Average Daily Gas Consumption

flashnazia

Hi

Is there anyway I can work out what the average gas consumption is for a house like mine (small three bed corner terrace).

My bill says I'm using 4.39 units a day (april - June) compared to 2.6 last year.

I can't understand why my usage has gone up this year as I am being extra careful.

Hardly had heating on and washing hands with cold water etc.

I have gas central heater and water comes from 5 year old combi boiler.

Hardly cook much (mostly eat elsewhere).

Is 4.39 units a day about right? It works out to be around £2 per day I think.

flashnazia

I always check my meters after I get any bill. It's all accurate.

It's measured in cubic metres.

Cardew

You really need to quote your consumption in kWh as there are 2 types of gas unit. A unit on one meter is approx 11kWk and the other meter is 31kWh.

You have a metric meter(11kWh per unit) and will have used approx 4,400kWh in your April to June quarter(@4.39 a day) - which is not high.(£130ish??)

flashnazia

It's in cubic metres so it's metric.

I'm just wondering why it's nearly double the usage of the same period last year.

The bill was £107 or roundabouts.

I'm getting the 'my meter's faulty' paranoia.

mech_2

It seems rather high to me. That's how much gas I was using January - March. It seems odd that your usage has gone up so much compared to last year. Maybe it would be worth having the boiler serviced? Or at least checking for a leak by turning off all gas appliances and seeing if the meter advances?

I'm in a small 3 bedroom semi with an A rated combi. My consumption has been 1.9 metric units per day for that period. I haven't even been especially frugal (it's summer now, my usage will be low anyway).

Cardew

The normal reason why one quarter seems to have higher average consumption than another is that there was an estimated meter reading at the start or finish of last year's bill or this year's bill.

leicsmarkyr

Why not take daily readings of your gas meter for a week or so and see what is happening with it.

I have used less than 1 unit in the space of 2 days - was 9080.13 on Tuesday and is now 9080.78 today

Mazio_2

Also I think this year winter weather stayed for a few more weeks then last year?

Cardew

loaner wrote: »

imperial units? if it's imperial, that equates to 0.92 metric units/day (30-40 minutes of water heating maybe?)

Not understood!

A unit on an Imperial gas meter is 100 cubic feet and approx 31 kWh.

A unit on a Metric gas meter is 1 cubic metre and approx 11.2 kWh.

flashnazia

All my bills are accurate as I'm obsessive about checking the meter reading at the end of each quarter.

We are not big bathers (not dirty sods either) but new baby gets a bath every day (but not long and not in the adult bath).

This uses about 5 min max of water extra per day.

But heating use has been reduced considerably and I am washing cups and hand etc with cold.

Water is hot on demand from combi boiler-not water tank heated etc.

I suspect it may be the combi boiler. I will have to get OH to have a shower and watch the meter while he does.

How much gas should a 10 min shower use (estimate?)

Does temp where the meter is make a difference? It's in a damp cellar.

And this is dumb but would tuning the gas valve near meter to reduced gas flow make a difference?

mech_2

flashnazia wrote: »

How much gas should a 10 min shower use (estimate?)

Half a metric unit perhaps? Difficult to say. Depends on water temperature, flow rate of the shower, boiler efficiency etc.

Does temp where the meter is make a difference? It's in a damp cellar.

It was in the same cellar last year too presumably?

And this is dumb but would tuning the gas valve near meter to reduced gas flow make a difference?

I really wouldn't try that, even if the valve could be sufficiently finely adjusted.

The boiler is probably designed with a narrow range of gas pressures in mind. Giving it less gas could cause it to keep going out, or to burn with a non-continuous flame leading to undesirable effects such as vibrations, unburnt gas going up the flue etc. If that doesn't happen, it's still not clear if it would make it more efficient or less efficient. If you cause it to draw in more air than it can use for combustion, efficiency will go down because it would be heating air unnecessarily and then expelling it through the flue.

On the other hand you might be able to improve efficiency a little bit by turning down the hot water temperature on the boiler if there's a control for that and if it's set high. Then you can just mix in less cold when having a shower or bath. Increasing the flow rate though the boiler and reducing the temperature should help the heat exchanger be more efficient.

If the boiler hasn't been serviced recently, I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to have that done.