Gas usage/cost results

Sparkpea

I've been monitoring my gas usage and thought I'd post the results here incase anyone would be interested.

My house is a small 2 bedroom semi detached new build (2010), entrance hall, downstairs wc/shower room, living room, kitchen/dining, upstairs bathroom, master bedroom and bedroom2.

Worchester Bosch Greenstar Ri boiler
Myson TRV's on 6 rads, 2 rads hall/landing with no TRV
Danfoss Roomstat in the hall
Danfoss 2 zone timeclock
Danfoss stat for the HW set for 70 degrees and HW is only set to come on twice a day for 1 hour each time.
Cavity wall insulation and loft insulation would be up to building regs. standards.


I'm on Phoenix natural gas and I top up using a card meter so I can monitor the credits/cost.

I have been running my heating 24 hours a day since Saturday 23rd October.

On 23/10 there was 255 credits in the meter, I topped up £49 (maximum for the card) and added it to the meter, total credits 376. So £49=121 credits. So if my figures are correct (and do correct me if I'm wrong) then we're talking roughly 2.47 credits per one pound (£).

14/11 there was 288 credits in the meter, so 88 credits in 22 days, so £35.62 in 22 days, average £1.62 per day.

28/11 there was 222 credits in the meter, so 154 credits in 36 days, so £62.35 in 36 days, average £1.73 per day.

Even if we go on £1.70 per day for average of 7 days its £11.90, so nearly £12 a week.

I'm pretty pleased with the results so far. Oh I should also mention that this gas also includes my cooking. Oven and hob, only thing is its an electric grill but most of the food is cooked in the oven.

I will try and keep an eye on the usage over the winter and if I remember to next summer. Obviously I'm not going to be spending so much in the summer time but if my heating/cooking gas cost me £600 a year I'd be well happy because I was using 2 fills of 500L / approx £200 of oil every 2 months in the winter time and again another 2 fills of 500L throughout the rest of the oil and this isn't include any cooking etc.

Worztron

Hi.

So far is your conclusion that having the heating on for longer at a lower temperature is cheaper than having the heating on for a shorter period at a higher temperature?

Sparkpea

In my case yes but it wont always be the case if you've drafts about the house etc. The lower the temp the less fuel it will use

Sparkpea

topup

31/12/10 £49 = 117 credits

total credits now in meter 253 (approx £101)

on 28/11/10 there was 342 credits, before I topped up it was down to 136, thus using 206 credits, approx £82.40 over the 34 days, approx £2.40 a day / on average £17 a week.

Conclusion - bit more expensive this month considering last month was working out aboutm £12 a week and we've likely cooked less this month. I'm not surprised really though given the temperatures we've had so the thermostat has been up alot higher than previous.

WildOscar

Sparkpea wrote: »

In my case yes but it wont always be the case if you've drafts about the house etc. The lower the temp the less fuel it will use

and it is only topping up heat not heating from cold

Sparkpea

topped up 3/2/11 £49 which only gave me 100 credits for some reason this month. Working out about 2.04 credits per £1 for the next month.

January's results showed (1/1/11 - 3/2/11) I used 118 credits, working out about £54 over 34 days, average of £1.58 per day - £11.12 per week. This month I kept the room stat at 18 and boosted it to 20/21 when we were in the house in the mornings and evenings.

For Feb I've turned my boiler up to max temp to see if heating the water/rooms hotter and quicker will I burn more gas or less?

yoshytoshy

Fair play to you ,I install worcesters all the time and I love them. Will be interesting to see your results at maximum

You're obviously going to loose a lot of energy transferring heat from 82oC from rads to the rooms. Not sure what you loose when rads go over the 62oC or so.

The Ri's still go into slow condense mode ,even at maximum. But what I don't like is when thermostats kick in.
When your rads are so hot ,it's going to take them a long time to cool down so the room thermostat won't kick in for a while. Your boiler will have cooled downed completely by then I'd say.

