December 2022 4oC colder than December 2021

Mstty

For our location this December has ended up being 4oC colder over the month as an average and you should bear that in mind when comparing with last year.

We are on target to only use 30kwh more so 3.2% increase on December 2021 but running the house warmer but more efficiently with a tailored weather compensation curve and other reductions in general electricity usage (we are electricity only and ASHP)

If you are interested the past data can be found on the following link once you have chosen your location.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/

Nebulous2

Mstty said:

For our location this December has ended up being 4oC colder over the month as an average and you should bear that in mind when comparing with last year.

We are on target to only use 30kwh more so 3.2% increase on December 2021 but running the house warmer but more efficiently with a tailored weather compensation curve and other reductions in general electricity usage (we are electricity only and ASHP)

If you are interested the past data can be found on the following link once you have chosen your location.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/

Interesting site - a bit fussy to navigate through, but contains a lot of information. 

Says we are only 1C colder, an average of 4C last December and 3C this one. 

I'm not taking my consumption until tomorrow, but expect to be down on both gas and electric usage this year. 

Cirrus1

Mstty said:

For our location this December has ended up being 4oC colder over the month as an average and you should bear that in mind when comparing with last year.

Same at my location, 11 days of arctic horror starting on 8/12.

You are extremely fortunate to have a well insulated house as your energy increase for the entire month is only 30kWh over December last year. My increase for the 11 days in question was 1,360kWh! It was just too awful seeing the daily amount spent on keeping warm (a basic necessity in my opinion) add up. 

Mstty

Cirrus1 said:

Mstty said:

For our location this December has ended up being 4oC colder over the month as an average and you should bear that in mind when comparing with last year.

Same at my location, 11 days of arctic horror starting on 8/12.

You are extremely fortunate to have a well insulated house as your energy increase for the entire month is only 30kWh over December last year. My increase for the 11 days in question was 1,360kWh! It was just too awful seeing the daily amount spent on keeping warm (a basic necessity in my opinion) add up. 

I would firstly say fortune rarely comes into an equation. For our house journey we have sacrificed other things in life to buy properties with high EPC's it's all about life choices sometimes and what people value more in life at different times of their lives.(sometimes you don't get a choice of course and sometimes you just get lucky)

Anyway the house was still the high B last December as it was this December and you probably don't know as we posted in the summer here as we reduced our baseload of electricity and refined the way we use the oven and other kitchen and domestic appliances to reduce our usage. That also had an impact that meant this year and the colder average temp for the month didn't use too many more kWh. However I take your point in that, once heated, the house should lose the heat slower than a lower EPC rated property on paper at least.

When you say basic necessity are you expecting the government to do more than they have or do you think it's about right?

peter3hg

According to that site 3 degrees colder this year.
I've moved house to a property about twice the size in a more exposed location but I'm on track to use about 825kWh this year compared to 1,200kWh last year.
Certainly shows the advantage of modern construction compared to my old solid walled early Victorian house.

Flight3287462

Our energy consumption in the last year Oct 21-Oct 22 was down 8% from our long term average.

matelodave

My long term average over 12 years)is around 7500kwh/year (that's all electric and an air source heatpump).

Last year (2021) we chewed through 8200kwh but this year it's down to 6997kwh. Our worst year was 8600 and our best has been as low as 6000kwh.

I have tweaked the weather compensation down a bit and modified the thermostat settings so the unit unit runs longer but at a lower temperature and surprisingly SWMBO has been more comfortable with less whinging now that the temperature is more even rather than it having to try to ramp up after cooling down overnight. We are at home all day so the heating is running almost 24/7 with just a three degree set back on the flow temp overnight.

