Gas Bills

[GMM]

Having done a bit of work over the summer on draught proofing and insulating, albeit with plenty left to do, I just received the (late) august to november quarter gas bill. Satisfyingly, it shows around half the usage of the same quarter last year. Unfortunately, I'm aware that the weather has been a bit more clement here (midlands) than last year, so it's quite possible that I have achieved nothing, apart from making the place more comfortable.

So....Has anyone had a bill recently, for comparison with last year?

I'm sure there must be a resource online somewhere for comparing temperatures over different periods etc that might allow the weather to be factored, but haven't bumped into it yet.

[stuart noble]

Bit of a learning curve to begin with

[ss]

I am in a similar situation having moved into this house 3 years now but with other DIY to do just got around to looking at gas.elec bills this last 6 months. I have tackled just about every angle I can think of. I started with understanding the bills ...not easy, as I asked for formulas etc from the companies eventually they supplied them and I got to grips with using a spreadsheet to work out the cheapest utilities, also got £100 rebate for their inconsistent info when requested. I then used an elec monitor to see what usage I had with certain appliances and adjusted where possible to reduce consumption. I then got free cavity wall & loft insulation. I then went round all the skirtings wih clear silicon to minimise any draughts. Next as I am in

24/7 I turned the gas central heating off all day and used a 400KW elec heater to heat a small room I work in, this worked out much cheaper and warmer for me than trying to heat the house completely. I have also turned off 2 rads in rooms not used. I then bought a thermal thermometer to find any cold spots so far nothing significant. Yes my combined bills have come down from around £1500 3 years ago to I reckon £1000 for the current year so with all the price hikes I seem to have done ok. The thing is I don?t know if it is just by being prudent with how I use energy rather than what other action I have taken that has gained the reductions in cost. My next course of action will be to change suppliers once I get my £100 back for staying a year.

Its a difficult shout to pin point where the gains are made.

[Dave Liquorice]

I find that our oil use over a quarter is reasonably the same year on year. Monthly is some what more variable but even then not by 50%. Eliminating drafts really will make a hefty difference in space heating bills. Yesterday it was windy, F5 or so, and the heating was working hard and the place felt cool. Today is more or less the same exterior temp (0 C +/- 2C) but no wind, inside is nice and snug...

I'd say the best part of that 50% saving is down to draft proofing and insulation.

Have a google for CET Central England Temperature.

[Dave Liquorice]

But not difficult, gas one just have an added complication of the calorific value but that's just another multiplier (IIRC haven't had a gas bill for nearly 15 years).

400 Kilo Watts? Surprised it's cheaper, how much did the installation of the supply for it cost?

It is if you are changing use patterns and draft proofing/insulation levels at the same time. Cavity wall and loft insulation from none or very little will make a significant difference.

TBH I'm not convinced an electricity monitor makes that much difference unless one is being very wasteful. It's not normally the high load things that push up the bill, they may be a high load but generally aren't on for very long. It's the relatively small loads that are on for long periods that add up to costing the cost the money.

A single 60 W incandescant light on for 10 hours = 0.6 kWhrs. That's the same as a 3 kW kettle for 12 mins, that'll be about four brews with our 3 kW kettle. Note that the 0.6 kWHrs is from a

*single* light.

[John Rumm]

You need to use the degree days numbers to be able to make any sense of it all.

I found I could get historic info from:

In the end I got something like this into a spreadsheet:

20 Year Average 2008/09 2009/10 2010/11 2011/12 2012/13 July 29 29 23 21 43 44 Aug 27 19 20 46 32 18 Sep 61 59 42 79 36 66 Oct 136 159 106 162 83 147 Nov 236 237 210 308 140 234 Dec 331 354 392 476 284 307 Jan 335 381 457 357 295 362 Feb 297 306 358 262 340 348 Mar 267 241 308 268 194 370 Apr 192 150 200 127 230 242 May 120 92 175 107 129 162 Jun 54 48 60 70 74 69 Total 2085 2075 2351 2283 1880 2369 Percentage change from average -0.48 11.31 8.67 -10.90 11.99 Percentage change from previous year -0.48 11.74 -2.98 -21.44 20.64

(I chose the months to tie up with when I was doing the calcs and for what period)

I also found that you have to be careful with accounting for when your meter readings are actually taken - assuming they are at the same quarter each year and being a few days out either way in the sums actually throws the results quite a bit.

