£3 a day bill

stu12345_2

I also have a very old cat that is poorly. they say cats want heat they prefer a min of 20 degrees.

MikeJXE

EssexHebridean said:

MikeJXE said:

I have just read my dumb meter and entered the readings on my spreadsheet 

£12.76 for the week usage gas and electric, £1 more than last week 

I'm a pensioner in a 1 bed ground floor flat and don't expect to be using £3 a day until mid winter 

Not specifically aimed at Mike - but… although he is finding his costs are at this level now, without knowing about his lifestyle, property age, actual property size (one beds can vary wildly in floor space) what the construction and insulation is like, whether he cooks and heats using gas or electricity, or just cooks, or just heats, and a myriad of other unknown factors including his energy tariffs, it’s not really helpful as a measure of comparison. 

Fair comment.

My flat built 2007 44m2 gas central heated East Midlands Octopus, facing south west with a hedge 8 feet away so I get no sun. Friday I had a blood test for vitamin D deficiency but don't have results yet 

I cook mainly microwave or George Foreman griddle, rarely eat out, electric kettle lots of coffee. 

I spend most of my day on my laptop, I feel the cold so the heating goes on when I need it, it is not controlled by a programmer,  twice this week I switched it on in the early evening and forgot to switch it off when I went to bed hence on all night.

The washing machine cycle is about 3 hours once a week, fridge not fridge freezer., lighting mainly 1 energy efficient bulb 

stu12345_2

of course gas is cheaper than electricity to heat a home.my point is almost all my electronic items use hardly any power compared to the price of a blast of gas.
I could use numerous lights laptops hi-fi's chargers fans etc and the smart meter barely moves.
 remember the smart meter moves instantly when electrical items are on but gas has a 20 minutes delay before it registers on smart meter 
it's to do with a WiFi signal or something delay from the gas meter outside

so if you're new to all this and you put gas on max etc prefer for a shocker 20 mins later on display 

Scot_39

stu12345_2 said:

of course gas is cheaper than electricity to heat a home.my point is almost all my electronic items use hardly any power compared to the price of a blast of gas.
I could use numerous lights laptops hi-fi's chargers fans etc and the smart meter barely moves.

Because your failing to grasp the instantaneous power available from the gas central heating boiler.


A LED light bulb 10W.

A desktop fan on low c20W.

20W rms audio would have your neighbours chapping on your door- that's 100% on even many hi fi systems - certainly most televisions.

Old 40" LCD TV - 150W, newrr LED 70W.

Microwave old 900W output heat - maybe 1.7kW input (yes they are that inefficient) - when active during cooking cycle.

1 bar electric fire 1kW

1 gch boiler 15-20 kW potentially.



And then multiply that by time to get energy used.

So 1kWh - one billing unit = 1kW device used at full power for 1hour.

So in terms of timing,

Thats 100 hrs of 10W LED light bulb

Charged at c27p currently

Or 1/15 say x60 min = 4 mins of gas boiler at 15kW.

Charged at c7p currently.

Or in cost terms run for c15min to get the same 27p.

stu12345_2

yes.thanks. I'm a sort of value for money guy lol.and if I can enjoy lots of items running and using little power.i see it as a good deal 
I suppose I have to work out and value the pleasure of instantaneous heat and the cost of it. 

 my next question has prob been answered before.but it's difficult question. 

is it say in winter cheaper to leave gas heating on all day at say 18 degrees or blast the boiler to 21 degrees to bring up the temp from an unheated flat without heat being on all day long 

say you have been at work all day then come home..what works out cheaper 

Scot_39

At the end of the day you could use less instantaneous power by leaving your gas central heating on all day.

Buy you'd probably then suffer more heat loss and therefore higher average bills as a result - depending on how lossy your flat is.

My 1.13kW max output nsh for just 1 room charges at 3.3kW input rating for in most peoples cases on e7 a max of 7 hrs.  23.1kWh over 7 hrs in theory - spread out over 24hrs - just under 1kWh average output

Your trying to do the same over 0.5 hrs of input heat for your whole flat.

Many with Smart meter monitoring have shown their smart meter gas consumption spikes on morning or evening boiler switch ons - normally well over 5kWh - some nearer 10kWh - in that 1st half hour slot - then lowering dramatically over time to heat maintain (essentially against home losses) level.

As to maybe what would be better and cover weekends too is a 7 day programmable thermostat.

Set to say 12overnight (or insurers min) , 14-15 day and 18 say 1hr before return to 1 hr before go to bed.

Alnat1

stu12345_2 said:

is it say in winter cheaper to leave gas heating on all day at say 18 degrees or blast the boiler to 21 degrees to bring up the temp from an unheated flat without heat being on all day long 

say you have been at work all day then come home..what works out cheaper 

Maybe consider getting the sort of heating controls where you can set the temperature to say 15/16C during the day and from 5.30pm (or 30 minutes before you get home) have the temperature at say 19C.

Setting the boiler flow temperature lower (50-55C) also saves money, slow steady heat gains work out cheaper, rather than "blasting".

21C is t-shirt temperature, 19C and a jumper/fleece is definitely a money saver.

markin

Having a daily hard target is a bit pointless, The will be warm days and cold days, a weekly/monthly average is far better, some days you will use £2 other £6, Its the bill at the end of the 30 days that matters.

Also recording day/night temps is useful.

stu12345_2

markin said:

Having a daily hard target is a bit pointless, The will be warm days and cold days, a weekly/monthly average is far better, some days you will use £2 other £6, Its the bill at the end of the 30 days that matters.

yes, trying to judge a monthly bill BG will send me to pay by debit card, but if they put me on a fixed DD they estimate it to be£130 a month. where as i can get it below £3 a day.so no more than £90 a month, do  not think i will use £130, even in winter, doing the same style of heating, as will still do my 30 mins blast of gas. and still be under £90 a month.

matelodave

Although your circumstances are different to ours and we are all electric. but we average around 7-8kwh of electricity a day in the summer which at 28p/kwh is around £2.25 a day.

However, as winter draws on, the cost start to increase quite dramatically and, come the middle of December through to February we can easily ramp that up to 60kwh/day = £17 on some days although hopefully some of those days are fairly rare.

I do expect or December and January averages to be around 40-45 kwh a day = around £12 day

As others have said, look at your consumption in kwh, rather than £££'s. Its more meaningful and easier to monitor and control, especially when prices can be changing every three months.You cant always be sure that the IHD is using the correct tariff rates - mine was wrong for the best part of five years, got sorted out and is now wrong again after the last price adjustment.