Gas consumption, CH versus no CH

Whilst our boiler has been inoperative, we have had to make do with just the living room radiant gas fire. With door closed, it is more than warm enough on 1/3 of its 3 bars lit, but the rest of the house is cold. Aside from the heating, the gas boiler provided for all our main hot water needs too, washing up, cleaning and baths. With an electric shower. The gas heater has been lit roughly for the same amount of time as the boiler would be providing heating in the place.

Cooking is via gas, so unaltered.

I log gas, electric and water consumption every week, on a Sunday. The boiler failed mid- week, so this is the first full week with no boiler. In the previous two full weeks with boiler in operation, total gas consumption was £14 per week. In the this full week of no boiler use consumption was £7 - so about half the cost if we put up with one room heated, versus the whole house being comfortably warm.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield
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What were you expecting the gas costs to be? A serious question, I am not taking the piss.

I would have expected it to be less than £7 of gas but last week we had a couple of cold days and nights. Well South Yorks did and you are not a million miles away.

On Thursday it was 1 deg C at 8am when I started work in the stables and the conversation with the apprentice went along the lines of

Apprentice "What are we doing here?"

Me "Putting in power for the second coming"

Apprentice "OK"

End of conversation!!! That was it. He had absolutely no idea what I was on about and left it at that.

What were your electric costs were for the same period compared to the second?

Cheers

Reply to
ARW

ARW expressed precisely :

I a few years ago out of curiosity - asked how inefficient the usual gas radiant type room heaters were, compared to running the central heating. The suggestion was, that they were very inefficient, but no actual figures given as to just how inefficient. Heating the one room by that means, versus heating the whole house. Someone had raised the question before me, in their attempts to save money. I was more interested in maybe using the heater to supplement the central heating. The heater had never been used, apart from to check it, since it was installed.

To answer your question - I was expecting such an heater to be much more efficient/ less costly to run than it has proven. I expected the bill to be 1/3rd of the cost of running the central heating. I appreciate that a lot of the heat produced, goes straight up the flue.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

IIRC the efficiency (in terms of heat going into the room rather than up the flue) depends a lot on the type of fire - especially on whether or not it is outset. Outset can achieve over 80 per cent. But there is naturally still the buggeration of the cold air sucked in to feed it.

Also tricky to make such comparisons when the house takes time to cool down after the central heating going off. Seems to me yours probably did if the boiler failed midweek but if it's in the baronial style with

3 foot walls...
Reply to
Robin

Robin explained on 01/04/2018 :

No, just a well insulated brick semi. Extra tricky, because of the big variations in the weather at the moment.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I had a call a few weeks ago where the customer said he'd been taking meter readings and he was losing about £10 of electricity a day. He thought it was something to do with his boiler as sometimes he had some warm water coming out of the cold tap. Sounded like a sensible bloke, even though what he was saying was a bit odd, so I went for a look.

Supply was nominally a TT (no sign of a rod) with an old Wylex rewireable box. Clamp meter on + tail 10.5A, clamp meter on - tail

0.5A. Pulled the fuses an found the current was flowing in the ring. A quick look around found a socket with a very hot screw - the live had been nicked by the screw and was providing a nice 24 ohm earth path to the incoming lead water main. An expensive way to heat the water in the first few feet of lead pipe and lucky not to have had a fire.
Reply to
Steve

And I would have put money on a 1/3rd of the cost if the odds were offered!

Reply to
ARW

can we put that on the diy wiki?

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

If you have proper controls (eg zone valves and stats) then heating the same space with the boiler will probably cost less than using the fire. Fires are only about 50% efficient while boilers are about 80%.

Reply to
dennis

Before or after homeownershub post it with replies in 2020, 2023 and 2525?

Reply to
ARW

Only 7 years? They've done better than that many a time.

New blood here is no bad thing, but for some reason the hohers are seldom c apable of anything.

NT

Reply to
tabbypurr

dennis@home wrote on 01/04/2018 :

Modern boiler spec. suggests 90% at the boiler, but my boiler is out of commission at the moment.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

:-)

Yes it ought to go into the wiki. It's also something I have encountered a few times.

  1. A garage fed from a 20A MCB with SWA from a non RCD side of a TT supply CU (not even the 100mA RCD main switch protection that is the minimum that ALL TT supplies are required to have on all circuits).

Rats ate the fridge freezer supply cord in the garage and created a SC that caused a 10A earth fault back up to the CU. Big electricity bill.

  1. A TN supply but the TN earth was not connected (making it a TT supply) and there was also not any main equipotential bonding. The only earth was from the buried pyro to the garage. Owner got a belt from the cold tap. I earthed the TN supply and destroyed the damaged pyro when I switched that circuit back on.
Reply to
ARW

Old fashioned radiant fires, like the ones stuck on the front of a Baxi Bermuda were far more efficient than 50%.

Many of the Gazco fires are in the 78 to 82% range.

It's the old cast-iron lumps with a non-fanned balanced flue that are down to 50% or less.

Reply to
Andrew

SEDBUK says mine is 78% probably applied when it was new), so would a combi replacement reach the payback point before it died?

Reply to
Andy Burns

Seems to me the kind of thing most people would be more likely to spot with a smart meter and a free display of their current [sic] consumption :)

Reply to
Robin

Yes. The key is to have an outset, radiant fire. Or, to look at it another way, to get as far away from an imitation coal fire as possible :)

Reply to
Robin

Lots of (especially older) gas fires are under 65% efficient IIRC. (worse still for some "living flame" ones).

More modern balanced flue ones and "high efficiency" ones can better than 80% though. The flueless (i.e. catalytic) ones can be close to 100% some manufacturers claim.

Reply to
John Rumm

So, where is the problem with that? Sounds to me that you are comparing oranges with Apples. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Brian Gaff pretended :

Just one of those things, which are useful to know. Warmth is warmth, so a fair comparison.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

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