New Boiler High Gas Bills

Strikeforce

Strikeforce

Strikeforce

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Joined
19 Oct 2002
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702
Hi All,

Just looking for a bit of advice. We moved into a new property in September (Mid Terrace built around 1900) it needed some work doing so while this was being done we decided to have a new boiler installed.

We went for the Ideal Logic+ 30 Combi as it had got a 7 year warranty. However since Oct, every gas bill that we have received has been really high, ranging from £170 to £200 a month.

We're with British Gas on their Energy Smart tariff so we submit the meter readings each month so the bills are not estimated.

Jan: 2212 kWh used, Meter reading 16692
Dec: 4447 kWh used, Meter reading 16347
Nov: 4447 kWh used, Meter reading 15960

The heating is controlled by a wireless thermostat and comes on at 6am @ 19C until 8am then goes to 17C (never kicks in during the day). It then comes on again at 5PM @ 19C until 10PM, it does this 7 days a week, so I don't think its being over used.

I've checked for all the obvious causes I can think of:

- Turned the boiler off and checked to see if the meter is still turning.
- Made sure the kitchen fitters didn't plumb the washer and dish washer to the hot water tap.
- Made sure the preheat is turned off on the boiler.

I'm thinking it could be a faulty meter, however British Gas have said there will be a £70 charge if no fault is found when having it tested. I'm just wondering if there is anything else I should check before I go ahead and have the meter tested?

Thanks
 
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Same thing happened to my parents and it turned out it was a setting on the boiler that gave them instant hot water rather than the usual 5-10 second delay which meant it was heating water 24/7. Might be worth checking the manual.
 
I've got the same (or very similar) boiler and my bill isn't anything like that sort of figure!

To be honest the first thing I'd make sure of is that you don't have any sort of a leak somewhere!

I've got a 3-storey, 4-bed house and we have our heating on a lot more than you appear to (and a higher temp too!) and my bill isn't anywhere near those figures!?!?
 
Mark M said:
Same thing happened to my parents and it turned out it was a setting on the boiler that gave them instant hot water rather than the usual 5-10 second delay which meant it was heating water 24/7. Might be worth checking the manual.
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Yeah I wondered this but I think the only option for the instant hot water on our boiler is the preheat option which is turned off :(
 
StevieP said:
I've got the same (or very similar) boiler and my bill isn't anything like that sort of figure!

To be honest the first thing I'd make sure of is that you don't have any sort of a leak somewhere!

I've got a 3-storey, 4-bed house and we have our heating on a lot more than you appear to (and a higher temp too!) and my bill isn't anywhere near those figures!?!?
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Yeah I don't think its right, In my previous house I never exceeded £80 per month and that was when I had the heating on all day.

I think I'll have to get a plumber round
 
Try gas rating the boiler.
Run it for a fixed period of time and take a meter reading at the start and finish.
It will neeed to run at max so make sure its from cold and there is plenty of heat load, all rads on full.
In central heating mode it should use 2.5 cu/m of gas in an hour.
You dont need to run it for an hour, but the ratio should work out at that.
 
I also have a logic+ although its the 35kW version. Large 4 bed house (old with poor thermal properties) and I pay about £900 year gas.

I do have a problem with it that it takes quite a while for hot water to come through (pipe not that long to kitchen tap) say about 20 seconds and the preheat makes virtualy no difference. The engineer also said it would make little difference and adivised I left it off.
 
Just spoke to Ovo Energy as they were the previous supplier to the person that lived here previously and although they couldn't give me a lot of information due to data protection they have advised that on average the annual figure for the gas consumption was 26,962 kWh.

So I don't think its a fault with our boiler I'm thinking its more of a fault with the meter now?

I've got the Home Care cover with British Gas so they are now booked in to come and have a look at things tomorrow.
 
rs1800 said:
I also have a logic+ although its the 35kW version. Large 4 bed house (old with poor thermal properties) and I pay about £900 year gas.

I do have a problem with it that it takes quite a while for hot water to come through (pipe not that long to kitchen tap) say about 20 seconds and the preheat makes virtualy no difference. The engineer also said it would make little difference and adivised I left it off.
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It's almost as though I posted this - exactly what happens with my Logic Plus!!
 
Call up British gas and make sure they've got you down having a Metric meter, and not an imperial meter* or else your bills will be 2.83 larger - happened to us when we transferred to E.On.

* assuming you do have a metric meter!

FYI - that bill is very high as you know but for comparison purposes - detached 5 bed house here and we used £360 gas last year (just got recent bill - £160 for period 15/10/14 to 15/01/2015).
 
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Each unit on an imperial meter is 100 cu/ft (otherwise they wouldnt have enough digits to record usage).

100 cu/ft = 2.83 cu/m
 
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Doh, of course, my bad should have thought about it first.
In my defence, its a while since I've seen an imperial meter :o
 
Thebug said:
We have the 30kw logic plus Combi and the best thing we bought for it was the weather compensation kit, it adjusts the boiler flow temp to suit the weather outside so the boiler goes into condensing mode more often saving you money, easy to fit and only £12.50 for this boiler.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/IDEAL-LOG...arden_Hearing_Cooling_Air&hash=item339b9057d0
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That looks quite interesting i'll have a think about getting one of those.

We've now got the heating engineer coming round on Saturday to check the boiler. I've also got to take readings from the meter for 7 days for British Gas before they will arrange for a meter swap and test.

I've also made sure British Gas have us down as having a metric meter as well.
 
The_One said:
You live in a house with solid walls there is your problem not the boiler or meter
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That's rubbish. Whilst solid walls don't hold the heat in particularly well, he shouldn't be using anywhere near that much gas.

According to those meter readings you've used as much gas in three months as I've used in over 12 months. Even a few years back when the temperatures were dropping to -12 I only used 10,800 Kwh for that 12 month period.

That figure is also a mid terrace, at the time we had an 18 year old Worcester boiler, which we have just had replaced.

Something else is not right.
 
Any neighbors that might be somehow connected to your supply, accidental or otherwise? I can just picture that episode from bottom where they wire into the neighbors utilities :p
 
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