New home, what to prioritize?

ElmoR

Hi all

I'm hoping to find pointers and advice from forumites on what to tackle first.

We moved into a new home at the end of March and there's a lot to do in the house and garden. It's from the 1980s and not much has been updated since it was built. We have a new kitchen booked for June and that will sort out the basic electrics for the fuse box as well. There's also a fence being erected in June so that the pooch can go outside without having to be on a lead. These are both large and costly jobs.

We have a list as long as our arms on jobs to do and we've prioritized them to some degree - plumbing/radiators, loft insulation, soffits/fascias before winter being the most crucial.

What's worrying is the energy bill - looking at 30 odd days units so far - it seems to be whirring around on the meters 5 times more than our previous house

This is quite scary, we are looking at huge bills. The radiators have no thermostats, so we have a company coming in a couple of weeks to quote for that. In the meantime, we've turned the heating off. There's a combi boiler that was brand new (installed a few weeks before we arrived) and no immersion heater. We've been switching out bulbs for LED. There's also an ancient Stoves 7 hob gas cooker/electric ovens - could that be the culprit of the eye watering unit consumption? We are reverting to microwave meals (yuc!) where we can, until the kitchen installation in June.

If anyone has any detective/forensic approaches to finding out where the energy is being drained - please help

many thanks, ElmoR

FreeBear

ElmoR said: This is quite scary, we are looking at huge bills. The radiators have no thermostats, so we have a company coming in a couple of weeks to quote for that. In the meantime, we've turned the heating off. There's a combi boiler that was brand new (installed a few weeks before we arrived) and no immersion heater.

It would be worthwhile crunching the numbers with this calculator -> https://www.stelrad.com/basic-heat-loss-calculator/ - See what it suggests for radiator sizes at a delta T of 50°C, and again at 40°C. Compare the recommendations with what you currently have fitted. If the system is going to be drained down, it could pay to upgrade some/all the radiators at the same time (assuming you don't have microbore plumbing). With bigger radiators, you can dial back the flow temperature and get better efficiency. Combined with a smarter programmable thermostat that can talk to the boiler, you can squeeze a bit more efficiency out of the heating system.

Also worth turning down the hot water temperature - I have mine set to 45°C, but I boil a kettle for washing up, so hot water is just for the bathroom. Once losses of heating unused water in the pipes & boiler is taken in to account, a kettle works out about the same cost.

Although not the best time of year to do it, go round looking for cold draughts. Pay attention to the doors & windows, and plug those draughts as you find them. And on the subject of windows, replace any blown sealed units over the summer months. Specify low E glass (which I think is pretty standard now), and that will cut your heat losses.

As for electricity consumption, you'll have to go round turning stuff on & off to find which are the high energy guzzlers. Any outside lights using halogen bulbs ?

Fish pond with pumps ?

victor2

Is it gas or electric usage that is concerning you, or both?

Assuming gas is the major issue, with your heating off and your hot water coming only from the combi boiler, usage shouldn't be too bad.

Do you have showers running off the combi or electric?

The stove is unlikely to be using much gas, so eating only microwave meals isn't going to save you much, if anything.

What you can do is take daily readings of your meters, say first thing each morning and start to look at the kWh used for each fuel.

Electricity meters read in kWh, so are simple. Gas meters need the units converting to kWh and the units will either be imperial or metric, depending how old the meter is. Could it be you're comparing units recorded on a metric meter to your old house with an imperial meter? Imperial meters show hundreds of cubic feet and metric ones show cubic meters, so metric meters read almost 3 times the volume of imperial ones. Just a thought...

Edit: Poor wording with "3 times the volume of imperial". For the same volume, the units are higher on a metric meter than an imperial one.

twopenny

Aside from an electric cooker the electric kettle and shower use the most in my place.

I've always checked anything I've bought in simply by switching everything off and just one thing on at a time. Read the meter before and after about half an hour.
Write each down.

You can get on with other stuff, just set a timer for nipping out. A kitchen timer is easier than a,phone for this.

