Unusually high gas usage of 43000kwh per year

laidbackgjr

I don't think our settings are that drastic - we have played with them in the past - up down a degree, on / off for shorter hours etc, but all to no real discernable avail.

You might not think those settings for the thermostat are high, but they are probably the main reason for such high gas usage. For comparison we have ours set to 17.5 degrees from 6:30 am to 9:30 pm and 8 degrees from 9:30 pm to 6:30 am.

Having lowered the daytime temperature from last year's 18.5 degrees, I estimate around a 5% gas saving this winter.

You are running a large house with lots of heating set at high temperatures, I think the usage is about right, the way to cut costs is to use less (i.e. lower the heating temperatures) or majorily invest in more efficient measures.

[Deleted User]

giles007 said:

[Deleted User] said:

Your meter is nearly 40 years old. Has your supplier not suggested that it needs replacing? Given your consumption, I would be asking the supplier for an independent meter check undertaken by SGS. Your meter would be removed and sealed and sent to SGS for laboratory flow testing. You will only pay for the meter change if the meter is found to be within limits.

Thanks Dolor - Would a new gas meter have to be a smart meter? we are concerned (rightly or wrongly) about EMF radiation

Suppliers are allowed to fit smart meters when a meter is deemed to be end-of-life. Smart meters in the South and Central regions connect via the Telefonica/02 network. It that regard, the comms hub acts like a mobile phone waiting for a data call once per day. They are not in continuous transmit mode as many people mistakenly believe is the case. 

theoretica

So - assuming you were away for some time in August it looks like your hot water figure is 1000-1200 kWh a month - say 13000 a year, and likely more as you will be heating from a colder starting point, and maybe want more hot water in winter.  That is not low - and with that as a hot water point you are never going to come close to 17000 including heating!  Can you work out where that portion is going?  Long daily showers?  Deep baths?  Back of an envelope says 13000 a year = 35 kWh a day on hot water = maybe running showers/water on full for an hour a day - 4 people, 15 minutes each.  Not impossible, but if you are having 2 minute showers, you have more summer use to track down.  Or, as someone else suggested, a growing doubt about your meter and getting it changed and checked might be worthwhile.

giles007

theoretica said:

So - assuming you were away for some time in August it looks like your hot water figure is 1000-1200 kWh a month - say 13000 a year, and likely more as you will be heating from a colder starting point, and maybe want more hot water in winter.  That is not low - and with that as a hot water point you are never going to come close to 17000 including heating!  Can you work out where that portion is going?  Long daily showers?  Deep baths?  Back of an envelope says 13000 a year = 35 kWh a day on hot water = maybe running showers/water on full for an hour a day - 4 people, 15 minutes each.  Not impossible, but if you are having 2 minute showers, you have more summer use to track down.  Or, as someone else suggested, a growing doubt about your meter and getting it changed and checked might be worthwhile.

How does the average family come close to 17000kWh then if they are using average hot water amounts like we do?  We dont have long showers or multiple baths each per day.

That figure for hot water - i had noticed we had the hot water on for too long morning and night last summer so for August i reduced the time it was on, so you can see the drop there.  

(incidentally we have just had solar installed and an "eddi" to heat the hot water for us so am hoping for a small reduction in gas that way also)

BUFF

giles007 said:

Boiler
The building work we had done replaced an old Mexican boiler with a new all singing all dancing Glow Worm

I assume that this is a condensing boiler, do you know what the CH flow temp is set to?

markin

With solar now taking care of the hot water the boiler flow temp can be reduced to 50-55c

youravinalarrrf

giles007 said:

I don't think our settings are that drastic - we have played with them in the past - up down a degree, on / off for shorter hours etc, but all to no real discernable avail.

We have always turned the AGA off in the summer months, as yes it does heat as well as cook
Whilst the AGA was on though, the underfloor heating didn't ever kick in as the temperature was always adequate from just the AGA.

Yes it would have been just hot water in the Summer

Oddly the upstairs temp is controlled by a thermostat downstairs (odd historical house configuration) and it gets affected by the downstairs heat - we often complain its too cold upstairs.

I cant see any reason we would be pumping out heat and not be readily aware that we are

Here's my two penn'orth.

It's your money of course but unfortunately you seem to be in denial and until you understand and accept the basic principal that if your gas central heating, underfloor heating, AGA and any other gas appliance you may have is turned on your gas meter dials keep turning and it's increasing your usage and burning your money. The only way to reduce you usage is to turn the temperature settings down, reduce the time period they're turned on for or turn them off altogether.

As someone else has already commented the reality is that your temperature settings are set too high and on for too long.Try setting everything to 17 degrees across the board and turn it off overnight. You can always increase/override the settings in unusually cold periods or if you find that 17 degrees is just too cold for your comfort.

Are you heating rooms even when they're not in use? Turn the thermostatic radiator valves (TRV's) down to their frost protection setting in any unused rooms.

Why on earth is your heating on when everybody is in bed? You might as well sit in bed burning £5 notes? If you're in bed the heating doesn't need to be on as it's of no benefit to anybody. In my opinion it's just wasting your money unnecessarily.

Try the reduced settings for one full month (a day or two is not long enough for a proper comparison) and then compare your usage with the same period a year ago to see what difference it makes to your usage.

chuwi

giles007 said:

Thanks again for your replies, I will try to reply to you all in this one post

Meter



bills are being calculated as follows

Looks to me like the bill is in cubic metres, but the meter itself is in cubic feet.

The meter has the order of 9000 on it, so does the statement shots. But the statement indicates all the numbers are cubic metres.

Their table is very bad, and considering the people designing that will be graduates they should know better. Either all numbers should have units, or the column headings should be showed as divided by the unit, so that just a number is OK. "Opening read/cubic metres" should be the one heading, for example.

They should be using superscript for the 3 in m3. Previewing this post isn't working, so I will guess at this working: m³

One of the companies that went bankrupt the other year were worse for clear info. They sent a "statement", and it had one number on, the number of units used. A bar chart of that next to some average customer, and whilst the scale was rough the column for me did not fit with the number of units I had used. So how much gas did I use?

chuwi

OK, just noticed the bit where the bill/statement does acknowledge the meter is imperial. I am not sure they take it into account though, but perhaps I now just as lost as the OP....

victor2

chuwi said:

giles007 said:

Thanks again for your replies, I will try to reply to you all in this one post

Meter



bills are being calculated as follows

Looks to me like the bill is in cubic metres, but the meter itself is in cubic feet.

...

It is very clearly stated above the first box, where the HCF are converted to m3