gas boiler using too much gas

dash08

Hi, I've just moved into an apartment which has gas central heating. I only had electric heating in my old place so it's new to me. The problem is that I have had the had the gas on for only 11 hours but the gas meter is telling me that I've already used 50 units of gas. I've just looked at the Bord Gais site to find out the price of the gas and I've worked out that the cost of these 50 units is E36. So that means it's costing me E3.27 an hour to have the gas on. Surely that can't be right? I am thinking that maybe there has to be some sort of fault with the boiler that is making it inefficient or something like that?

What has really made me concerned is that I looked at the other meter readings for the other 11 apartments in my block and they are all less than half the figure of my apartment, so either the previous occupants had the gas on twice as much as all the other residents or there is something wrong. I have no idea about anything technical so would be very grateful if anyone could shed any light on this?

Max Power1

If you ring Bord Gais Networks on 1850 200 694 with your meter number they will be able to check if there was a mix up with the installation. Perhaps your meter is connected to another house.

Did you take a reading when you moved in, if so then to check your gas usage i would firstly identify if its your meter, this can be done by contacting Bord Gais as Max Power has written or you could stand by your meter with your appliances off and have someone turn on and off the boiler a few times to make sure the meter dial movement matches the on/off of the boiler, once you have confirmed its the right meter you then need to see if you are using your gas in the most efficient way, this is firstly done by having the boiler serviced and asking the RGII engineer to gas rate the appliance (this is a test to see if the gas the boiler is using matches what the manufactures say it will use) if it's a condensing boiler (modern) then a test on the flue products will confirm it's running efficiently, the boiler controls would have to be checked also, but it's all part of a *good* service, if the boiler is running OK then have the engineer check over the heating controls and pipework to see if any of the heat is being wasted and if the external controls are working properly or if any up dates can be added to help improve efficiency, Gary.

If you have everything turned off and the meter you have identified as being yours is still moving then call in Bord Gais to make sure you have no gas leak.

dash08

Thanks guys, I've just checked and it's definitely my meter. I'm going to ring a organise a service so hopefully that will shed some light on the problem, thanks again!