Albermarle

What's worrying is the energy bill - looking at 30 odd days units so far - it seems to be whirring around on the meters 5 times more than our previous house 

Can you clarify if you are concerned about gas or electricity usage, or both?

Maybe worthwhile posting your actual usage for say April, to see how it compares to other posters/

ElmoR

Thank you @FreeBear @victor2 @twopenny @Albermarle

After reading your comments, I had a massive feeling of relief! Our previous home was on an imperial meter and this home is metric!! I hadn't noticed that and thought I was comparing like with like on the units. I feel like a right plonker not to notice this. I had visions of a £1000+ bill arriving any minute.

We've been going round the house looking for draughts and found lots, so we can add draught proofing to the list. We're still finding high wattage bulbs too.  We can do the radiator calculations and discuss with the plumbers. The combi boiler water and heating were set at 65 degrees, so we have reduced both to 50 degrees for now.

There's no pond or outdoor lights (that work). There is wiring going to overly fancy (and broken) garden lightbulbs, but we turned that off.

We are concerned about both the gas and the electricity. As suggested here are the readings for 38 days:

Gas day 1 (day we moved in) - 51809. Gas meter after 38 days 52001. Units on meter says m3.

Electricity day 1 - 94666. Elec meter after 38 days 94925.

One other thing we thought of...Most of upstairs is wood laminate flooring and the underlay looks thin. We have a longer term plan for carpets and thicker underlay, so that should help retain some heat. We can carpet upstairs before downstairs to save that heat. Not enough pennies for that right now though...

Thanks again - slept much better after reading your units comment 

ElmoR

victor2

Glad it was a simple solution @ElmoR!

So your gas works out at about 2143kWh over 38 days. You probably had the heating on for most of those days, so 56kWh per day isn't so bad, especially as you know your heating is not running that efficiently.

You used 259kWh of electricity, or 6.8kWh per day, so not bad either.

You can just look at your general usage at a bit more of a leisurely pace now.

Plenty of threads on here about cutting utility usage, or just start another one if you have a specific issue.

FreeBear

ElmoR said: Gas day 1 (day we moved in) - 51809. Gas meter after 38 days 52001. Units on meter says m3.

So 192m³ or roughly 2150kWh - That is quite a bit.... By comparison, my annual usage is 3300kWh (but I'm currently on my own, and don't have the heating on much).

When you get your first energy bill, do check to see what units company is billing you for. It is not uncommon for them to charge for imperial units (100s cubic feet) when you have a metric meter (cubic metres). The tell tail sign is a multiplier of 2.83 in the box where they show the calculation to convert from meter units to kWh. One of my previous suppliers pulled that stunt on me and went bust before correcting the mistake.

Bigphil1474

Don't think that's particularly high but it's hard to work out for the time of year - we use roughly 12,000 kWh gas per year, which is about average for our house type - 3 bed mid terrace - but most is obviously in winter. We do have a service boiler rather than combi, but we have heating on for an hour in the morning and again in the evening in the winter. Agree that gas hobs won't use that much more energy, electric cookers definitely will. Remember that electricity is roughly 4 to 5 times the price of gas.

Albermarle

victor2 said:

Glad it was a simple solution @ElmoR!

So your gas works out at about 2143kWh over 38 days. You probably had the heating on for most of those days, so 56kWh per day isn't so bad, especially as you know your heating is not running that efficiently.

You used 259kWh of electricity, or 6.8kWh per day, so not bad either.

You can just look at your general usage at a bit more of a leisurely pace now.

Plenty of threads on here about cutting utility usage, or just start another one if you have a specific issue.

OP,
For a comparison. I live in an older, a bit larger than average 4 bed semi. Family of 4 present most of the time.
Gas usage in April 1634 KWH and Electricity 240 Kwh.
So your gas usage looks a bit on the high side ( unless it is a big house) and considering you have turned the heating off at some point.
Probably not having TRVs on each radiator is not helping, so good that you are getting that sorted.