Choked on my Gas Bill!

[meow2222]

20kW is excessive imho. I use a fraction of that, and dont have a nicely insulated house.

The again if its very large and situated up the top of a mountain, might be quite good going.

NT

[Gav]

i think 250mm is the recomended anything else is a waste, there are products on the market, (iso 9000 i think it is called), and these are basically dense foam board, kinda like the stuff in industrial fridges, this is probably 50-75mm thick, easy to install and if your'e considering using the loft can* go between the roof spars as well as the ceiling joists. my friend has gone to town on the insulation, cavity, walls(insulated plasterboard) new windows/doors, cellar insulated, loft insulated and converted to living space, new heating system. i live in a very similar house of roughly the same age and my house is like siberia in a cold snap, he puts heating on in late september for an hour or two and it's warm till may!

it did cost him a bit but as he was renovating anyway he spent the extra bit, i can appreciate if you have just bought the house things may be a litte tight at the moment but as you decorate/renovate think about spend/saving a bit extra and insulate as you go. cost in the long term out weighs the short term cost!

new slogan!

heat? insulate, dont generate! copyright of the gimp with nowt better to do 2000 & six

[Doctor Drivel]

It is nice to know you have some sort of familiarisation with tools.

[Doctor Drivel]

Only a partial heating system is then required, which saves a wedge which can be used on insulation. You need to have the calcs on spread sheet to give the U value when different sorts of insulation is used. You can also have cost it up too by inserting the prices of the stuff.

What is equally important is making the house air tight. The Canadians say "Keep it tight, and ventilate right".

When renovating installing extra insulation is buttons.

Matt/Lord Hall, will don't do this and spend your money on a Makita.

[seajays]

That what I though - in fact I was convinced of it! Unfortunately when I phoned them to check, I was told that the starting reading was the one I had phoned in with on 31st January! And the ending reading was the one I had given for the bill.

We checked again, by going and reading the gas meter, and it confirmed that since I'd given the last reading we had indeed been using about

6=2E4 units per day!

[seajays]

It was a 70's flat, but we were indeed on a middle floor. Nevertheless, to use more gas in six weeks, than we did in a year at the flat, did somewhat take me by surprise!

I have a feeling there is no cavity wall insulation. The loft insulation looks a bit thin as well, and it does indeed have three outside walls.

Unfortunately not - they were my readings - even though at first I was convinced we were paying for the previous owners gas. This was double checked though and we were indeed using 6.4 units a day.

All these are done - I think we are on the cheapest tarrif for us - (EDF Energy), and are paying direct Debit etc...

Yes - the loft doesn't look that great - about four inches, but there are several areas where there are gaps at the sides of the rafters etc. Will be looking into this posthaste!

Cheers, Colin.

[seajays]

We just had new double glazing, so the windows should be OK, but you are right - having just found the hatch under the kitchen lino, into the underfloor cavity, all the central heating pipes running to the radiators under the floor are not lagged at all. Also noticed the same in the loft as well - a trip to the DIY store for lagging I think!

Cheers, Colin.

[David Hansen]

On 19 Mar 2006 10:57:55 -0800 someone who may be " [e-mail]" wrote this:-

The walls will be where you are losing the most heat. Energy suppliers offer cavity wall insulation at subsidised prices and this is well worth doing ASAP, though winter is ending. You can presumably do the loft yourself, there are offers on insulation at the big sheds.

Both are also worth doing to reduce the chances of them freezing if you are away over the winter.

[Andy Hall]

I can recall a similar experience, although it wasn't as stark since the flat heating was electric storage heaters. Was gas used to heat your hot water in the flat? If it was electricity, then you would now expect to see a fall in electricity use.

The figures would suggest that.

Certainly worth doing. You can either remove what is already there, or if it's still in reasonable condition, add more to it. You mentioned gaps at the sides of the rafters... One thing to avoid doing is to block the gaps at the eaves. There should be a flow of air above the insulation to ventilate the roof space.

