Combating energy prices

grudas said:
How much are you paying daily guys? I set our thermostat at 16c and left it and it’s burning through £4-£5 a day anyway. My office/summer house gets silly cold over night. I’ll get in the in the morning and it’s at 7c inside. It’s insulated but seems to hold no heat through the night. It’s got no heating bar an electric oil rad set to turn on for an hour in the morning and then throughout the day as I need it. It’s insane that we’re living like this.
Click to expand...
Without heating coming on its between 3 and 5 quid a day for everything but with heating it's between 5 and 7 pounds a day.

I built an insulated studio for the wife that gets cold over night and she needs to put a 1000w heater on for a couple of hours to get the temperature up in there every day. Madness that my gaming is now starting to take a hit and I've taken to reading more as a result in the evenings
 
grudas said:
How much are you paying daily guys? I set our thermostat at 16c and left it and it’s burning through £4-£5 a day anyway. My office/summer house gets silly cold over night. I’ll get in the in the morning and it’s at 7c inside. It’s insulated but seems to hold no heat through the night. It’s got no heating bar an electric oil rad set to turn on for an hour in the morning and then throughout the day as I need it. It’s insane that we’re living like this.
Click to expand...
Are you saying your energy costs are £4-£5 per day? If so I'd say that was awesome.

We were £11 yesterday and that's with the house empty from 9-1.
 
Bill is 4.30 per day. Although that's likely to go up, the temperature fell to -4 last night.
I was really lucky with this, I decided to do some major work on the house during the summer re-arranging the loft and at the same time doubled the thickness of the loft insulation.
It reminds me though that I need to monitor temperatures in the loft. -4 is seriously cold.
 
Last edited:
LuckyBenski said:
Yep - just spent 4 days at the house I'm renovating and burned £7-8 daily while we were there, baths washing etc. Set up the heating to maintain about 15-16° (analog dial...) when we left Monday. I can see remotely it's still burning £5 odd a day (including standing charge).

TBF there are a lot of draughts and exposed areas while the garage and porch have no ceiling. I do expect it to improve once we're done but that's after winter!
Click to expand...

right so it's not that unusual then, I calculated that it was £7 for gas yesterday, so around £10 combined. Crazy to think that we used to pay £90/month! :)

azazl187 said:
Without heating coming on its between 3 and 5 quid a day for everything but with heating it's between 5 and 7 pounds a day.

I built an insulated studio for the wife that gets cold over night and she needs to put a 1000w heater on for a couple of hours to get the temperature up in there every day. Madness that my gaming is now starting to take a hit and I've taken to reading more as a result in the evenings
Click to expand...

that similar to what I'm seeing, not out of order then.

Dirk Diggler said:
Are you saying your energy costs are £4-£5 per day? If so I'd say that was awesome.

We were £11 yesterday and that's with the house empty from 9-1.
Click to expand...

£5 is for the gas alone, electric is another £4-£5 a day. So around £10 a day, right now in the cold we're having. Was lower last week as we only had the heating on for an hour in the evening.
 
would be interesting to analyse (30s/30min?) profile of gas usage, to see how much kick there is when initially turned on and identify any modulation,
despite parents have had a new ideal boiler last month I'm not sure it was configured with opentherm,
so the the radiators seem to come on at roasting temperature, and subsequent boiler solicitation similarly,

was suggesting to them maybed they need to set a lower thermostat setting over a longer period, to see if it reaches similar temp and how much gas is used, in comparison.
 
jpaul said:
would be interesting to analyse (30s/30min?) profile of gas usage, to see how much kick there is when initially turned on and identify any modulation,
despite parents have had a new ideal boiler last month I'm not sure it was configured with opentherm,
so the the radiators seem to come on at roasting temperature, and subsequent boiler solicitation similarly,

was suggesting to them maybed they need to set a lower thermostat setting over a longer period, to see if it reaches similar temp and how much gas is used, in comparison.
Click to expand...

The big difference with a modulated boiler is that it overcomes the problem with older boilers that give a brief burst of heat every twenty minutes and never actually reach the thermostat setting. As for the other advantages, it's really complex.
 
Last edited:
dirtychinchilla said:
I don't have the answer for you, but one thing I noticed was you get a much bigger dT when you turn your heating on and it's because the metal in the radiator needs to heat up first.
Click to expand...
good point ..

hadn't appreciated you can get aluminium radiators now which give faster heat transmission - https://heating-style.co.uk/blogs/news/what-material-should-your-next-radiator-be-made-from
Aluminium radiators have great environmental benefits. You can enjoy their fast response times, as they heat up and cool down rapidly so are fantastic at regulating the temperature within a room. They also have low water content so they require less hot water from the boiler, this means they do not need to be on for as long to reach their maximum temperature. This will reduce the amount of heat lost, making them a much more energy efficient option.
Click to expand...
 
azazl187 said:
We really have officially lost our minds haven't we. People are now spending over 200 quid just to look about the house looking for cold spots :D
Click to expand...
Not really.
Our house insulation is poor to be honest, I have recently improved the garage conversion done by previous owners and that room holds heat much better than any other room in the house.

The heating bill for our house would be over £400 a month if I had it on as much as the missus wants it, so it definitely needs improved insulation, a thermal camera will certainly be helpful in determining where other cold spots are so i can best work out where to spend money improving things.
In a loft it is easy to spot areas without insulation or if the insulation isn't thick enough but in finished rooms you can't do that easily.
 
Done a last 3 days measurement on the gas and have used 43kwh per day during this cold spell and me being at home pretty much 24/7 with covid, so heating been on a bit more too. I don't have any direct comparisons but last year we were using about 50% more than that and the house wasn't as warm or comfortable as it is now. Insulation really working it's magic, especially overnight where the heating isn't on (can't stand a hot bedroom) and it's only dropping 2 or 3c compared to 5c last year...
 
MassiveJim said:
Not really.
Our house insulation is poor to be honest, I have recently improved the garage conversion done by previous owners and that room holds heat much better than any other room in the house.

The heating bill for our house would be over £400 a month if I had it on as much as the missus wants it, so it definitely needs improved insulation, a thermal camera will certainly be helpful in determining where other cold spots are so i can best work out where to spend money improving things.
In a loft it is easy to spot areas without insulation or if the insulation isn't thick enough but in finished rooms you can't do that easily.
Click to expand...

The thermal camera is definitely a valid bit of kit given the state of UK housing and heating systems. And the cost benefit has increased massively with the energy prices going up.

We're using one at work to find out where we're losing heat. Turns out the converted warehouse has one wall that acts as an enormous thermal bridge (who would have thought). That room won't ever get warm until we fix that. What's fun for me as that the company is going to add external insualtion and I'll get to see how well that works without paying for it. In my job, I can then recommend it to people should it be necessary.
 
My gas and electric is around £2.80 a day when I'm in the office 2 days a week, £4.20 on the 3 days I work from home.
Only had the central heating on once so far so my gas cost is only really a daily shower (20p) and 28p standing charge.
 
rumple9 said:
My gas and electric is around £2.80 a day when I'm in the office 2 days a week, £4.20 on the 3 days I work from home.
Only had the central heating on once so far so my gas cost is only really a daily shower (20p) and 28p standing charge.
Click to expand...
Is that a small premises like 1 bed flat?
 
Yeah, looked this week and said it was closed. Although have signed up with local council for use of their one, as usual there is a catch you have to have training first and next available is Feb :rolleyes:
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom