How was your month?

Mister_G

Yes, that was certainly a bit of a pain.  I've had to swap out a few imperial ones and have found the telescopic tails invaluable.

You can compensate for the smaller size radiator by getting the ones with the fins.

Workerdrone

MuckChucker said:

Workerdrone said:

Alnat1 said:

@Workerdrone have you tried urning down the temperature on your combi boiler to 50-55C? The radiators are a little cooler. as is the shower water but you probably won't really notice much difference and it will make a saving on the amount of gas you use.

Also try to get all the family on board with washing your hands using the cold tap, rather than firing the boiler up each time. Many of us on here realised this was what we did, hot tap on, wash hands, it's just getting tepid when you've done, all the hot water is in the pipes going cold again.

My biggest problem is my radiators in most of the house are largely older style either none convection or double none convecting, I put a big double convector in when we did the kitchen and that heats the room fast, but the lounge and bedrooms still have old style and take too long to heat up meaning the boiler is firing longer than I'd like. I like big rads for low flow temperature use. Trouble is they're not standard sizes so I can't quickly swap them out without having a plumber to change the pipework. Was quoted £450 to change the lounge one. The rad itself can be had for £200. ho hum :-(

Yeah some of our radiators are old imperial sized models. I had planned to change them out when renovating bedrooms but in the end only actually swapped one (and I think I went too small with that one) so it's still a project on my list. I did measure them all up and with some extended tails I should be able to do the lot myself, moving pipes would be overkill for something that nobody will notice. 

Thank you, your post made me disregard what the plumber had said and have a direct look myself. Ive found a double convector 22 type stelrad unit which is only 1cm wider than my current old imperial one for £150 including delivery. there's enough bend in the microbore to do 5mm each side no sweat. This thing claims to chuck out 7500btu. Stelrad calls for my room call for 5000btu. Current rad is estimated at 1200btu.

It takes around 3 hours to have an effect on the room as it stands and then the boiler keeps firing on and off all night. I can see the heat demand on evohome. Whereas any double convector in the kitchen. (Solid concrete floor, granite worktops and two exterior facing walls heats up the room in 20 minutes.

Im hoping it will liberate more heat into the lounge quickly and drop the return temperature to the boiler better.

lindatoo

1 person 3 bed semi in the East Midlands, gas central heating and water - Oct 21 884 kwh, Oct 22 90 kwh. Electricity - Oct 21 202 kwh, Oct 22 74 kwh. Last year had heating on for a good while every day, this year trying to keep warm by layering in the hope of saving my heating budget for when it gets really cold, although I think I'll put it on for a couple of hours today.

markin

I'm quite concerned for all that are buying wood monthly in the belief that you won't see the price rocket as winter sets in and demand gets bigger. If you have space and its secure a tarp will keep it dry.

People that thought they had fixed LPG deals this past year soon found there were no such thing.

Coffeekup

SensibleSarah said:

I've always been very stingy with the heating - so most years don't start using it until Nov and this year is no different - the balmy temps have definitely helped me stick to that. Live on my own in a 2-bed terraced house, North West England. 
Last Oct I used 95 kwh electric and 112 kwh gas, this Oct I used 90 kwh electric and 43 kwh gas. I think I used the heating a couple of times last Oct and haven't at all yet this time. Also take shorter and fewer showers (mixer - so gas powered) these days and I've been using the slow cooker more often than the gas oven for cooking. 
I don't think I'll get the electricity use down much more, if at all - but I'm aware that I have very low usage anyway in comparison to most. I work from home and therefore have computer, some lights and TV on all day and evening. Electric heated throw for cold mornings as I'm working. I do one load of washing a week, no tumble dryer, no dishwasher so use one bowl of hot water for washing up daily. Last 12 months use is just over 3000 kwh for gas and 1700 kwh for electricty, so if I can beat that over the next 12 months then I'll be happy. 

Similar usage to me, I don't look at beating it I look at it as coming in with the same usage or ideally using less (that's if we don't have a super cold winter).
My usage this year has been 1,200 kWh leccy and 3,100 kWh of gas, the electric I'll use about 150 kwh's less next year as I have a smaller newer TV now, but like you can't pull back on usage much more, the FF usage accounts for a third of that.
4 year's ago I used twice the amount electricity and 3 times the amount of gas and and me DD was £55 a month, no it's £80 sigh.

On another note between you and I, we pumped 3.6 tonnes of Co2 into the atmosphere just for heating and powering out homes.

Coffeekup

thriftytracey said:

Coffeekup said:

thriftytracey said:

We are using 14 kwh electricity per day (October).  Detached house, two retired adults. 

We do have two fridges and two freezers ....

Hardly ever use oven or grill.  
Started using dishwasher once a day so not washing up three times per day.
Measuring water into kettle to boil
Stopped leaving phones on overnight to charge
Nothing on standby
two laptops - on permanently, but sleep mode after few minutes
One TV and humax box
Iron once a fortnight
toaster occasional use
Haven't started using halogen heaters yet (one in kitchen and one in bathroom)

The large freezer is A+ rating, the other is probably 20 years old so I am sure is not very efficient.  I am thinking of turning one of the fridges off as it stores wine.  The larder fridge is at least 15 years old I am reluctant to replace it as it still works.  I did go and look at larder fridges last week - the suitable ones were a poor efficiency D or E rating.