[John]

I would check out the lagging from professional outlets. Last time I looked (it may have changed) DIY sheds sold very thin pipe insulation. Presumably because folks only asked about the price, not the performance. While you're under the downstairs floors, consider insulating them as well. Also, don't forget to insulate the loft hatch.

[seajays]

Contacted the energy company and they did indeed have discounted services available.

In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the price quoted by the energy company - cavity wall insulation is likely to cost =A3125, and to top up the loft insulation another 6 inches they said =A3225. This is a lot cheaper than I would have expected!

[seajays]

Last time I bought pipe insulation it was Climaflex, which was a silver/grey foam tube type - got it from B&Q, although I seem to remember it was pretty expensive!

[seajays]

Yes gas was used to heat hot water, central heating and a gas hob in the flat. It was an older boiler, with a cylinder, but it ran very reliably.

In the new house it is a combi-boiler - the 'on-demand' heating type with no cylinder, serving heating and hot water. Given that I had some feeling that these were supposed to be more efficient (although I've looked it up, and although only installed a year ago, it is a 'D' rated boiler), it has certainly burned up the gas at quite a rate.

[David Hearn]

You'll actually find that if you strip out all the existing loft insulation, you'll find the price will come down - even though more insulation is needed! The subsidy to top up is far less than the subsidy for no insulation at all. The guy surveying for our cavity insulation explained this to us. ;)

D

[David Hearn]

We've got pipes under our suspended floor which are unlagged. However, the pipes run into notches cut into the joists, and unfortunately, they're quite shallow. Fitting lagging to them (the foam sort which you just clip on) would be practically impossible - at least not without the split in the insulation being at the top and with a large gap. There just isn't enough gap between the pipe and the floorboard to get the pipe all the way around (at least in most places I've seen it).

Any suggestions?

D

[Andy Hall]

There is nothing specifically more efficient about a combi boiler in a given energy rating band than a system boiler, other than perhaps you can say that there is not the standing loss from the HW cylinder. However, if that is well insulated, it is very much a second order effect compared with the band rating of the boiler.

It's a shame that a band D one was installed - perhaps done in preparation for selling or not wanting to invest.

You could swap it for a condensing one, but the return on investment would not be at the top of the list compared with other things.

Since you have a price of £125 to do cavity insulation, it would be a no-brainer to get that done. For the loft, you could compare the cost of buying the materials with the £225 quoted. My guess is that for that price, it's hardly worth rolling your sleeves up.

I would do these first and see where they take you. You could also think about cutting use by zoning the system. Clearly you won't reach the levels of cost that you had in the flat, but I suspect that insulation would make a lot of difference.

[Pete C]

Have a look at Armaflex, it's quite 'squashy'. BES among others do it:

cheers, Pete.

[Mary Fisher]

It is an Ideal mini C32, combi boiler. We've had the heating on for

2.5 hours in the morning and then 6 hours in the afternoon/evening - about the same as we used to in the flat.

Does £145 sound excessive for six weeks? I know it is winter and expect it to be a bit higher but could there be something wrong with the boiler?

Cheers, Colin.

I bet you're really pleased that you asked here - there's excellent advice!

Do it all a.s.a.p.

Mary

[seajays]

Yes - I have already arranged for the cavity wall/loft insulation through the energy company - the contractor needs to come out first of course, and that may take up to a month (can't be soon enough with that bill). I'll also be crawling about under the floor space in the not too distant future as well! :-)

Thanks everyone for your help!

Colin.

[Weatherlawyer]

Spray some foam around where the joists enter the walls if they are not on hangars or if you spot a draught.

If the cavity insulation has been done previously but the flller settled out to uselessness, there is nothing to stop you taking a few courses off the top of the walls and funnelling or spooning in sackloads a bit at a time.

Take a trip around B&Q to see what's available. I wouldn't be suprised to find that the cost is about the same as having it done professionally.