[ss]

Yes I understand that but the monitor allowed to find out where the power was being used....eg the kitchen uses £60 per quarter, in other words my wife has the biggest elec consumption. Now this can be reduced by using more efficient wash machine and dish washer cycles and I boil a kettle in the morning and flask it with tea or coffee. And dont mention the 12 halogen lights she MUST have on.

[GMM]

Thanks Stuart, I think I've got a reasonable approximation from that (if I'm using that correctly!), and it indicates that September/October/November 2013 was

83% of the same period 2012. So it looks like my efforts have paid off then, as the gas usage is around 50%. Always good to know a job was worth doing.

[GMM]

Well, that's another important angle, getting the best deals. I wish my bills had a hope of ever getting into that range though. last year we had 2 quarters over £1000, just for gas (!)

[GMM]

I'd agree with the point about draughts: Some rooms have only had a bit of work on the sash windows (and then only a bit of sealing strip on the bottm and the meeting rail) but feel perceptibly warmer. You're spot on about yesterday - it was pretty chilly here too with the wind, despite the thermostat being unchanged. That probably means there's plenty more draughtproofing to be done, though it probably also affects the temnperature gradient across a wall too.

[RJH]

Who I'd guess get it from:

Excel does a nice job of arranging the data for analysis - text to columns on a Mac.

[GMM]

That's a striking amount of variation from the average isn't it? Not that I doubt it for a moment, but the figures certainly draw the eye. Unfortunately that site doesn't seem to have information from close to here, but the one Stuart flagged up has a station right on my doorstep. The data seem to be monthly though, so it's not obvious how to correct for exact days. I shall have to find more idle moments to furtle around the data sets. I guess the bottom line I get for my comparison is that it looks like I saved more on my gas bill in a single quarter than I have spent on the materials I've used to achieve it, which is quite remarkable. I haven't even picked all the lowest hanging fruit in the exercise yet, though I suspect there will be a diminishing return as I get to dealing with details. Of course, I could claim to be doing my bit for green-ness and be all smug about that, but my motives are, of course, much more mercenary than that....

[Chris J Dixon]

Fit a motion detector, so they are only on when actually needed.

Chris

[RJH]

Ah - the source is at the bottom of the page, see now!

Shame there's no easily accessible daily station data for Sheffield - that I can see. Labour of love here:

In the unlikely event anyone's interested :-)

[harryagain]

Climate with regard to heating control is measured by "Degree Days". This allows you to compare heating energy use/bills

[harryagain]

Degree days need to be locally determined to be useful. If you live somewhere that is non-typical they can be very misleading, eg very sheltered/very exposed./rainy

The other thing that throws them out is your heating for hot water which is non-weather related. And difficult to separate out from the heating component.

When I was in the NHS, we used to use ones from our local met office weather station. It's possible to get computer software and a weather station that works out your personal degree days. but you have to run it for several years to get meaningfull results. Or you can doit manually.

[Terry Fields]

Not if you keep monthly records. During the summer, when heating isn't required, you can get several months of DHW-only use.

[Terry Fields]

Don't forget the little things. Our microwave has an LED readout, and at a guess uses 5W on standby, or 120Wh per day. but if we run it (2kW) for three minutes to heat something, that's 100Wh. Turning the microwave off in between uses could save 90 x 120/1000 = 10.8 kWh a quarter.

A massive saving would come from replacing the 12 halogens with LEDs. If your better half is so profligate with the lighting, you could save the upfront cost of LED replacements by next spring. Marital politics being what it is, I'd replace one lamp at a time, and she'll probably never notice the change.

[stuart noble]

There are probably half a dozen locations within 10 miles of me, so regional variation isn't an issue. An amazing labour of love on someone's part

[PeterC]

When last GF bought a new audio stack, it was 0.5W on stand-by or 11W with clock on! She decided that the clock wasn't needed. As a rough (very) rule of thumb, taking into account the lack of accuracy in rating plates and most measurements of power, I just work on the basis of

1W~=9kWh pa - yes I know it's somewhat over, but it's near enough for the guessed 5W clock to be 45kWh pa; a non-mains clock will run for a year at least on a 12.5p AA cell, so ~2% of the cost.