Gas Heating Usage and Billing Question

Teeks

If I turn on my heating (gas) for an hour, does it cost the same to heat the whole house during that hour as opposed to a few rooms.

I mean if the heat is on constant for one hour does it matter how many rads your heating or are you just charged per unit you use regardless of what is being heated within that hour.

Sorry if I'm not explaining this properly. Just wondering how they charge for gas usage. Sick of my ridiculously high bills when there is no one in the house til 6pm every day. And at most the heating is on for 4 hours each night.

Dtp1979

Teeks wrote: »

If I turn on my heating (gas) for an hour, does it cost the same to heat the whole house during that hour as opposed to a few rooms.

I mean if the heat is on constant for one hour does it matter how many rads your heating or are you just charged per unit you use regardless of what is being heated within that hour.

Sorry if I'm not explaining this properly. Just wondering how they charge for gas usage. Sick of my ridiculously high bills when there is no one in the house til 6pm every day. And at most the heating is on for 4 hours each night.

The more radiators you have working, the more water you have to heat. Then more gas is used!

Teeks

Ok so basically it will cost me more to heat 10 radiators for a 1 hour period than to heat 4 radiators for a one hour period??

Is this right??

I assumed once the heat was turned on then it was on and it didn't matter what you were trying to heat. ie. i thought usage/billing was based on the amount of time your heating was on.

Ok, thanks

Dtp1979

Teeks wrote: »

Ok so basically it will cost me more to heat 10 radiators for a 1 hour period than to heat 4 radiators for a one hour period??

Is this right??

I assumed once the heat was turned on then it was on and it didn't matter what you were trying to heat. ie. i thought usage/billing was based on the amount of time your heating was on.

Ok, thanks

If your boiler is on for 1 hour only heating 4 rads then the water will reach its desired temp quicker. The heating will still be on for the hour but it won't be firing for as long because there is less water to heat

Calibos

Putting the heating on for an hour or timer settings isn't telling the gas burner in the boiler to fire for the whole hour. Its telling the boiler that within that hour's example it is allowed fire the gas burner as much or as little as it needs to maintain the set temperature in the pipes/switched on rads. So if you only have the valves open on 4 rads instead of 10 rads the boiler doesn't have to fire the gas burner as often to maintain the temperature. EG. The gas burner might only be lit for 5 minutes every 15 minutes or so of that hour ie. 4x5mins=20minutes. On the other hand with 10 rads turned on it might need to have the burner lit for 10 minutes on 5 minutes off and thus be lit for a total of 40 minutes within that hour.

So less rads turned on means less gas used.....but only if the doors to the rooms with the switched off rads are closed. If they are open then effectively you are just heating the whole house with 4 rads instead of 10 which means the whole house takes longer to heat up, the gas burner has to stay lit for longer and paradoxically you might end up using more gas rather than less by using 4 rads instead of the 10. To re-iterate, The important thing is to keep the doors to the rooms with turned off rads closed.

Teeks

Thank you, I have a much better understanding of it now

ebbsy

May I ask a further question.

Does turning down the rads reduce the gas used ?

I ask this as I bled 4 out of the 9 rads I have a few months back and then got a much bigger bill.

I would have the timer on for an hour in the morning and 2.5 hours in the evening.

Dtp1979

ebbsy wrote: »

May I ask a further question.

Does turning down the rads reduce the gas used ?

I ask this as I bled 4 out of the 9 rads I have a few months back and then got a much bigger bill.

I would have the timer on for an hour in the morning and 2.5 hours in the evening.

Turning down the rads us only effective if you have thermostatic radiator valves. You'll know u have them because they usually have numbers 1-6 on them