Help - power consumption

[AnthonyL]

Six months ago my wife and I moved from a coal heated house to a gas fired centrally heated bungalow. Having got some history now of usage patterns I've started shopping for a best deal.

In the 6 months to end of April we used:

Electricity: 1200 units Gas: 17,300 units (Kwh ~ 546,000 cu ft)

By all accounts the gas usage is high and we were away for the month of March so just 3 hours/day low heating in the early hours of the morning.

The bungalow is double glazed, no draughts, 3 beds + study + utility room. We turn the radiators down in non-living rooms, so 2 beds and utility are low. There are no TRVs in the hall or bathroom. Gas hot water for shower and gas cooker. Washing machine is cold water supplied.

There is insulation though most of the loft has been boarded many years ago.

Does something seem wrong? How to go about determining whether it is my wife liking long showers and warm temperatures or some other problem.

Ofgem seems to use a figure of 3,300 electric and 16,500 gas as being the typical medium usage household. East Midlands.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ok, the first thing to say is your electricity is pretty damned good, so probably not worth wasting time over.

I spend about 3 times that on electricity ;-)

The gas spend does seem high, but unless you have a hot water tank with no insulation it wont be baths etc. Its amazing how little it costs to heat water for baths. I think I worked out that a really luxurious bath was about 50p

Ok if that's twice a day, it will; add up too a couple of hundred quid in 6 months.

If you actually look at the consumption over what of course has been te worst period - winter - you have averaged about 10Kwh per day over 6 months. Or about 500W average, in very rough terms. That isn't bad at all.

IN fact you are at that level talking about a situation where two big baths a day WILL make a difference, as I reckon 5Kwh is what a BIG bath takes. And a Kwh or two a small bath. Think that the average IMMERSION heater is around 3KW and takes an hour plus to heat a decent large water tank that can do a seriously big baths.

I am in a 3 bedroom well insulated house and I used around 600 liters of oil in the last six months or 60,000 units appx. You are massively under that.

But I suffer from the cold.

They should know.

>

[Ash Burton]

Your consumption does not seem to be dramatically out of line, the period you have measured would normally be the highest for gas consumption, summer useage should be a lot less.

You will have a better figure for comparison when you have a full year total.

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[AnthonyL]

Electric is combined fridge/freezer, an additional freezer over Xmas, lights, kettle, vacuum cleaner, TV (which totally powers off when off) and PVR. No electric heating.

I think only one bath in that time.

Not sure I can follow your figures. 17,300Kwh for say 173 days is

100Kwh/day not 10.

and no immersion heaters. But wife likes long showers.

So does my wife.

[AnthonyL]

I agree though if the data is realistic there is probably enough there to justify changing supplier sooner rather than later. I think I can get Gas at TCR 3.3p/kwh (calculated on a lower usage) and Electricity at 11.58.

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo , AnthonyL escribió:

That'll be it. I love long showers too. When the bill comes I just grimace and pay up.

[The Natural Philosopher]

my bad.

Caffeine deficiency. In which case you are running at around 5KW average which is rather high...

but not unreasonable for winter.

[Dave Liquorice]

True but you'd know about 100 kWHr/day going into a normal sized and insulated home, it would be like living an oven...

How often and for how long does the boiler run with just the heating on? I'm wondering if the control system is inadequate and it is short cycling. That is whne the house is up to temperature it is still firing up for a minute or two every minute or two to keep itself/the bypass loop hot when the control system should have shut it down until the house demands more heat.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not really.

In a cold place 50W/sq m of floor area is not an unreasonable max draw, though its high for average. 100Kwh per day is around 4Kw average which is half what I needed to keep my home going on subzero days.

It is after all only a couple of electrc fan heaters worth,.

[Chris Hogg]

Not really relevant and probably won't affect your concerns, but

17,300 kWh of gas is equivalent to 59030 cu ft, a factor of ~10 down on your figure, in case you're comparing cu.ft consumption anywhere.

OTOH if your meter reading was 546,000 cu.ft, then your consumption was 160,000 kWh!

