How much are you spending on heating per day during this cold spell?

[MM]

Not including residual heat from cooking, vacuum cleaner, kiddies etc. I've just bought an Argos mini oil-filled heater for £24.99 (800W) because I don't like leaving my little computer room (to go and get food etc) with the fan heater left switched on.

The oil-filled one is heating the room nicely, although more slowly than with the fan heater. But I reckon the heated oil will maintain the desired room temperature for longer between times when the thermostat switches off. It's been on now (on thermostat) for approx

40 minutes and my Tschibo usage meter says it's used 4½ pence worth so far (11.5 pence per unit here). Room is approx 2.8m x 2.4m.

MM

[Owain]

My lounge is fairly adequately kept warm when the computer's on, if the heating was on earlier. I have the GCH running for 40 mins about

3x per day. Fan heater in the bedroom for about 10 mins before turning in.

Owain

[MM]

Yes, I, too, find the heat from the two computers makes a significant difference over the course of the day (sometimes only one is on). However, we are now experiencing VERY low temperatures (2 miles from the Wash). I have also succumbed to a quick boost from a fan heater in the bedroom before turning out the light. I am also religiously closing all doors. It's been roughly 3¾ hours since I switched on the new radiator and the Tschibo is reading 18.1 pence. The room is quite comfortably warm now since I've been downstairs watching the news and cooking supper etc.

MM

[Usenet Nutter]

Your comp keeps your lounge warm???

[ARWadsworth]

He downloads some hot stuff.

Adam

[Dave Liquorice]

Well we are using about 25l of oil/day at 40p/l (when we bought at the end of Oct, I think it's about 45p/l now) so that's =A310/day.

[Andy Dingley]

At home today, but I didn't want to keep continually stoking the fire with timber so burned coal instead (Coal has to be bought, timber is free). Cost =A32-=A33 for the day.

[Tim W]

Usenet Nutter wibbled on Wednesday 06 January 2010 20:20

He might have one of these - that would keep anything warm.

[Tim W]

Dave Liquorice wibbled on Wednesday 06 January 2010 20:48

I'm at around 300 quid per month on electricity and perhaps another 100-150 on coal. So around 13-15 quid per day in the coldest week, more like 10 quid when it's just medium cold.

I expect to halve that next year when everything's properly insulated.

Mind you, just running draught seals around the doors has made a massive difference - and with the snow blanket on the roof (bugger all insulation right now) I was down to 1.5kW fan heater in the hall and the coal fire (say

3kW average) for most of today.

Despite the knackeredness of everything and the cold, we are actually very comfortable.

[Owain]

Pretty much so, yes. What with that, router (that's fairly toasty), telly, etc, all in the lounge, it's probably about 300W standby load. And probably helped considerably by the people in the flat downstairs having their heating on!

I have lived in flats where when I turned the heating off the mercury sank faster than a Bismark class battleship, but this place is better insulated and hardly ever drops below 15C

Owain

[pete]

A few years ago (as you'll see from the prices) I analysed a year's worth of gas bills. What it came down to was from a total cost of £475 for the year and having the heating on for 6 months: Oct - Mar the cost of heating during those months was about the same as the cost of hot water + cooking for the whole year. So, CH for 6 months came out at about £240 and 12 months HW and cooking was another £240-ish, for the sake of round numbers. This is for a 3 bed semi, with occupants at work 8-6, 5 days a week.

(smarm: It also turns out that our energy use has dropped from 20,600kWH a year in 1981-2 to 13,500kWH in 2007-8 - there! I've saved us all from climate change :-)

[Terry Fields]

In tghe old days (one youngster and another on the way) we used 26000 kWh of gas and 5500 kWh of electricity. The lounge staggered up to 20 deg C on cold nights.

Thirty years later, it's down to 14000 kWh gas and 3000 kWh electricity, with the same house, back boiler and rads. The lounge is currently at 23.5 deg C and it's -4.5 outside.

The difference, apart from the kids leaving home, is a now fully-insulated, double-glazed house and care taken to deal with draughts.

If you want to save the planet, don't have kids - which raises the question of why you'd want to save it as there wouldn't be any people to inherit it.

[S Viemeister]

I just had a quote of 49.5per/l.

[MM]

MM

[MM]

Boilerjuice were quoting 42.3 yesterday for PE12 (1000 litres)

MM

[MM]

In my case (I'm retired, so at home most of the day) I continue to write software and write other stuff to keep my brain active and I do that in what would be classed the "third bedroom", i.e. the baby's room, i.e. the smallest bedroom. The two desktops in there are usually adequate to keep the temperature around 21 deg C, but in this particularly cold spell it does need a boost to get the temperature up first thing in the morning.

MM

[Dave Liquorice]

Large old solid stone building, dry lined but not insulated, not fully properly double glazed(*). Outside temp hasn't been much above freezing for 25 days. The 26th did get to 2C for a lot of that 24hrs.

(*) 5 mm gap sealed units in ordinary timber frames, so not quite as bad as single glazed but still a little drafty.

[pete]

I have heard it argued (well, pub "discussion" - might have been the beer talking) that all the "save the planet" movement is really about is subsidising the lifestyles of the family-types, at the expense of those who don't, can't or won't participate. Agree about the insulation, though it turns out that the DG is a loss maker. The cost of heat-loss through SG windows[1] doesn't even pay the interest on the cost of having it installed. DG cost: £5200, interest @ 5% = £260 p.a.

[1] Heating fuel savings (est. 20% of _heating_) = ~ £50 p.a.

[Andrew Gabriel]

I'm working at home at the moment, and my office is the living room table. Central heating is on until 9am. From 9am through to about 7pm, I am just using the air conditioner in the living room for heating. It used 1.5 units yesterday (about 20p?). So far today, it's used 0.26 units. (-5C outside).

[Owain]

Congratulations! You have won a box of low energy lightbulbs!

Owain