Daily gas consumption

Jibber123

I've been doing some experiments with the heating and I read the gas meter yesterday lunchtime, left the heating on for 9 hours then turned it off, read the meter this morning and we've used 112kWh of gas. I only had the TRV's open in several rooms we use during the day, kitchen, bathroom, hall, landing, and 2 bedrooms and they were set at 17C. This usage seems very high considering its not very cold yet. What do people use in a typical day during the winter. I know its dependent on the size of the house, insulation, boiler, etc.. but i'm looking for comparisons and what to aim for. 

ArbitraryRandom

Is your boiler a condensing boiler and do you know your flow temp? 

As you say, any numbers you get here won't be very applicable to you as there's too many variables. 

But, for what it's worth, looking back at my bills from before I had my stove installed - 3 bed well insulated house, condensing boiler with a flow temp of 50, heated to 16/17 all day/nixed at night, and managed by thermostat: 519 kWh of gas used between 17 Oct and 16 Nov (and it only cost me £20 for the month!)

Same year, Nov-Dec used 1348 (same settings) - Dec-Jan was 2100 and Jan-Feb was back down to 673

gould300

4 bed house. Heating on 08:30-20:30. Thermostat set to 18degC and my historic figures show that the most we've used averaged across a month is 68kWh/day since having our conventional boiler replaced two years ago. Before that our 20 year old boiler maxed out at 112kWh/day.

Jibber123

Yes its a condensing boiler Worcester Bosch Greenstar CDi Classic, aprox 5 years old. I've put temperature gauges on the flow and return and after about 30 mins they are 36.6C and 40.1C.

ArbitraryRandom

I believe for greatest efficiency you want a 10 degree drop between out and return? 

darrensurrey

ArbitraryRandom said:

I believe for greatest efficiency you want a 10 degree drop between out and return? 

So having my house set at 10C through winter is spot on then. 😅

FreeBear

Jibber123 said:

I've been doing some experiments with the heating and I read the gas meter yesterday lunchtime, left the heating on for 9 hours then turned it off, read the meter this morning and we've used 112kWh of gas. I only had the TRV's open in several rooms we use during the day, kitchen, bathroom, hall, landing, and 2 bedrooms and they were set at 17C. This usage seems very high considering its not very cold yet. What do people use in a typical day during the winter. I know its dependent on the size of the house, insulation, boiler, etc.. but i'm looking for comparisons and what to aim for. 

112KWh of gas over 9 hours works out as 12.44KW per hour - Unless you have a very old boiler that neither condenses or modulates, that is very poor.

Looking back at my gas consumption for February last year, I used 12.6KWh on average each day - This was with an ancient non-condensing, non-modulating Baxi back boiler. With a new boiler installed earlier in the year, I anticipate similar levels of gas consumption, but with a higher level of comfort (base line temperature is currently set to 18°C, up from 16°C).

ArbitraryRandom

There's also perhaps an element of heating the fabric of the home/a cold start - could be that regular heating for a week would see greater efficiency... but not sure that's all of it. 

HumberFlyer

Your usage is very high Ours is a WB Greenstar condensing boiler
Last Dec usage (the highest of the year):
Central heating on 9am-9pm room thermostat at 21 degrees... start of day temp usually 17 degrees...2 bedroom, quite large bungalow

Netexporter

ArbitraryRandom said:

There's also perhaps an element of heating the fabric of the home/a cold start - could be that regular heating for a week would see greater efficiency... but not sure that's all of it. 

I learned that lesson, many years ago, when I had a large stone-built house, which was initially heated by oil. We lost a number of large trees in one of the big storms in the late 80s, so I installed a wood-burning boiler in parallel with the oil boiler, to use up the timber. At the beginning of each heating season I'd be barrowing in wood about 5 times a day, for a week or so. Once the walls had absorbed their fill I could then manage on one barrow-load a day, unless the weather was exceptionally cold.

MeteredOut

Which model of WB Greenstar? There at different kW rated versions (eg, 29 to 42).

And, that usage seems high, unless, as suggested above, you were heating your house from a low based and it your boiler was not condensing. What gas meter model to you have?