Fair play to ye

Sparkpea

Yeah I hear what you're saying, tho with the room stat being in the hall (which is freezing at the best of times) it might kick on a bit sooner. I got myself one of those door seal brush things from b&q but its about 4" too short ffs. Theres some draft coming in from under the front door so I'm hoping if that gets stopped then the hall might hold heat a bit better.

Interesting to see anyway. If I'm using £50 a month now in the summer I may only use £15 a month for say 4 months for HW. £460 a year for heating/hw/cooking not bloody bad. Even £600/year Id be happy with. I'm pretty sure last year I used easy £800+ on oil. Ok it was slightly bigger with 3 bedrooms but still!

Oil costs are crazy but I hear gas is going up in April so will be interesting to see how much more it will cost :-)

yoshytoshy

I use digital thermometers at home here ,they help me guage the heat around the place. I'm fairly happy with the balance of heat.
I use the TRV's mostly to control the heat and if I start to cool middle rooms down that I don't use ,it alters the heat in the place generally.

My best advice in my finding at home is don't let any room get too cold ,it will suck the heat from everywhere.

Sparkpea

Out of interest because I cannot tell what temp the boiler is at I'm looking for one of those thermostat gauges that has like a spring around it that fits to a pipe to tell the temp, probably seen more often on industrial boilers and sites - any idea what the proper name for them is or even an ebay link or something to pick 1 up from? Its not something I'd see in a shop often that I'm in.

yoshytoshy

No idea for pipe temperature ,I use my analyzer for all that stuff when I fill out the log books.

Had a look on amazon and spotted this ,maybe someone on boards has used it on pipes LINK

Sparkpea

something like this I was thinking




I've been meaning to get one of those (you links)

Another thing I'd love is like an xray camera to show cold spots on radiators but think they are about £2k! lol

yoshytoshy

Sparkpea wrote: »

Another thing I'd love is like an xray camera to show cold spots on radiators but think they are about £2k! lol

What's after that ,

A White coat ,

Maybe even a straight jacket:D:D .

Sparkpea

yoshytoshy wrote: »

What's after that ,

A White coat ,

Maybe even a straight jacket:D:D .

probably divorce LOL

slavetothegrind

that gun looks too cheap to be true:p

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fluke-62-Infrared-Digital-Thermometer/dp/B000MX5Y9C/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1297346890&sr=8-8

fluke seem to be reliable, my T5 has never let me down ( apart from telling me i had 532 volts across a pump once when the battery was gone!)

dead handy yoke for pipe temperatures, i used to have one for testing steam traps from a distance, now thanks to you two i'll probably impuse buy the feckin thing!!!!!:)

http://www.fondriest.com/products/extech_42515-t.htm

nice also!

Worztron

So is it always better and more efficient (and cheaper) to keep the heating on for longer at lower temperature rather than have it on for a shorter time at a higher temperature?

Sparkpea

I'm testing this month to see if running at full temp for shorter times (altho still on 24/7 but will kick off the stats quicker) is any cheaper. So I'll let you know.

Buford T Justice

yoshytoshy wrote: »

No idea for pipe temperature ,I use my analyzer for all that stuff when I fill out the log books.

Had a look on amazon and spotted this ,maybe someone on boards has used it on pipes LINK

Aaaah. Damn it, now i have to get me one of those too...

Buford T Justice

yoshytoshy wrote: »

No idea for pipe temperature ,I use my analyzer for all that stuff when I fill out the log books.

Had a look on amazon and spotted this ,maybe someone on boards has used it on pipes LINK

Hope you're happy, I've just bought it now............

yoshytoshy

Fingers McGee wrote: »

Hope you're happy, I've just bought it now............

Bought one myself ,handy for chatting up the women.
See how hot they are:pac:

Buford T Justice

yoshytoshy wrote: »

Bought one myself ,handy for chatting up the women.
See how hot they are:pac:

Depends where you're pointing though, doesn't it......

Sparkpea

moisture monitor would be better for that

Buford T Justice