[Bob Eager]

This is not one of thse 'meter in cu ft, bill for cu m' situations, is it?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

17,300 units at about 10p a unit is something like 1750 quid. If you are in all day, and not well insulated walls, perhaps not bad for the winter half. Especially if you have the house hot.

[tim...]

this looks high to me

And I can't see long showers having much to do with it

read the meter daily and work out how much a shower costs.

tim

[ss]

4 bed detached, large lounge large kitchen. occupied 24/7 1980s property, insulated, ground & 1st floor.

This for one years usage so would need adjusting for 6 months: My usage...kWH elec 2676 gas 15159 So my total combined yearly bill is just under £1000.

I now monitor monthly (used to be daily then weekly) and work out monthly costs and monthly kWh for both gas and elec. recently changed from elec shower to gas and now replacing halogens with LEDs. I also use a wireless thermostat which goes in to the room being used at that time.

[AnthonyL]

Not much of a control system. It is a Baxi 105E combi/condensing boiler with a timer. So the timer is set currently 1600-2300 and

0700-0900 with the temperature control on low - 3 'o' clock on the dial. It's showing 50c on the LEDs and has just switched off whilst I went to check. I suppose I ought to watch it through an on-off-on cycle.

The house thermostat control seems to have been disconnected.

Just a quick check this afternoon after 1600 and I seem to be using ~120cu ft/hr just on the heating. I'll do some sums once I have a steady figure - today is a mild day and the house is warm so other than for this I'd probably have switched off for another hour.

Would I be right in expecting the first hour to be more than double? I got a lunchtime reading but not a 1600 reading but to 1647 usage was

258cu ft.

[Theo]

I'll raise (lower?) you 2.78p/kWh:

There are others around that ballpark.

Theo

[AnthonyL]

Thanks - so in 6 months albeit winter I've exceed your annual gas.

Perhaps I should add that this bungalow has been extended in 1972 and has flat roofs over the study, one bedroom and part of the hall so maybe not optimum efficiency.

I might need to get smarter. All new to me so I'm on a learning curve. Though we were spending nearly ?1000/yr on coal and ?500/yr on electicity at the last 2 up/2 down semi detached 1860 cottage and it was still hard to keep warm in the winter.

[ss]

If you dont monitor it then I would say yes. Simple things like turn off heating half hour / hour before you go to bed. A wireless thermo (£35 on ebay) to control the heat in the room you actually use and in rooms you dont use turn the rads down/ or off if they have the controls. Change suppliers if need be, I am with OVO and saving probably £200 a year plus 3% interest on any credit (better than the banks but capped at £800) LED lights. It all adds up, some is personal to your own requirements but savings can be made, I am probably around 33% cheaper now than when I moved in here 5 years ago. It took time and a step at a time with some trial and error but it can be done.

[AnthonyL]

OK I'm going back to basics to make sure I'm reading the meter correctly:

Here are photos of my meter taken at 20:57 & 22:10

1) What reading do you get for each meter in cu ft? 2) What's the kWh rate?

I'm using x2.83 (to get cubic metres) x1.02264 (conversion factor) x

39.4 (calorific value) ? 3.6 (to get kilowatt hours)

I'm taking some regular daily readings to get a better picture of what's going on. I'll post separately some detail and questions.

[Chris Hogg]

Not too familiar with reading gas meters, but AIUI that would be 7847 cu ft (numbers in red, presumably decimals, usually ignored for the purpose of giving a reading, but strictly I suppose that would be

7847.9 cu.ft)

As above, 7848 (7848.1) cu.ft.

So in those 73 minutes you used 0.2 cu ft., i.e. 0.06 kWh

ICBA to look up those conversions, but 1 cu.ft = 0.0283 cu.m for a start, so you're out by a factor of 100 there, although that may be accounted for in the other factors.

But why not just use one of the many conversion sites on the net, such as the one I linked to, or type in your browser search box 'cubic feet gas to kilowatt hours'. Any on this page would do