I ordered a fill of oil during the first week of December and deliberately reduced the running periods and temperature for the downstairs zone when I was advised delivery could be two to three weeks. Consequently we went to bed earlier as the upstairs heating was still on the normal pattern and as a result we used less than last year. two and a half weeks later the oil was delivered so at Christmas the normal pattern was restored but we had more people in the house giving off heat. Our electric usage will probably be lower due to not having lights on as late downstairs in the evenings but I didn't take any readings
There was quite a variation in the figures, ranging from two who's consumption was lower in December, to one that might have been as much as 50 percent higher.
Most figures fell between 16 and 28 percent increase, so all in all a figure of 22 percent might represent the mean value.
I can now make two estimates of the yearly gas consumption here, having moved in some four months ago.
If the December consumption of gas was 22 percent high at 3660 kWh, that suggests a 'normal' December figure of 3000 kWh. From three years of figures from my previous property December's gas consumption is
16.1 +- 0.7 percent of the annual total. On this basis the 3000 kWh figure translates to an annual one of 22732 kWh.
Another measure has been to plot actual gas consumption over the last four months against the same four months at the previous property. This gives a straight line with a slope of 1.83 and an R^2 of 0.94 (pretty well correlated). The last year's consumption was 12817 kWh, so multiplying this by 1.83 suggests an annual figure of 23455 kWh.
The mean of these two figures is 23100 kWh, and at 4.07 p/kWh the annual bill looks like being £940. This is a four-bed detached house on the edge of some fields, I think I recall seeing an average for this type of property of 26000 kWh.
Once again, thanks to all who replied. Even with the price rise in a couple of day's time, I look like coming in at under a grand for gas.
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