gas units used increased this last winter

Neutrinodior

Hi. 

First post and really need some help/advice/understanding. 

I’ve recently received my 6 month statement from British Gas and I have used more units this period than I did for the same period last year. 

However, this year my boiler was set to eco, it’s 3 years old, it’s serviced annually. I only put the heating on for an hour or two in the morning and the same at night? I lowered the temperature to 20 degrees or under - except if I really found it too cold, then it went to 21. 

I don’t have daily showers as I have a chronic illness, and never have a bath. 

The year before, my heating would be on all day but not at night 80% of the time. I used hot water to wash everytime, nothing was placed on eco mode - just occasionally my electric oven. 

Now my units of electricity have gone down but not by much. 

If it had just been me that’s seen this, then I’d think it was an issue in my house. 

However, my friend who works from home and was dressed in jumpers, hoodies, with hot-water bottles on her lap rather than using the gas heating has also used more units in this period of time compared to the same period last year. She has also been following all the tips to use less energy. 

There is just me in my one up, one down mid back to back terrace circa 1900. She’s in a 3 bed semi detached with 4 people, that’s post war build. 

Can anyone suggest what may have happened? Why went trying to save energy (and money) we have ended up using more and of course spending more? 

chris_n

It was significantly colder late in the winter this year than last. You also have the issue of 'heating from cold' all of the time, for some houses / systems it makes little difference between heating on all of the time or letting it get cold and only putting heating on as required. This can be made worse when you have unheated rooms within your property.

Robin9

Neutrinodior said:

Hi. 

First post and really need some help/advice/understanding. 

I’ve recently received my 6 month statement from British Gas and I have used more units this period than I did for the same period last year. 

.............................................................

It is important that you are comparing like for like.

Please give us the dates of last winter and this and the readings - inc the letters A  C E our read/your read please

FreeBear

chris_n said: It was significantly colder late in the winter this year than last.

Last year, my heating was rarely on in March. This year, it was early May before it finally got turned off. So despite the winter period being relatively mild, it was certainly a lot cooler during March/April/May than last year. Those extra months helped to bump up my heating costs.

Ally_E.

I track daily average temperatures and according the my spreadsheets January, February and March were colder this year compared to 2022. December was also significantly colder in 2022 compared to 2021, average temp for the month being 3.99C in 2022 vs 6.04C in 2021. Data from Gatwick weather station. 

BUFF

It may well depend where you are. From what I understand parts of England definitely were colder this winter  (as evidenced by posts above) however, other parts of the UK e.g. Glasgow where I am, had a noticeably mild winter.

bob2302

Neutrinodior said:

However, this year my boiler was set to eco, 

If it's the same as the eco mode on my Worcester-Bosch you shouldn't expect to see a noticeable difference. All it does is turn-off a pre-heat feature that keeps a small amount of hot water ready for use. The amount of gas this saves is tiny compared with heating a house.

Pre-heating has never worked well for me; by the time the water reaches the tap it's barely luke warm. Controlling this with an eco button seems like marketing spin to me.

markin

In older homes its usually just best to heat all day at low level say 17c rather than letting it drop too far and have to work hard to catch back up, with a lower flow temp in the radiators also from 45c -55c hotter for colder days.