Our averaged summer consumption is around 8-10kwh a day including hot water from the heatpump = 3600kwh a year so our heating consumption comes in at an average of somewhere around 3500-4500wh. My wife doesn't stint on using the washing machine or tumble dryer  (even in the summer) and everything else is electric.

ariarnia

our average this december wa apparently 4 degrees compared to last december (2021) at 7 degrees, (2020) of 6 degrees and 2018 and 19 both at 8 degrees. so obviously an unusually cold december here.

longer term average energy use is about 1-2 cubic meters of logs plus about 1800 of electric and 5000 of gas annually. 

this year (2022) we're only about half way through the winter period so its hard to estemate log use as we restock in summer but its looking more like 2.5 cubic meters of logs plus about 1500 electric and 5200 of gas. with more than 2000 of gas being used so far mid november to end december. 

so a little more energy than our '5 year average' but some lifestyle reasons for that and the environmental (lower temp)

markin

Cirrus1 said:

Mstty said:

For our location this December has ended up being 4oC colder over the month as an average and you should bear that in mind when comparing with last year.

Same at my location, 11 days of arctic horror starting on 8/12.

You are extremely fortunate to have a well insulated house as your energy increase for the entire month is only 30kWh over December last year. My increase for the 11 days in question was 1,360kWh! It was just too awful seeing the daily amount spent on keeping warm (a basic necessity in my opinion) add up. 

 126.6 extra over the 11 days ?

Is that the highest anyone has posted? Could you post some app screen shots or list the daily usage? And could we get some house details size and age and walls, Is it a conservatory without an external door or kitchen inside it?

Cirrus1 said:

Ally_E said:

🔹 Reduced central heating flow temp to 45 and only put it up on cold days when the system struggles to heat the house
🔹 Bought a chimney sheep for the open fire

Chimney sheep are great, I have one too.

I could never lower my flow temp to 45 degrees and be comfortable. I have too much heat loss going on (glass roof and walls). At ~62 degrees flow temp, the house gets warm easily during ordinary winter temperatures.  During the recent cold spell of -7 degrees, the flow needed to be 70 for the house to stand a chance of heating up in a reasonable timescale. Even then, it took about 5 hrs to go up by 2 degrees. 

The cold spell has been horrifically expensive because of the price increase. If that is not enough, there is the VAT slapped on top of that for the “luxury” of being warm.

Cirrus1 said:

I compared my November 21 and 22 bills. I have an 18% reduction in gas usage this Nov and 300% increase in price!
I have not reduced the temperature, but have zoned the house. Last year all the rooms were heated to the same temperature. The bedroom radiators were in cabinets. This summer, the cabinets were ripped out, all the radiators and trvs were changed. I also put in a lot of smart trvs.
The difference is that year the house is heated differently. It gets an equal amount of heat in the morning. The bedroom trvs are then turned down, but leaving the bathrooms on. Doors are closed wherever I can and the open plan area and kitchen gets most of the heating. At bedtime, the upstairs is heated again and downstairs turned down. The smart trvs are brilliant for controlling each radiator easily, no more going to each room to adjust.

BUFF

Just read my meters & submitted readings to supplier.
My gas is actually ~2.5% down on last December which I am taking as a win considering that sharp cold spell & that the average temp for the month apparently was 3C lower this year than last.
Electricity was up but by pretty much exactly the consumption of a dehumidifier that I bought & started using at the start of December.

victor2

Mstty said:

For our location this December has ended up being 4oC colder over the month as an average and you should bear that in mind when comparing with last year.

We are on target to only use 30kwh more so 3.2% increase on December 2021 but running the house warmer but more efficiently with a tailored weather compensation curve and other reductions in general electricity usage (we are electricity only and ASHP)

If you are interested the past data can be found on the following link once you have chosen your location.

https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/

Interesting site, even though the nearest weather station to me is 14 miles away. It also says my area was about 4 degrees cooler in December this year compared to last.

My own minimum daily temperature records show the following for 2021 (blue) versus 2022 (red):

Shows the mild spell in November as well as the dip in December.

Average minimum overnight December temperature was 1.42 deg. C in 2022, compared to 4.65 in 2021.

Used 6% more gas (CH & DHW) than in 2021, but had cut back on the heating slightly.