Gas cost help

Hi guys,

I'm finding gas expensive right now... (who isn't?)

I'm in a small, loft insulated, detached cottage, with double glazing on many windows. I have a back boiler (Baxi Bermuda) at about the lowest setting. It's used for 2 hrs a day max. The thermostat is in living room and is set at 18C. The radiators in kitchen and bathroom are turned down so those rooms are cooler. Typically using the hob for half an hour on an evening, low setting.

I've been tracking the usage (I have a meter) and despite what seems like moderate use (just sufficient to avoid wearing *two* jumpers!), it's costing £3+/day..

Does that sound like a lot?? It does to me.

Perhaps counterintuitively.. I'm wondering if the boiler would work more efficiently if used for shorter periods at a higher setting? Any other suggestions please?

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal
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Well, I'm not experiencing high gas prices but that's because most of my heating is wood fired. I am experiencing one sod of a lot of running around cutting wood. As to getting down the price of gas fired heating, well your boiler is old, inefficient and probably needs replacing with a modern condensing boiler.

Running the boiler at a low temperature is inefficient and leads to "short cycling" so yes, turning up the boiler thermostat and turning down the room thermostat may help a little. Improving draught proofing and insulation will also help. A good measure is to fit very heavy door curtains to external doors and to have heavy curtains over your windws. Caulking the gaps between floorboards if you have them can also help.

Reply to
Steve Firth

It certainly sounds quite high £1100 for gas alone.

If you have a gas meter with cubic metres marked on the front, make sure your gas company know and aren't charging you per 100 cubic ft because it approximately triples the bill.

As a point of interest, what are you paying for your gas ?

Andy C

Reply to
Andy Cap

Approx =A390/month does that tally with your bills or monthly payments?

Assuming and expesisve gas supplier at 5p/unit =A33/day gives a consumpt= ion of 60 units/day that does seem excessive and with most of that having to= be used in two hours would mean boiler of 30kW or near to capacity. A Ba= xi Bermuda is nothing lke that maybe 10kW at most...

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

I think the pilot light on Baxi Buggrits and similar can run away with about £50 a year. They are not efficient boilers.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

My previous house had a real fire, easy to say from the comfort of a CH house, but I do miss chopping wood.. :-)

Can you confirm this is correct? i thought the opposite would be true. The timer usually switches the boiler off before the thermostat starts tripping..

Most that can be done has been done. I have concrete floors, solid brick walls with no cavity AFAIK. I will try a heavy curtain around the front door.

Also have the conundrum of having to ventilate more than I would like, otherwise damp creeps in, but thankfully humidity is dropping now..

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

Damn!! That's a thought... 1/3 current cost would bring it inline with my expectations. Thanks Andy will definitely check that.

7.14p for the first 1000 units, 2.72p thereafter

Although I'm told this is to be changed to 4.402p / 2.43p and backdated to July. (No explanation given!)

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

Yes or close to, at current temperatures.

If they are _not_ charging by the foot3, I think I need to start plotting the meter readings regularly. Something is not right.

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

I worked it out at about 1p / hr = £90 a year.

Turn the pilot light off when the boilers going to be dormant for a while (waiting 30 seconds to make sure the safety valve clunks shut!)

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

That represents 38000 kw/year which is very high

That's weird. No one's reducing prices !

Reply to
Andy Cap

If you run the boiler thermostat (the one built into the boiler) at too low a setting bad things happen. You get problems within the boiler combustion area and the boiler simply isn't operating efficiently.

The room thermostat should inhibit the boiler from firing at all once the room is at the set temperature and won't allow it to fire until the room temperature falls. But when the boiler does fire if the boiler thermostat is set appropriately then the boiler will operate efficiently.

You can improve things by turning off radiators in rooms that aren't being used and/or by having radiator thermostats. These should be set to the frost setting in unused rooms.

That, to me, shows that you have the boiler thermostat set too low.

Another thing to pay attention to is boiler servicing. If the heat exchanger is sooted up (again happens when the temperature is set too low) then the boiler becomes inefficient.

Reply to
Steve Firth

I see. OK I'll turn the thermo on the boiler up and monitor the £results. Had an engineer attend to the boiler recently (pilot light was cutting out due to iffy thermocouple - replaced). He said the Baxi was in good condition, but a full service is due so I'll get the exchanger and any other potential inefficiency issues checked. Thanks for the advice.

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

Tell you what else is weird... although the rep told me I was on

7.14/2.72, I just checked the meter and it states 9.084/3.814. The standard charge for a prepayment meter. I have no idea where she's getting these numbers from! 4.402/2.43 isn't on any BG pricing schedule either...

BTW when I signed up for a prepayment meter, I was told my fuel wouldn't cost any more than other payment methods. (It's 20% higher.)

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

Prepayment Meter ??? Is that the kind similar to Electric Powercard Meters ..where you take a card to shops and get tokens or get the card topped up. It's well known that the cost of these meters are much higher than credit meters . Are you by chance paying off arrears on your currents costs as that would account for the high cost as well as you'll be getting less gas for your £...also the future reduction you mentioned may be because they expect you to have paid arrears off by that date .

Reply to
NOSPAMnet

Correct.

BG customer services told me it cost exactly the same. More fool me for believing them. :(

Deductions are taken when you add credit to the meter, I'm excluding these from my calculations.

-- S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

Reply to
Signal

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Reply to
Marc

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was on the radio this morning.

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Reply to
Terry Fields

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