High gas usage

Bendo

rigby44 said:

Guys/girls,

Any reason why Viessmann recommend 75° on combi boilers, if there’s no chance of it entering condensing mode at that temp?

There must be a reason they advise it?

Whats the actual boiler. If thats what they're recommending its probably not a condensing one.

rigby44

Bendo said:

rigby44 said:

Guys/girls,

Any reason why Viessmann recommend 75° on combi boilers, if there’s no chance of it entering condensing mode at that temp?

There must be a reason they advise it?

Whats the actual boiler. If thats what they're recommending its probably not a condensing one.

Its a combi, Vitodens 050 or similar. I was confused myself about combi/condensing.

Themoneyshot

rigby44 said:

Krakkkers said:

Are you reading the meter or your ihd as the ihd is not accurate or up to date.

Octopus app. It seems all over the place though, as its showing zero gas usage for yesterday evening, but then is showing usage for this evening - so it’s not like its delayed. I will phone them tomorrow.

The gas meter connects to, and communicates via, the electric meter. It is the electric meter that transmits the data up to Octopus and this then appears on you app as usage in a daily/weekly/monthly bar chart. It is not uncommon for the gas meter to lose connection with the electric meter, especially if there is some distance or physical objects between them. When the connection is lost the periodic readings are also lost. When the connection is remade in time for the next periodic reading it will send the whole usage in one lump and have no idea at what rate the gas was actually used. This translates into a graph in the app with periods of no usage followed by, what looks like, a period of very high use. The electric meter will almost always show a more steady stream of data because it transmits it more frequently and does not require connection with a third device to send the data. 

If you have the gas meter in a kitchen cupboard, for example, you may find moving other dense stuff away from it in order to help more reliable connections with the electric meter. 

If you wish to more accurately and reliably work out your actual daily usage you would need to manually read the gas meter each day and record the results. 

njkmr

May be way off the mark but have you checked for a gas leak.
My meter is outside but a couple of times over a 6 month period I smelt a small whiff of gas reading the meter.
Unfortunately I ignored it only to find the pipe coming off the meter into the house had a 90 degree elbow joint not soldered correctly. I had been paying for gas that had been through the meter but then escaping to atmosphere.
After many many emails to Octopus and Ombudsmen I was told tough luck ...!
Even though i had never had any work done to the pipes since Octopus put smart meters in 2 years ago.
Cost me about £1500 in escaped gas.
Definitely check there is no gas smell near the meter.I
Regards
Rob.

EssexHebridean

rigby44 said:

EssexHebridean said:

Yep - my boiler (also a Veissmann, but nowhere near as new as yours) is currently set in the region of 60 degrees and I used 287kWh in the first 5 days of this month so I'd say with your settings your use is perfectly possible. Comparing back with last year is one option, but that first few days of December this year was far colder than the same period in 2022 I think, so it may not help much. 

Thanks for that, I will lower to 65° and see what the impact is.

What is your water temp set to, out of interest?

Ummm...."hot enough" sorry!   I mentioned our boiler was older than yours, well our gas engineer reckoned probably 15 - 20 years old, which means it just has two numbered dials for the heating and water temps. I know what the heating is at because Jamie (gas man) told me what it was running through at when he serviced the boiler - and we agreed with a slight downward tweak at that stage to bring to to "around 60" - but the water we have simply turned until it's at "the right heat for us" if that makes sense. It's around the middle of its dial, as I recall - but that doesn't inform anyone about anything! It's still running decently, but we do have money ready in the pot in case that changes, because as Jamie says - at the age it's at, there will be little sense in spending money on it now as the chances are as fast as he fixes one thing, something else will then fail!  Both dials are also now slightly "loose" - so will need checking occasionally to make sure they've not crept round at all. 

QrizB

rigby44 said:

Bendo said:

rigby44 said:

Guys/girls,

Any reason why Viessmann recommend 75° on combi boilers, if there’s no chance of it entering condensing mode at that temp?

There must be a reason they advise it?

Whats the actual boiler. If thats what they're recommending its probably not a condensing one.

Its a combi, Vitodens 050 or similar. I was confused myself about combi/condensing.

Veissman's webpage isn't consistent.

At the top of the page they recommend 75C flow temp for combi boilers, but further down the page thay point out that condensing boilers (which includes pretty much every boiler installed in the UK in the past 20 years) should be run at 55C.