Daily Gas Usage?

EssexHebridean

I’m nudging £5 a day on electricity now on average  - we’re just under 24kWh for the day today, and again I find myself feeling hugely grateful for the off peak rates overnight. Definitely seeing a big difference to what we used last year as well - we’re putting a fair bit of the difference down to having finally got the hallway sorted out - plastering on the exposed brick areas plus insulation on the floor must be making a difference, as the temperatures this year are massively lower too.

jennifernil

Late 80s timber frame house, south facing, Central Scotland, 280 sq. m.  2 adults  home all day.  New heat only boiler and H.W. Cylinder fitted in May.  

  We only heat the rooms we use all the time, and others when we need to.  Heating is on 2 hours in the morning and 6 hours in the evening.  During  the day if it gets really cold we may turn it on again.

This last week we have been using around £10 worth of gas per day.

We have solar panels, so electricity use is very variable.

Moneysavingdoc

Lightweights...200KW/day gas and not even warm! 

[Deleted User]

I’m cutting back during the week so I can indulge at the weekend. Last night was borderline harsh. Tonight, heating on and, after three hours, the kitchen is at 16c. It has meant tonight I could do away with the fingerless gloves and scarf at dinner. I’ll probably regret it tomorrow (after reading the meter) in the usual Saturday night/Sunday morning way. I wasn’t in the mood for another Friday night 9.2c kitchen (8.4c in living room, though i rarely use it—I’m not a sit about watching TV type, which, I think, does help tolerate the lower indoor temps, a little).

Not including my blowout this evening, I’m averaging 29kwh per day, though this isn’t actually providing me with much more than some hot water (that isn’t really that hot) and an hour or two of morning heat. In money terms (which will include the standing charge, since it’s not optional) approx £3.28 per day.

It is just me and the dog. There is no way I would get away with this were a partner involved. 

lf93

chris1973 said:

Yes, its all Jolly Hockey Sticks for those celebrating the fact that it only takes an hour for their house to reach the desired temperature even when its -12c outside!, so they only pay the bulk of their daily usage for the first hour after turning the heating on every day, after which its all gravy.

But the reality is that for millions of households, it might take 4, 7 or 12 hours for their house to warm up with their boiler consuming gas at its maximum demand throughout, and at £1.50 - £2.50 or more per hour for up to 12 hours per day it doesn't take long for the cost to become prohibitive.

The irony is, when you find that your monthly energy bill is almost as much as your rent, and you still aren't warm because its taken all day to crawl to 17c.

Often there is no quick fix to this problem because it goes beyond foil behind radiators or thicker curtains or another layer of loft insulation.

It may be the fact their living room has a 15ft ceiling - not easy to solve with a bay window the same height, or may have poor glazing, but then again, a lot of people don't just have several thousand quid just sitting idle in a bank account, nor want their windows ripping out and replacing when its 1c and snowing outside, so eventually they avoid running the heating for the rest of the winter at all, and the health risks associated with that is where the problems are going to start to appear as we enter the coldest months of the year.

This is how I currently feel... we are a couple living in a 4 bed detached circa 1910 house. There are many things we could and want to do to improve its energy efficiency - we've just increased the loft insulation because it's cheap, but it also needs new windows (and has A LOT of windows), but it'll be a few years until we can afford to do them. 

It's rarely getting above 15-16 degrees with the current temperatures in the north, and dropping to 12 degrees overnight.
We're heating around 5-6 hours a day, which is using 100-110kWh of gas per day, (last January we used almost 5000kWh of gas)   compared to our summer use of 180kWh for a whole month, which cost us only £12!
Our annual usage according to Octopus is close to 30,000kWh of gas per year, meanwhile Ofgem says the 'average' household should use 12,000kWh.. and I assume that an average household has children taking baths etc.! 

What I'm not entirely sure about though, is if/when we do get new windows, and rip apart walls to put in more insulation etc, will it actually save us money? Because we are still going to heat for 5-6h a day in winter - I don't think that's an excessive amount of heating. It'll just hopefully feel warmer when the heating's on. The boiler will still have to pump out as much hot water around the radiators regardless of whether it's 15 degrees or 18, and the savings will only come if the house is above target temperature and the boiler can click off... or am I misunderstanding this? 

Nebulous2

lf93 said:

chris1973 said:

Yes, its all Jolly Hockey Sticks for those celebrating the fact that it only takes an hour for their house to reach the desired temperature even when its -12c outside!, so they only pay the bulk of their daily usage for the first hour after turning the heating on every day, after which its all gravy.

