Help to warm house and understand

[Deleted User]

RuBy said:

This was last week’s breakdown 

Great, these are the numbers you should be looking for, the kWh one at the bottom.  The equivalent "live" number (if you want to see how turning different things on and off changes it) is kW.  Using 1kW for 1 hour means you have used in total 1kWh.

So it looks like from those that you are using about 10kWh of electricity and about 14kWh of gas each day.  That's not a lot of gas, but quite a lot of electricity.

Is your heating done by gas central heating, or by electric radiators?  I would guess gas.  If this is true, then it isn't your heating that's costing you the money.

RuBy

Leon_W said:

67 kwh of electricity a week is a lot.  Two of us live in an old 3 bed detached cottage and use half of that.

I'd try and look at issues around your electricity useage which would give you a greater budget for gas and keeping your house warm.

Sadly my child’s disability means lots of washing. 2 loads at least a day.

Ectophile

There's little point in changing suppliers these days.  There are no cheap tariffs any more.

Try to find ways to save energy other than heating, as that would leave you more money to put towards the heating bills.  Cut down on anything that uses a lot of electricity (or gas), and either use them less or switch to more energy efficient alternatives.

MattMattMattUK

RuBy said:

My house is freezing and it’s really affecting my health.

What temperature is our home inside at the moment and approximately where in the country are you (there will be big temperature differences between northern Scotland and Cornwall for example)? We have had the warmest October for thirty years and November is not cold yet either, one would expect even with no heating and potentially poorly insulated home that the inside temperature would be nowhere near impacting one's health yet.

RuBy said:

I have a four bed three story house I have two thermostats one on the ground floor one on the first floor I have turned the first floor thermostat off so the upstairs radiators all turned off to.

Have you looked at the option of a stair curtain? Heat rises, hot air rises, much of the heat will flow up the stair area until it reaches the top floor, where it will then slowly escape, a stair curtain can make a big impact, in combination with keeping doors closed. In the medium term if there is two of you then looking to move to a smaller house or a two bed flat may be a far more viable option than living in a large three bed house.

RuBy said:

I have a disabled child who is at school in the day and I am her carer

Do you mean that you are her carer whilst she is at school, or would you be able to work during the day whilst she is in school?
It is probably worth running your circumstances though Entitled To, to find out if you are currently claiming everyhing you are eligible for. Are you claiming maintenance from your daughter's father?
https://www.entitledto.co.uk/

RuBy said:

we were originally with EON but when my husband left and I went to change the bill to my name they stated I had to be a new customer and the only package they would offer would cost 480 per month.

so I went to utility warehouse electric: 30.703
gas: 9.713

I have a smart meter and never let it go over £5.50 a day.

my plan with utility warehouse cost me 280 a month.

as I’m too late to the game of changing suppliers to get a low rate is there anything I can do to actually be able to heat my house adequately?

What is your actual usage in kWh for both gas and electricity, these are on your bills. It may be that you are using a huge amount of energy somehow and the source needs to be found, it may mean that you are paying back debt.

RuBy said:

I’m trying to use less heat now so in a really cold month of January and February I can put the thermostat up more often in the day but there must be something else I can do.

What temperature are you targeting? 

RuBy

[Deleted User] said:

RuBy said:

This was last week’s breakdown 

Great, these are the numbers you should be looking for, the kWh one at the bottom.  The equivalent "live" number (if you want to see how turning different things on and off changes it) is kW.  Using 1kW for 1 hour means you have used in total 1kWh.

So it looks like from those that you are using about 10kWh of electricity and about 14kWh of gas each day.  That's not a lot of gas, but quite a lot of electricity.

Is your heating done by gas central heating, or by electric radiators?  I would guess gas.  If this is true, then it isn't your heating that's costing you the money.

It’s a combi boiler, and 2 fridges as 1 is a small one containing injections.
2 loads of washing a day, that can’t be avoided.
The only other thing is the cctv but with being on my own we need that security wise as we are quite remote.

Leon_W

Are you tumble drying the washing ?  The 67 kwh still looks high to me even with extra washing machine cycles.

PennyForThem_2

I would also engage with the the Disabilities Forum here:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/disability-money-matters

BUFF

If it is a 1 year old house with gas heating you almost certainly have a condensing boiler.
If you can tell us make/model of boiler & similarly what controls people can give you some advice as to how best run it for maximum efficiency & therefore minimum cost.  

ariarnia

hi ruby. 

when it comes to your question about what you could do then really i think it's about looking at the space you are in and the energy you use to heat it. it sounds like you have already done a load of really useful things like the thermal curtains and keeping an eye on your use so the question really is what more do you want to do? 

if its you are cold during the day when your daughter is at school have you checked with your local facebook groups if there's a heat bank or local community place you could go to (our local library is open longer hours this winter and also have activities for kids at differnt times of the weekend). get out of the house and see some other people plus free heat (maybe the cost of a cuppa ) 

if you have cold legs then one thing might be thermal or fleece leggings and slippers or slipper socks. but if you are cold in the room in general then i wonder if you have a smart thermostat as well (one you can move into a differnt room)? if you do then i'm thinking you might be able to have the heating on longer than you maybe think.

you said you have the heating on for an hour heating downstairs. when the boiler first comes on in a cold house it will work at full pelt to reach the temp on the thermostat but when that temp is reached it will stop working so hard. so you might find that you can afford to have the heating on a little longer if you have the thermostat in the room you are in and really well insulate that room so it gets to temp quicker? 

i'm saying that because the hall is the coldest part of our house so if we leave the thermostat in there then the heating is going for longer than it needs to. so we turned the radiator off in the hall and it only gets heated by heat escaping the lounge where we sit in the evening (with curtains on the doors then its not actually too bad given you only ever move through it to somewhere else anyway). 

i would also say it sounds like you have a big house but only a couple of people. if you can shut down some of the rooms then you can not worry about damp but also cut down on heat escaping into the rooms. i would go through all the rooms you dont need and move the furniture away from the walls a bit (to help air flow to make damp less likely). then close the doors and put draft excluders in front of them all. then i'd only go in once a week or so to open the windows and let them air out. 

i'd also look if any of the rooms are naturally just warmer than the others (maybe over the lounge or one is south facing and gets more sun) and maybe make those rooms the bedroom for the rest of winter?

lots of things that maybe would help but we don't really know enough about your house to know whats right for you

MattMattMattUK

RuBy said:

Leon_W said:

67 kwh of electricity a week is a lot.  Two of us live in an old 3 bed detached cottage and use half of that.

I'd try and look at issues around your electricity useage which would give you a greater budget for gas and keeping your house warm.

Sadly my child’s disability means lots of washing. 2 loads at least a day.

Two full loads is a lot, could they be combined into one load if it was full and what temperature are you washing at? A 20c was uses around half the energy of a 40c wash and a quarter of a 60c wash and with modern washing machines and a cleaning product designed for cooler temperatures everything will be just as clean.

Even the two washes a day does not account for anywhere close to the high electricity usage, do you have an immersion heater that kicks in, an electric shower, an old fridge/freezer in the garage?