Views please on gas usage

spudwood

Hi, I have been monitoring my gas usage closely since receiving my last gas bill for one month, December 22, of ~ £200. I am with E-on. I pay for what I use each month and send meter readings to E-on each month. I have a 12 year old Worcester Bosch Greenstar 28i Junior Boiler. I have an old imperial gas meter, a Schlumberger which has four white digits and then a decimal digit in red. I don't have a smart meter.

I used 1832.9 kWh in December which is the 60 hundreds of cubic feet I used (as measured by my imperial meter) x 2.83 x 1.02264 x 38 / 3.6. 

Since then, I've tested the usage many times by reading the red numbers (ten of these equate to 1 hundreds of cubic feet) and the readings for an hour's usage are consistently 0.6 hundreds of cubic feet, which converted to kWh (0.6 x 2.83 x 1.02264 x 38 / 3.6) is 18.3 kWh.

I don't have my heating on much. I don't leave it running but switch it on when I feel cold and then turn it off. Sometimes I set a minimum night time temperature and it will come on at night, when it is very cold. I do not consider myself to be a high user of gas at all.

My question to the forum is: does 18.3 kWh seem high for an hour's usage and as such, could it mean there's a problem with my boiler or that my old gas meter could be inaccurate. The boiler was serviced recently; no issues identified.

Look forward to your replies
Thanks

DeeQS

It's not that high for the first hour of running. Your boiler is an upto 28kWh boiler. The first hour always uses more energy as it heats all the water from cold. Once the water is hot the boiler will cycle down to use less energy to just maintain the water at the set temperature.

Have you tried running it for 2 hours and taking the same measurements to check this?

PeterGr

If your December usage is 1832.9 kWh, and you think the hourly usage is 18.3 kWh, then that would be about 3 hours per day.  So there are over 20 hours a day when your usage is 0.   Daily readings over a period is more likely to give you a better idea of your boilers performance.   If you have read the meter for the first hour that the boiler has come on for instance it is not surprising that the consumption is similar.

markin

Whats your yearly usage, 6-9K? That usage for 5 months would be 9,000kwh around £900, Very low user.

You may be warmer running it longer but with a lower flow temp, whats it currently set to?

spudwood

DeeQS said:

It's not that high for the first hour of running. Your boiler is an upto 28kWh boiler. The first hour always uses more energy as it heats all the water from cold. Once the water is hot the boiler will cycle down to use less energy to just maintain the water at the set temperature.

Have you tried running it for 2 hours and taking the same measurements to check this?

Thanks for this. I will check how much it uses over a longer period and report back

spudwood

markin said:

Whats your yearly usage, 6-9K? That usage for 5 months would be 9,000kwh around £900, Very low user.

You may be warmer running it longer but with a lower flow temp, whats it currently set to?

Thanks for the reply. It has a dial, number to 6 and then max I think (it's in the loft so will have to check). I have it set on 5 at the moment so I could experiment with that; turning it down and having it on longer. I think my predicted usage is around 11000kwh for the year

spudwood

DeeQS said:

It's not that high for the first hour of running. Your boiler is an upto 28kWh boiler. The first hour always uses more energy as it heats all the water from cold. Once the water is hot the boiler will cycle down to use less energy to just maintain the water at the set temperature.

Have you tried running it for 2 hours and taking the same measurements to check this?

Say if I set it going at 17 degrees and wanted it to reach 19, would it still use less over time as the water warms up or would it still be going at full pelt to get to 19? 

Alnat1

Do you have TRVS on the radiators so you can control the temperatures in each room? They really do help you save money, as unused rooms can be heated slightly just to stop them getting damp and the main living room can be kept warmest if that's where you spend most time. Other rooms can be adjusted to suit your needs.

Astria

Alnat1 said:

Do you have TRVS on the radiators so you can control the temperatures in each room? They really do help you save money, as unused rooms can be heated slightly just to stop them getting damp and the main living room can be kept warmest if that's where you spend most time. Other rooms can be adjusted to suit your needs.

You can control the temperatures in other rooms without TRVs by simply balancing the radiators via the lockshield valve, assuming you have a thermostat as well - you don't have as much control, but if a room is rarely used and just needs little heating, then it's best to have the used rooms to have most of the hot water, and the unused rooms to have the least of the hot water. Be warned however that cold rooms will suck energy from warm rooms as rooms in a house are typically poorly insulated, so the warm rooms will need additional heating so will then cost more, negating some of your savings.

spudwood

Alnat1 said:

Do you have TRVS on the radiators so you can control the temperatures in each room? They really do help you save money, as unused rooms can be heated slightly just to stop them getting damp and the main living room can be kept warmest if that's where you spend most time. Other rooms can be adjusted to suit your needs.

Thanks for this. I do have TRVs but wasn't really sure how to best use them. They are all on full at the moment. I will experiment!

spudwood

Astria said:

Alnat1 said:

Do you have TRVS on the radiators so you can control the temperatures in each room? They really do help you save money, as unused rooms can be heated slightly just to stop them getting damp and the main living room can be kept warmest if that's where you spend most time. Other rooms can be adjusted to suit your needs.

You can control the temperatures in other rooms without TRVs by simply balancing the radiators via the lockshield valve, assuming you have a thermostat as well - you don't have as much control, but if a room is rarely used and just needs little heating, then it's best to have the used rooms to have most of the hot water, and the unused rooms to have the least of the hot water. Be warned however that cold rooms will suck energy from warm rooms as rooms in a house are typically poorly insulated, so the warm rooms will need additional heating so will then cost more, negating some of your savings.

Thanks. I do have TRVs and will experiment. I live in a semi-bungalow and the unattached rooms are north facing so are pretty cold rooms and yes I feel they do suck the warmth from warmer rooms.