Do you have any access to reasonable price fuel for the open fire? Nothing cosier than a fire of an evening - warms the soul and raises spirits.

techno12

It's interesting hearing about heating. I'm in the Midlands and it's still really warm (unusually so - I'm still walking to work each day in short sleeves) so I'm guessing I'm a month away from switching it on for the first time this autumn/winter.

My usage has always been low (3000kwh usually) but I'll try to get it down further this winter - depends how cold it is I guess!

Heinzbean

Well done Alley_E

I started a similar energy saving plan.

I turned the flow down on the radiators. Just basically started at the closest rad to the boiler and opened that valve ¼ of a turn next rad ¾ of a turn etc.

Turned the gas regulator knob on the front of the boiler from 8 clock position to 5 o-clock position.

I don’t use the stat . I just turn the stat up for 20 minutes then turn it off.

This saves me money 62cf3 per month using the stat . Manual control 42cf3 per month.

My boiler used to use 0.3cf3 per 20 minutes now it uses 0.2cf3 for 20 minutes. That’s 33% difference. The hot water turned that down so its the right temperature not to add cold water.

I like the way I use my heating I know at 35.31p per Kwh it costs me £0.65p for a 20 minute blast .

Electrically I swapped all my older energy saving lamps (20w) for the newer led lamps (9W),

The kitchen fluorescent light I swapped the 58W lamp for a 20W Led lamp.

So effectively cutting my lighting bill by 50%.

I stopped using the old electric kwh hog oven. And bought a “instant pot duo”.This is 700w . The pot can steam a 3lb chicken in 24 minutes faster than the Kwh hog(2500w).

I turned off my second freezer that was a 25 year old freezer. What s the point of freezing food and never eating it. I don’t leave anything on standby apart from 5g modem which has an my Voip landline running on it.(might put this on a timer ).

When I make tea if its 2 cups I measure 2 cupful's exactly boil the exact amount of water.

Previously on a Sunday when the old cooker was used , extra freezer, old lighting etc it could be

10Kwh for that day. Now im down to below 5 Kwh .Yesterday 3.66 Kwh. Yes I am sad . While I am waiting for the kettle to boil in the morning I pop my head under the stairs and take a daily meter reading takes me less than a minute. No good trying to energy save without being able to check your results.

Meanwhile I look at my neighbour that uses a tumble dryer in the summertime and has every single

light on in the house .

Alnat1

I liked the chimney sheep idea as we've never used our gas fire since moving here 3 1/2 years ago, but I'm also a money saver and they are a bit pricey. Also difficult to work out what size I needed, small hole above gas fire but then opens up.

I tried at first with a manky old pillow that had been lurking in the loft for a while but it was too big and a lot of it hung down and it looked very silly. I've now solved the problem with an old cushion that had gone a bit flat. I threaded string through the middle with a big button on each end, mostly to remind me it's there as the button hangs down. Will also give me something to grab to get the cushion out next spring.

tacpot12

Anyone with boiler connected to their hot water cylinder needs to be careful about turning down the central heating flow temperature below the cylinder set point. If the boiler is set to only produce water at 45 degrees C, it is never going to be able to heat the cylinder to 50 degrees C. There are a very few system boilers that can have two set points; one for central heating, and one for hot water. If you don't have one of these, you will need to keep your central heating flow temperature a couple of degrees above the cylinder set point to ensure that you can get the hot water in the cylinder up to that temperature. If you don't do this, the boiler will always see a hot water demand, and it and the pump may run when indefinitely to try to satisfy this demand, with only the time clock preventing it running 24/7.   

Heinzbean

Well i was tired . i hope i dont get charged 35.31p for my gas it should have been 10.3p

Maybe should have mentioned i have a  combi boiler

casjen

Heinzbean said:

Well done Alley_E

I started a similar energy saving plan.

I turned the flow down on the radiators. Just basically started at the closest rad to the boiler and opened that valve ¼ of a turn next rad ¾ of a turn etc.

Turned the gas regulator knob on the front of the boiler from 8 clock position to 5 o-clock position.

I don’t use the stat . I just turn the stat up for 20 minutes then turn it off.

This saves me money 62cf3 per month using the stat . Manual control 42cf3 per month.

My boiler used to use 0.3cf3 per 20 minutes now it uses 0.2cf3 for 20 minutes. That’s 33% difference. The hot water turned that down so its the right temperature not to add cold water.

I like the way I use my heating I know at 35.31p per Kwh it costs me £0.65p for a 20 minute blast .

Electrically I swapped all my older energy saving lamps (20w) for the newer led lamps (9W),

The kitchen fluorescent light I swapped the 58W lamp for a 20W Led lamp.

So effectively cutting my lighting bill by 50%.

I stopped using the old electric kwh hog oven. And bought a “instant pot duo”.This is 700w . The pot can steam a 3lb chicken in 24 minutes faster than the Kwh hog(2500w).