But the reality is that for millions of households, it might take 4, 7 or 12 hours for their house to warm up with their boiler consuming gas at its maximum demand throughout, and at £1.50 - £2.50 or more per hour for up to 12 hours per day it doesn't take long for the cost to become prohibitive.

The irony is, when you find that your monthly energy bill is almost as much as your rent, and you still aren't warm because its taken all day to crawl to 17c.

Often there is no quick fix to this problem because it goes beyond foil behind radiators or thicker curtains or another layer of loft insulation.

It may be the fact their living room has a 15ft ceiling - not easy to solve with a bay window the same height, or may have poor glazing, but then again, a lot of people don't just have several thousand quid just sitting idle in a bank account, nor want their windows ripping out and replacing when its 1c and snowing outside, so eventually they avoid running the heating for the rest of the winter at all, and the health risks associated with that is where the problems are going to start to appear as we enter the coldest months of the year.

This is how I currently feel... we are a couple living in a 4 bed detached circa 1910 house. There are many things we could and want to do to improve its energy efficiency - we've just increased the loft insulation because it's cheap, but it also needs new windows (and has A LOT of windows), but it'll be a few years until we can afford to do them. 

It's rarely getting above 15-16 degrees with the current temperatures in the north, and dropping to 12 degrees overnight.
We're heating around 5-6 hours a day, which is using 100-110kWh of gas per day, (last January we used almost 5000kWh of gas)   compared to our summer use of 180kWh for a whole month, which cost us only £12!
Our annual usage according to Octopus is close to 30,000kWh of gas per year, meanwhile Ofgem says the 'average' household should use 12,000kWh.. and I assume that an average household has children taking baths etc.! 

What I'm not entirely sure about though, is if/when we do get new windows, and rip apart walls to put in more insulation etc, will it actually save us money? Because we are still going to heat for 5-6h a day in winter - I don't think that's an excessive amount of heating. It'll just hopefully feel warmer when the heating's on. The boiler will still have to pump out as much hot water around the radiators regardless of whether it's 15 degrees or 18, and the savings will only come if the house is above target temperature and the boiler can click off... or am I misunderstanding this? 

I'm wondering about this as well. 

We see people on here posting that the boiler runs flat out until the house comes up to temperature. Dialling down the water flow temperature increases the time to do that, but also increases the efficiency because the system condenses more effectively. 

Isn't there a constraining factor for the boiler when the temperature in the heating system reaches temperature, rather than the air in the house? 

So when the flow temperature reaches 60 degrees, and the pump is going, does the boiler not reduce the amount of gas it is using by modulating to maintain that? 

InvertedVee

Nebulous2 said:

Isn't there a constraining factor for the boiler when the temperature in the heating system reaches temperature, rather than the air in the house? 

So when the flow temperature reaches 60 degrees, and the pump is going, does the boiler not reduce the amount of gas it is using by modulating to maintain that? 

Yes, for a modern boiler it does just that. A modern boiler will modulate ("throttle-back") rather than use its maximum output. Modulation will happen when it senses that the flow temperature has reached its set point. At that time, the boiler continues pumping the heated water around the system until it cools sufficiently to allow another run of the burner inside the boiler. This is called cycling.

For more efficiency, a modulating thermostat in the house will tell the boiler how much power it requires. My Tado thermostat is connected to demand three power levels.

It's important though that radiators are large enough to give away their heat to the house. If they're too small, or blocked, or turned down aggressively with TRVs, the water returning to the boiler will still be hot and the boiler will cycle on and off quickly (inefficiently). I sense that a lot of people are using TRVs to turn off radiators in unused rooms so making their systems inefficient, costly and ineffective. I was guilty of that last winter.

Mstty

lf93 said:

chris1973 said:

Yes, its all Jolly Hockey Sticks for those celebrating the fact that it only takes an hour for their house to reach the desired temperature even when its -12c outside!, so they only pay the bulk of their daily usage for the first hour after turning the heating on every day, after which its all gravy.

But the reality is that for millions of households, it might take 4, 7 or 12 hours for their house to warm up with their boiler consuming gas at its maximum demand throughout, and at £1.50 - £2.50 or more per hour for up to 12 hours per day it doesn't take long for the cost to become prohibitive.

The irony is, when you find that your monthly energy bill is almost as much as your rent, and you still aren't warm because its taken all day to crawl to 17c.

Often there is no quick fix to this problem because it goes beyond foil behind radiators or thicker curtains or another layer of loft insulation.

