Excessive Gas Usage

blackapache

blackapache

blackapache

Associate
Joined
30 Oct 2002
Posts
292
Location
Surrey
Hey hey, :)

Basically my mum is having a bit of a mare about the amount of gas she is using (and is blaming it on me so I am trying to get some advice for her!).
At the moment the gas is coming in at £150per MONTH which from reading moneysavingexpert etc is apparently excessive.
The average usage in a family home about 20,000 KWh pa, we (just me and my mum) are using over double that! Admittedly we do live in a fairly big 4bed victorian home but its terraced and anyway it really shoulnt be this high. We used to live in a much larger 6 bed victorian home and the bill was nothing what we pay now!

I have turned the boiler off and unfortuntately the meter dial stops moving so its not a leak (would have been the easiest thing to diagnose) so it must be something else as the usage cannot be correct. We use exactly the same amount of gas a month (with actual readings) even if the heating is not on (although the boiler is on for hot water) which seems very odd?

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

BA
 
keep an eye on the meter readings week to week see if theres much variance.

what setup have you got linked to the boiler (number of radiators etc), they all working okay ?

maybe get the guess company out to test the system, more than likely cost you but if its sorts out the problem will save you more in the long run.



Greenlizard0 said:
What has that got to do with anything? :p
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The efficiency level of the thing for starters, get an idea of how long its been installed for etc.
 
Greenlizard0 said:
What has that got to do with anything? :p
Click to expand...

Everything, an old unserviced boiler may be using gas very inefficiently. I changed a boiler in one of my houses from an old cupboard sized beast over to a little condensing combi, and the gas usage for the same output virtually halved.
 
What temperature to you have your hot water set to? Not trying to keep it boiling in the tank are you?

I live in a two bed semi with my girlfriend and my gas and electricity combined comes to an average of £40 per month. That's with a 11 year old gas boiler & gas hobs and then an electric shower and electric oven.

The only maintenance I do is to keep air out of the system. Though might see about a quick clean up of the heat exchanger soon.
 
( |-| |2 ][ $;14080958 said:
What temperature to you have your hot water set to? Not trying to keep it boiling in the tank are you?

I live in a two bed semi with my girlfriend and my gas and electricity combined comes to an average of £40 per month. That's with a 11 year old gas boiler & gas hobs and then an electric shower and electric oven.
Click to expand...

You must be VERY energy concious. This 3 bed semi on my own comes to around £100/month for the two and that's with a brand new boiler. I am not an energy efficient person, though.
 
Jez said:
You must be VERY energy concious. This 3 bed semi on my own comes to around £100/month for the two and that's with a brand new boiler. I am not an energy efficient person, though.
Click to expand...

I am energy concious but nothing I'd class as excessive. We each have a shower a day, use the oven once per day. The lights are mostly energy saver and for example the upstairs lights are off if we're downstairs. The TV is on most nights and so are both our laptops. The heating was on from 15:00 till 21:00 though the winter at 18 degrees. (any hotter is normally too hot)

At the moment the heating only seems to come on for 30mins then normally doesn't come back on. Sometimes my laptop is on all day downloading.... you know normal usage I thought.
 
Thanks for the quick responses :)
We have a combi boiler that runs around 14 radiators and one towel rail and the hot water for 2 showers and a bath. We also have gas hobs.
At the moment the gas alone is around £150pm (worked out from nov-may with no heating on during winter as a valve on the boiler was not working!).
The boiler was serviced at xmas as we pay a monthly charge to have a regular service but tbh i dont trust them at all.

We dont have one of those big hot water tanks like our old house just some little thing within the boiler, or do combi's heat up on request? The guy who came round to check for leaks said it does not matter much about the boiler as there is only a certain standard aperature for gas? What does this mean!?! BS?

The heating has barely been on since it was fixed and if it is only for around 6hrs a day... it cannot possibly equate to that huge bill?

Checked that imperial/metric thing sadly its not the case!
 
14 radiators is a fair few, and with gas hobs that'll push it up too.

My original question again - how old is the boiler? And yes, combi's heat water on demand.
 
Oops sorry, the boiler is around 8yrs old! :S

Edit: Thinking about it between 5-7 of the radiators are in spare rooms which are not used for maybe 80% of the time
 
are the radiators thermally controlled or just on all the time ?

as mentioned combi boiler will only heat water on request, what sort of hot water usage is there ?

8 years is getting on a bit, might be worth looking into a condensing boiler, but not sure how long the cost will take to pay for its self.

if your monitoring the gas usage on the meter do the figures match up with those on the bill ?
 
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