Not been the warmest of Aprils

TheElectricCow

Hadn't realised everyone was still finding it cold enough for heating, apparently I must be in a particularly strong place for sunlight this time of year as my internal temps have been a fairly steady 19-22c these past few weeks. Not that I'd even entertain the idea of having the heating on at this time of year anyway with my level of tight-fistedness.

Energy use seems to be pretty much the same as a comparable period from last year, maybe just slightly lower now by a few kWh but nothing out of the ordinary for expected general variation. Have improved some energy use efficiency since then, which would have reduced consumption, but also now have a few more appliances running which seems to have made up the difference.

Leon_W

I think some of us don't get much solar gain during the day. I'm east facing and with outside temperatures in the low teens I still have to have some sort of heating on as upstairs at the mo is just 13 degrees.

Compared to last year, April, although colder, we've used quite a bit less electricity and gas.

Last year, from the end of March to todays date we'd used 179 kwh of electric and 605 kwh of gas. This year we've used just 114 kwh of electric and 418 kwh of gas.  So roughly a 1/3rd down.

Although, on colder days this month we've lit the stove in the kitchen/sofa/tv room rather than heat the whole house.  This seems to be particularly economical as we have one lovely toasty comfortable room to sit in rather than 7 rooms that are bearable but not exactly toasty !

As for cost, we generally use coal with the odd log, so pay £15 a bag for 25kg of Oxbow Red briquettes.  1kg of coal is about 5kwh which works out at roughly 8p per kwh. Much cheaper than the 3kwh electric fan heater at 34p per kwh we used to run when it got nippy !

Had the fire lit today (as it's the weekend) and burned 2kg of coal from 9am to 10pm (and it's still going) so about £3 worth and the room has been hot all day.  It's freezing upstairs mind ! I'll put the electric blanket on

BooJewels

It's certainly still cool enough here to need heating, with low single digit temps overnight and low teens during the day.  I too don't get much solar gain at this time of year, but the orientation of the house and my strange window arrangement is a blessing when it gets hot in summer though.  I have the thermostat set for 15°C overnight and 18°C during the day.

Looking at my Hive app, which records how long my my heating was firing, it was a daily average of 6.64 hours in Feb, 6.38 hours in March, but only 3.63 hours per day so far in April - suggesting that it's certainly warmer than last month - but we had a significant cold snap with lying snow in March.  It hasn't fired up overnight for some time.

Nelliegrace

We have our Winter thermals and warm layers on still. The heating comes on occasionally in the morning, but most of the time the house temperature is just above the thermostat setting of 14°C in the day.
It has been raining a lot, and the forecast is not much better, but we have checked it for the best days to do the washing and got most of it dried outside. I haven’t used the tumble drier or the iron. 

Scot_39

A few days over recent weeks have had to resort to using plug in oil filled radiator in living room.  Other sunnier days it's been 16-18 inside with solar gain.

But nowhere near consistently cold enough to use my main heat source - old lossy box of bricks NSH.

Temps of 9 day, zero overnight are forecast here tomorrow and low to mid teens with grey clouds and rain on / off over next 10 days even into May.

Without solar gain - that means many homes will still need a bit of heat.

Will compare at end of month with last Apr - as only have data for  months going back that far.

Even on a sunny day my living room doesn't get any sun afternoon or evening.  So still layering to avoid higher heating bills.

Swipe

All of my storage heaters, apart from the living room one, have been off since early March. It's currently on three quarters input and ensures the room stays between 18C and 20C during the evenings. If it's partly cloudy or sunny I spend most of the day in the garden room which gets the sun from sunrise to 3pm where the temp generally stays between 18C and 22C with no heating. The rest of the bungalow including bedrooms, fluctuates between 12C and 15C with no heating right now.

dunstonh

For us, whilst April has been wet, it hasn't been wet enough yet to recover from the drought.  Water table is already falling and is several inches down from its recent peak and nearly a foot down from where it would more commonly be.

It hasnt been a cold April either.  No snow and temperatures haven't been particularly low.

Oil fired CH is still timed but isn't coming on much. Mainly an occasional stint in the morning.   The woddburners in two of the rooms havent been on once but one room has been on from mid afternoon onwards.

Mstty

To add to the detail we decided if we could get our kWh usage down to an equivalent £150-160 a month that would be good enough.

To that end we have left our ASHP on in April doing its thing on our weather compensation curve settings. That with April being colder this year as stated 20% more use this year for the Month of April estimated. If we had cut back we would have turned ASHP heating off in April and burnt the tree we cut down 18 months ago. That can now wait til this winter and be an even better burn.

You have to go down to what you think is reasonable or the budget you have for heat but hopefully lower prices still on the horizon.

We may even come off our fix in July if reductions are likely to stay until April 2024. 

mac.d

I've used slightly less in March (640kWh compared to 670kWh last year). However, used more in April (450kWh compared to 380kW), and that won't get better with the current drop in temperatures again. Just starting to get days where the heating only comes on for an hour in the morning and not at all in the afternoon, sadly it didn't last! Forecast is for it to be down to 1°C tonight and barely in double figures until the end of the week. 

dealyboy

My E7 night rate usage has come down to about 35% over the last 4 weeks, lower than the 42% to make E7 worthwhile.

This is paradoxically because it has still been quite cold overnight, so although I have used my heated throw/top blanket (primarily for the cat) I have gotten up later to use hot water and cooking in 'day rate' time.