It may be the fact their living room has a 15ft ceiling - not easy to solve with a bay window the same height, or may have poor glazing, but then again, a lot of people don't just have several thousand quid just sitting idle in a bank account, nor want their windows ripping out and replacing when its 1c and snowing outside, so eventually they avoid running the heating for the rest of the winter at all, and the health risks associated with that is where the problems are going to start to appear as we enter the coldest months of the year.

This is how I currently feel... we are a couple living in a 4 bed detached circa 1910 house. There are many things we could and want to do to improve its energy efficiency - we've just increased the loft insulation because it's cheap, but it also needs new windows (and has A LOT of windows), but it'll be a few years until we can afford to do them. 

It's rarely getting above 15-16 degrees with the current temperatures in the north, and dropping to 12 degrees overnight.
We're heating around 5-6 hours a day, which is using 100-110kWh of gas per day, (last January we used almost 5000kWh of gas)   compared to our summer use of 180kWh for a whole month, which cost us only £12!
Our annual usage according to Octopus is close to 30,000kWh of gas per year, meanwhile Ofgem says the 'average' household should use 12,000kWh.. and I assume that an average household has children taking baths etc.! 

What I'm not entirely sure about though, is if/when we do get new windows, and rip apart walls to put in more insulation etc, will it actually save us money? Because we are still going to heat for 5-6h a day in winter - I don't think that's an excessive amount of heating. It'll just hopefully feel warmer when the heating's on. The boiler will still have to pump out as much hot water around the radiators regardless of whether it's 15 degrees or 18, and the savings will only come if the house is above target temperature and the boiler can click off... or am I misunderstanding this? 

I would suggest looking forward and not knowing your age what you may want in the next decade or financial position I will ask anyway.

Is a four bedroom, inefficient house the right choice now and in 10 years time? Is it worth hanging onto and investing in for other emotional reasons or could you sell and buy a more efficient and possibly but not necessarily smaller house for less than it costs to bring yours up to an efficient level.

 

pensionpawn

26 year old 4 bed detached house in Wiltshire with East - West aspect, so little direct solar heating Dec - Feb inc. Garage converted to internal (coldest) room with one radiator and UFH. Stone floor kitchen and dining rooms, both with UFH. UFH for the last 24 hours comes to £3.39, just to keep the floors off cold (stat set to 19.5c). Cavity wall / loft insulation and windows replaced in Oct 2021. Doors replaced 8 years ago. Front door and french doors have heavy curtains for after sunset, which certainly helps with the thermal protection. New Viessmann gas boiler in October with flow temperature set to 62c. Modulates down to 10% with flew temperature hovering around 50c +/- 5c. C/H controlled by Nest at ~21c and is on 7am - 11pm (3 adults, one retired, one part time and one away from home 50%). Nest set up for intelligent radiant heat etc via Nest sense. Gas usage for the last 24 hours ~ 81.4 kWhrs /  £8.51 bring total heating cost (including hot water) to just under £12 / day. It's not been above freezing for the last 24 hours (and longer) and there's been snow on the ground (currently around 3 inches, and still falling) since 7am. This is going to be a very expensive winter. However keeping a spreadsheet of my energy usage for the last five years has shown my gas consumption has fallen (kids moving out, better doors & windows etc) from 15,000 kwhrs to 8400 kWhrs.

FreeBear

lf93 said: This is how I currently feel... we are a couple living in a 4 bed detached circa 1910 house. There are many things we could and want to do to improve its energy efficiency - we've just increased the loft insulation because it's cheap, but it also needs new windows (and has A LOT of windows), but it'll be a few years until we can afford to do them.

What I'm not entirely sure about though, is if/when we do get new windows, and rip apart walls to put in more insulation etc, will it actually save us money?

Have been replacing my windows as/when finances allowed - Finally had the last few done back in June along with a new front door. Plugging the draughts that were coming around the old windows & door was worth the effort of splashing out new ones. Now that the place is reasonably free of cold draughts, it is much easier to heat, and the quality of life is vastly improved. Slowly insulating the walls which will help to reduce heat loss. Even although I'm doing much of the work myself, the return on investment is unlikely to cover the whole cost.

Being comfortable in a home is more important, so I'm prepared to spend the money.

A 1910 building (assuming it still has most of the original period features) is never going to be cheap to bring up to modern standard. With (I assume) solid brick walls, you need to be careful about the choice of materials when insulating walls. If funds are limited, do the most used rooms first and spread the cost & work over a few years.