I still think we are using a lot of electricity per day

Your fridges and fridge freezers will be around 9-10 kWh's a day. At 50p p/kWh this amounts to over £4 a day to run those bad boys. I'd get rid of 3 of them and cool the wine outside the backdoor or in the garage this time of year, and for the summer get in the habit of rotating bottles of booze.

As for fridges/freezer's look at the energy usage a E rated model can use 140kwh a year for example and a D rated model can use 138 kWh's a year. A few factors come into the rating some we may never really understand but size of the unit is something I have noticed, so a slightly bigger appliance may fit into a better rating because it's bigger. So I'd say do the math and make sure it fits where you want it and it's big enough for all your chilling needs.

Thanks.  I turned off the wine fridge yesterday.  Now looking at replacing the smaller ancient freezer.  Having two freezers is so handy as I buy a lot of "reduced" items and also batch cook.  

Which is good thing to do but the cost of storing it currently may out weigh the cost of grabbing food cheap.... Only you'll know the answer to that in time.

Coffeekup

Cautiouslyoptimistic said:

I scheduled out all of last years gas and electric use and I was quite astonished. 27,500kwh gas used and 5,100 kwh electric. 24,000kwh of the gas was between October and March, so basically last year I had the gas central heating on permanently for 6 months.  Ridiculous. 

So, I've now put a spreadsheet together allowing maximum 1 hour a day between October and March and this will reduce 27,000 kwh down to 4,666 kwh per day. Just in october last year we used 2,048 kwh and this year that same use was 338 kwh. 
-snip-

Welcome...
I wish you all the best in your challenge but to go from 27k to under 5k is a big push.

Remember you have 2 fuel's (well 3 in your case) both with high usages. I'd try and get that electric down below 4,000kwh for the year, unless you have a EV.

Coffeekup

Workerdrone said:

MuckChucker said:

Workerdrone said:

Alnat1 said:

@Workerdrone have you tried urning down the temperature on your combi boiler to 50-55C? The radiators are a little cooler. as is the shower water but you probably won't really notice much difference and it will make a saving on the amount of gas you use.

Also try to get all the family on board with washing your hands using the cold tap, rather than firing the boiler up each time. Many of us on here realised this was what we did, hot tap on, wash hands, it's just getting tepid when you've done, all the hot water is in the pipes going cold again.

My biggest problem is my radiators in most of the house are largely older style either none convection or double none convecting, I put a big double convector in when we did the kitchen and that heats the room fast, but the lounge and bedrooms still have old style and take too long to heat up meaning the boiler is firing longer than I'd like. I like big rads for low flow temperature use. Trouble is they're not standard sizes so I can't quickly swap them out without having a plumber to change the pipework. Was quoted £450 to change the lounge one. The rad itself can be had for £200. ho hum :-(

Yeah some of our radiators are old imperial sized models. I had planned to change them out when renovating bedrooms but in the end only actually swapped one (and I think I went too small with that one) so it's still a project on my list. I did measure them all up and with some extended tails I should be able to do the lot myself, moving pipes would be overkill for something that nobody will notice. 

Thank you, your post made me disregard what the plumber had said and have a direct look myself. Ive found a double convector 22 type stelrad unit which is only 1cm wider than my current old imperial one for £150 including delivery. there's enough bend in the microbore to do 5mm each side no sweat. This thing claims to chuck out 7500btu. Stelrad calls for my room call for 5000btu. Current rad is estimated at 1200btu.

It takes around 3 hours to have an effect on the room as it stands and then the boiler keeps firing on and off all night. I can see the heat demand on evohome. Whereas any double convector in the kitchen. (Solid concrete floor, granite worktops and two exterior facing walls heats up the room in 20 minutes.

Im hoping it will liberate more heat into the lounge quickly and drop the return temperature to the boiler better.

Don't go filling your house just yet with too many bigger radiator's with a much higher BTU ratings, you current boiler may struggle to cope with the load..... I'm no expert but when I had a new boiler fitted a few years ago I wanted to make sure it'll cope with the upgrades of new radiator's. To be sure I did the research and math myself.

https://heatable.co.uk/boiler-advice/what-size-boiler-for-my-home

Coffeekup

lindatoo said:

1 person 3 bed semi in the East Midlands, gas central heating and water - Oct 21 884 kwh, Oct 22 90 kwh. Electricity - Oct 21 202 kwh, Oct 22 74 kwh. Last year had heating on for a good while every day, this year trying to keep warm by layering in the hope of saving my heating budget for when it gets really cold, although I think I'll put it on for a couple of hours today.

One massive reduction there ... Very impressive.

QrizB

Coffeekup said:

Workerdrone said:

Thank you, your post made me disregard what the plumber had said and have a direct look myself. Ive found a double convector 22 type stelrad unit which is only 1cm wider than my current old imperial one for £150 including delivery. there's enough bend in the microbore to do 5mm each side no sweat. This thing claims to chuck out 7500btu. Stelrad calls for my room call for 5000btu. Current rad is estimated at 1200btu.

It takes around 3 hours to have an effect on the room as it stands and then the boiler keeps firing on and off all night. I can see the heat demand on evohome. Whereas any double convector in the kitchen. (Solid concrete floor, granite worktops and two exterior facing walls heats up the room in 20 minutes.

Im hoping it will liberate more heat into the lounge quickly and drop the return temperature to the boiler better.

Don't go filling your house just yet with too many bigger radiator's with a much higher BTU ratings, you current boiler may struggle to cope with the load.

That's unlikely to be a problem, unless they also make their house larger at the same time. The rate of heat loss from the building is not affected by fitting more or larger radiators.