I turned off my second freezer that was a 25 year old freezer. What s the point of freezing food and never eating it. I don’t leave anything on standby apart from 5g modem which has an my Voip landline running on it.(might put this on a timer ).

When I make tea if its 2 cups I measure 2 cupful's exactly boil the exact amount of water.

Previously on a Sunday when the old cooker was used , extra freezer, old lighting etc it could be

10Kwh for that day. Now im down to below 5 Kwh .Yesterday 3.66 Kwh. Yes I am sad . While I am waiting for the kettle to boil in the morning I pop my head under the stairs and take a daily meter reading takes me less than a minute. No good trying to energy save without being able to check your results.

Meanwhile I look at my neighbour that uses a tumble dryer in the summertime and has every single

light on in the house .

 BIB   Why on earth does this have any relevance whatsoever to you.... Homes are to be enjoyed not stressing yourself to death hunting every nook and cranny to save a penny.. If that's your idea of living then good for you but passing judgement on another persons use of their house...isnt...

[Deleted User]

Trying to make any usage comparisons with October last year is likely to lead to some very flawed conclusions. It is unseasonably warm. Our gas boiler has yet to come on.

If it is unseasonably cold next month, and I use double the amount of gas than the previous year what do these two months tell me? 

Yes, we are all looking for usage savings but even comparing one Winter season with the next needs to looked at through the prism of different Winters. The previous Winter was unusually mild.

pensionpawn

casjen said:

Heinzbean said:

Well done Alley_E

I started a similar energy saving plan.

I turned the flow down on the radiators. Just basically started at the closest rad to the boiler and opened that valve ¼ of a turn next rad ¾ of a turn etc.

Turned the gas regulator knob on the front of the boiler from 8 clock position to 5 o-clock position.

I don’t use the stat . I just turn the stat up for 20 minutes then turn it off.

This saves me money 62cf3 per month using the stat . Manual control 42cf3 per month.

My boiler used to use 0.3cf3 per 20 minutes now it uses 0.2cf3 for 20 minutes. That’s 33% difference. The hot water turned that down so its the right temperature not to add cold water.

I like the way I use my heating I know at 35.31p per Kwh it costs me £0.65p for a 20 minute blast .

Electrically I swapped all my older energy saving lamps (20w) for the newer led lamps (9W),

The kitchen fluorescent light I swapped the 58W lamp for a 20W Led lamp.

So effectively cutting my lighting bill by 50%.

I stopped using the old electric kwh hog oven. And bought a “instant pot duo”.This is 700w . The pot can steam a 3lb chicken in 24 minutes faster than the Kwh hog(2500w).

I turned off my second freezer that was a 25 year old freezer. What s the point of freezing food and never eating it. I don’t leave anything on standby apart from 5g modem which has an my Voip landline running on it.(might put this on a timer ).

When I make tea if its 2 cups I measure 2 cupful's exactly boil the exact amount of water.

Previously on a Sunday when the old cooker was used , extra freezer, old lighting etc it could be

10Kwh for that day. Now im down to below 5 Kwh .Yesterday 3.66 Kwh. Yes I am sad . While I am waiting for the kettle to boil in the morning I pop my head under the stairs and take a daily meter reading takes me less than a minute. No good trying to energy save without being able to check your results.

Meanwhile I look at my neighbour that uses a tumble dryer in the summertime and has every single

light on in the house .

 BIB   Why on earth does this have any relevance whatsoever to you.... Homes are to be enjoyed not stressing yourself to death hunting every nook and cranny to save a penny.. If that's your idea of living then good for you but passing judgement on another persons use of their house...isnt...

I tend to agree. There's certain 'low hanging fruit' like double glazing, cavity / loft insulation, solar panels / battery, a new more efficient boiler, Nest thermostat, curtains on external doors, switching off electrical equipment (with smart switches) overnight when you don't need them. Some of these wins are a large capital expense (with large savings) that take time to repay and others are low capital expense (with lower savings) with more immediate returns. I am a self confessed data junkie and it's a daily routine to check performance characteristics of my house / pension and tweak. I have a new Viessmann (wifi enabled) gas boiler which I can learn about and tweak flow / return temps and watch the modulation etc. I (sadly...) enjoy optimising systems however that was my early career and I'll never change. However I know that when I've found the optimal settings I'll kick back.

pensionpawn

[Deleted User] said:

Trying to make any usage comparisons with October last year is likely to lead to some very flawed conclusions. It is unseasonably warm. Our gas boiler has yet to come on.

If it is unseasonably cold next month, and I use double the amount of gas than the previous year what do these two months tell me? 

Yes, we are all looking for usage savings but even comparing one Winter season with the next needs to looked at through the prism of different Winters. The previous Winter was unusually mild.

I have monthly gas & electricity readings for the last six years as I wanted to track how my solar installation affected my energy use. This gives a trend however even then it's easy to forget the influence of the weather or even children growing up and moving out, the latter being the greatest saving!