in December and January I was decorating an otherwise empty house, and I had the central heating running on its lowest setting, sometimes for 8 hrs a day, sometimes just on and off for 2 hrs morning and 2 hrs afternoon. Consumption averaged 5.1 KWH per day.
The house has been occupied since early Feb, and the occupant has been using CH, a gas room heater, and a washing machine. Consumption has averaged 12 KWH per day.
Seems flipping high to me!
No doubt someone will come along and tell you it is 12 KW per day not 12 KWH per day. I use between 8 KW and 16 KW of electricity per day depending on the time of year and whether the tumble dryer is used. I have gas warm air central heating. My electricity bill (paid for by direct debit) is 27 pounds a month which equates to about 4100 KW of electricity a year. It was more until I got rid of my daughter. Also my gas bill is 24 pounds a month.
Did you know that someone paid 80,000 pounds to conduct a survey as to why fuel cost were higher in Scotland than in England. Their conclusion!!!!!!!!!!!
wait for it!!!!!
Fuel bills are higher in Scotland than in England because it is colder in Scotland. Anyone who lives in Scotland could have told them that.
Jackie
It's only the equivalent of a single one bar fire on 12 hours to heat the whole house and heat the hot water.
The period began in February.
We'd need to know a lot more about the house to give a better answer but I'd say it's in the right ball park. Quite good even.
DG
It's a two up two down terraced, with a Gloworm boiler. That rate of consumption is significantly more than my own four bed detatched with an Ideal compact boiler
It could be if the house has solid brick walls with no insulation in them. The U value is a great deal more than for even a cavity wall.
If it's an older Glow Worm crappy boiler, then it is unlikely to be more than about 60% efficient.
.andy
To email, substitute .nospam with .gl
The energy report on my house told me that the boiler had to have at leats 10kW to keep it warm at -5C. Assuming 20C internal temp.
That's a brand new to full insulation spec house - large, but well insulated.
Asssuming an average winter temp of say 5C, it looks like about 6KW is needed CONTINOUSLY to heat it - say 144kWh per day.
I was burnbing something like 1000 liters of oil a month in the coldest month - what's that ? 180 quid a month? 6 quid a day at about 3p per Kw/h? 20Kwh per day?
Sounds totally ressonable and very very good to me, to get 12Kwh per day
That is an average power level of only 500W. or ten might bulbs.
The other unmentioned factor is that "gas room heater", I wonder what that is; could be some looks-nice-but wildy inefficient beast.
I wish mine was that low! My 3 bed solid wall semi averages 85kWh per day. Just to be certain, you do mean kWh and not "units" don't you? If it's "units" then it seems a bit high, if kWh I would think that 12 per day is good.
I guess an important consideration is how hot the occupant likes it. I work from home a lot so in the winter the whole house is heated most of the day. If the occupant does similar then looking at the maths:
You averaged 5.1kWh per day based on 4 or 8 hours use per day. This works out at an average of 0.85kWh per hour. The occupant is possibly heating the house from say 7am to 10pm (maybe even longer) so will be using 12.75kWh per day.
Now its getting warmer then the gas consumption will go down. Between June and September last year the gas consumption was close to zero. Too many take aways and NOT enough home cooking;-)
Andy
POWER
The watt (W) is a unit of Power.
The kilowatt (kW) is simply 1,000 watts. A one-bar 1 kilowatt electric fire or ten 100 watt light bulbs will consume one kilowatt.
BTU/hr is a unit of POWER
ENERGY
Energy is Power x Time.
You pay for energy not power. What you have to pay for is the product of power and time. This is obvious - the electric fire operating for three hours is going to cost three times a much as for one hour. Therefore the chargeable electricity 'unit' is the:
kilowatt-hour (kWh)
This is by tradition in the world of electricity metering just called a 'unit'. What you are paying for is energy, rather than power.
kWh is energy Wh is energy
In days gone by, boilers etc. were rated in British thermal units (BTU or formerly BThU) per hour (BThU/hr), which is POWER.
The BTU is a unit of ENERGY
The BTU is not power. Hence the division by time to get back to power. People often speak of say, a "60,000 BTU boiler" - when what they really mean is 60,000 BTU/hr.
One kWh (ENERGY) is equivalent to 3,412 BTU (ENERGY) Note: One figure has a time factor and one does not.
A 60,000 BTU/hr (POWER) boiler is rated at approx 17.6 kW (POWER). Note: The time factor figures are reversed for power.
Bugger! That was 12 units a day, not KWH - sorry to everyone who's replied to my false premise!
If it is 12 units then I think that is high.
As I said, we average 85kWh per day which equates to about 2.7 units per day.
Andy
Just had a thought. On my meter you have to multiply the units by 2.83 to get the number of cubic metres used. If you have a new meter that measures cubic metres directly you don't do this. Your units may be different to my units. I reckon that on average we use about 12.7 cubic metres of gas per day in the cold months. This would equate directly equates to your 12 units.
Andy
But NOT gas. Domestic gas meters measure the volume of gas used. So one gas unit is not, as it is in the world of electricity metering, one kWh. As I've just realized, not all gas units are the same. It seems that modern meters measure cubic metres directly so one unit equals one cubic metre. On my meter one unit equals 0.353 cubic metres. You then still have to do all the maths to work out how many kWh you are being charged for.
Gas nowadays in the UK is charged in kWh (ENERGY), just like electricity. There is a difference though in that the electricity meter measures kWh directly, whereas the gas meter records the volume of gas used in multiples of 100 cubic feet (or in cubic metres on newer gas meters). The calculation to get from volume to energy in kWh (ENERGY) is shown on the gas bill. The conversion factor is not constant since it involves the calorific value of the fuel, which varies from region to region.
Therm
In the past, gas was charged for by an energy unit called the Therm. One therm is simply 100,000 BTU (ENERGY), equivalent therefore to 29.31 kWh (ENERGY).
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