Daily Gas Usage?

FreeBear

Waldorf_Statler said:

FreeBear said:

Waldorf_Statler said:

5 bedroom detached, 1950s with recent extension / renovation. New bit has underfloor and cavity wall insulation, loft is insulated, new doors and windows, new boiler.

Not much more I can do to improve efficiency.

Heating is set to 18 degrees for 5 hours, 15 degrees for 9 hours during the day and 13 degrees for 10 hours overnight.

Any draughts coming in around the windows/doors or up through the floor (skirting & floorboard junction is often the worst) ?

As for your temperatures, I'd be inclined to increase the day & night temps so that the boiler doesn't have to work so hard getting up to 18°C. Maybe 16-17°C overnight and during the day assuming the house is occupied 24/7.

I experimented with this advice. Usage / costs stayed about the same (£20 or so on gas per day, around 200 kWh). However the house felt generally more pleasant so I'm calling it a win. House is always occupied.

You're right on the drafts too. There are a couple of cupboards on external walls (understairs especially, it's like opening a freezer) that we couldn't get insulated so will need to think about that. Managed to do one cupboard with that polystyrene PIR stuff and that made a difference - but the understairs one is fiddly A.F. to work in, cutting around pipes and meters. And cutting that stuff isn't the most fun I've ever had.

I use Celotex/Kingspan type insulation boards - Much easier to cut, and they have a slightly better u-value.

For cutting, a sharp serrated kitchen knife is ideal. Doesn't generate as much mess as a saw would. Someone did mention using a pizza cutter. But that will only work on sheets up to 25mm thick. Also struggles with the foil facing..

Waldorf_Statler

greensalad said:

Currently heating my house is getting around a low of 13c overnight, and achieving around 16c maximum. Not doing very well. 3hrs heating in the morning. 8hrs in the evening. Constantly on because it's not getting to thermostat temp (18c) in this current cold snap. 

Calculated cost on gas is £9.50 or so a day.

Unless you're on a very good gas price, my estimate is that 11 hours of boiler activity would be about £20 per day at 10p per kWh.

At least, my boiler running for between 10 and 12 hours costs me £20 per day at 10p per kWh.

EssexHebridean

Waldorf_Statler said:

greensalad said:

Currently heating my house is getting around a low of 13c overnight, and achieving around 16c maximum. Not doing very well. 3hrs heating in the morning. 8hrs in the evening. Constantly on because it's not getting to thermostat temp (18c) in this current cold snap. 

Calculated cost on gas is £9.50 or so a day.

Unless you're on a very good gas price, my estimate is that 11 hours of boiler activity would be about £20 per day at 10p per kWh.

At least, my boiler running for between 10 and 12 hours costs me £20 per day at 10p per kWh.

Depends on boiler size/efficiency, surely? 🤔 

markin

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? 

Each improvement will make it either modulate down so using less gas or the cycles will be a tiny bit shorter.   With varying temps year to year it may be difficult to see a 5% - 10%  improvement as you do things slowly, unless you have years off data to compare it with.




 

markin

FreeBear said:

Waldorf_Statler said:

FreeBear said:

Waldorf_Statler said:

5 bedroom detached, 1950s with recent extension / renovation. New bit has underfloor and cavity wall insulation, loft is insulated, new doors and windows, new boiler.

Not much more I can do to improve efficiency.

Heating is set to 18 degrees for 5 hours, 15 degrees for 9 hours during the day and 13 degrees for 10 hours overnight.

Any draughts coming in around the windows/doors or up through the floor (skirting & floorboard junction is often the worst) ?

As for your temperatures, I'd be inclined to increase the day & night temps so that the boiler doesn't have to work so hard getting up to 18°C. Maybe 16-17°C overnight and during the day assuming the house is occupied 24/7.

I experimented with this advice. Usage / costs stayed about the same (£20 or so on gas per day, around 200 kWh). However the house felt generally more pleasant so I'm calling it a win. House is always occupied.

You're right on the drafts too. There are a couple of cupboards on external walls (understairs especially, it's like opening a freezer) that we couldn't get insulated so will need to think about that. Managed to do one cupboard with that polystyrene PIR stuff and that made a difference - but the understairs one is fiddly A.F. to work in, cutting around pipes and meters. And cutting that stuff isn't the most fun I've ever had.

I use Celotex/Kingspan type insulation boards - Much easier to cut, and they have a slightly better u-value.

For cutting, a sharp serrated kitchen knife is ideal. Doesn't generate as much mess as a saw would. Someone did mention using a pizza cutter. But that will only work on sheets up to 25mm thick. Also struggles with the foil facing..

I use a Stanley knife on 30mm boards and snap it like you would plasterboard, It dulls the blades fast but almost no dust.

Ally_E.

TheGardener said:

Ally_E. said:

2 days ago we used 203kW/h a day of gas by heating to 18.5C. Had a little heart attacks and reduced the temp to 16.9C yesterday and had the woodburner going after work in the living room. That helped to reduce the gas usage to 164kW/h a day, so it's a win in my book. Had to relocate my desk to the bedroom as it has 2 radiators and heats up quicker than the office.

I must say I felt unwell and got a headache when I spent any time in the kitchen that gets down to 14-15C. Really can feel the effects of low temp on the body. As soon as the woodburner was on I felt much better. 

@Ally_E. Might sound a bit left-field but...have you got a carbon monoxide alarm? Some many years ago I suffered from what my GP said was "weekend flu' and all to do with stress - it transpired I was suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning and it was only when I was home at the weekend I felt ill - I was out at work during the week. Thumping headache and feeling 'flu-ey'...

Thank you, I haven't considered that. We do have carbon monoxide alarms in the kitchen and the living room and the lights on them are still flashing, but I will check they do make an alarm noise. 

markin

Monoxide alarms only last 10 years, Mine finally went to 'ERR' on the screen ..last year, Just got a new one after reading that post.

[Deleted User]

markin said:

Monoxide alarms only last 10 years, Mine finally went to 'ERR' on the screen ..last year, Just got a new one after reading that post.

Very useful comment - it's not companies trying to sell you a new alarm, the detector components themselves become chemically "poisoned" and stop working.

I'm impressed that yours managed to self-diagnose, I wonder how it did it.

TimSynths

Now its a lot milder I spent £1.54 (peaked @ £5.20 54kwh when it was freezing) yesterday and expect to use even less today, I don't even have the thermostat turned on and its 10c outside.

In addition my thermals were delivered yesterday- I wish I thought about buying some during the cold spell, they really work. I got them from Amazon but I did noticed them in the isle of dreams this morning in Lidl- which opened a 7am and was for the first time this year fully stocked with only one other customer in there at 7am- what a joy.

Grogsy78

Best case for most families is £70 a week on energy, surprised if we make it through winter without some trouble