Gas bill monthly cost 3 bed mid-terrace house

nedews

Hi,

We just recently moved in to our first house (renting it), it is a 3 bedroom house, mid-terrace with a BER rating of D. Our gas supplier is Flogas.

I checked at their website and the standard rate is 0.06484 Cent per kWh inc. VAT. And the annual estimated bill is €815.75 inc. VAT.

Since I have never used gas heating before we wonder if there's any way to calculate average price per hour, to have gas heating on.

Also what is normal to use on the timer/clock? E.g. how many hours per day do people usually keep it on? For now we have it on 10 hours per day and off 14, and we think it is pretty cold, especially my wife that is home all days with our children.

And lastly, which temperature is normal to set it to, currently ours is set to 50 degrees, and that would give us a decent temperature indoors, but at times it can feel a bit cold.

Would it be a nightmare to keep it on 24/7 and raise the temperature?

TheDriver

Firstly, that's a big unit rate. If you're in for a year, get a discounted rate. Plus the exit fee if u leave early will be less than the differebce

Wildly Boaring

If the house was empty or poorly heated before you got there it'll take a good blast of heat to get everything dried out and bit of heat into floor and walls.

We were out of our house till this time last year. Took a week or two of heating the. Place to normalise it. Even the cutlery had to dry out!!
We had dehumidifier and heat on timer before.

nedews

Thanks for the answers, I'll take that into consideration!

How about the cost though, how much do you pay annually and how many hours per day do you keep the heating on? Also at which temperature?

Wildly Boaring

nedews wrote: »

Thanks for the answers, I'll take that into consideration!

How about the cost though, how much do you pay annually and how many hours per day do you keep the heating on? Also at which temperature?

Oil here.
3 bed bungalow.
Heating probably on 8 hours a day on low to medium. Cant be much more use.
1000 euro or a bit more anually

Sleeper12

nedews wrote:

How about the cost though, how much do you pay annually and how many hours per day do you keep the heating on? Also at which temperature?

Room thermostats are usually set to 20c. This is about 68f.

ted1

nedews wrote: »

Hi,

We just recently moved in to our first house (renting it), it is a 3 bedroom house, mid-terrace with a BER rating of D. Our gas supplier is Flogas.

I checked at their website and the standard rate is 0.06484 Cent per kWh inc. VAT. And the annual estimated bill is €815.75 inc. VAT.

Since I have never used gas heating before we wonder if there's any way to calculate average price per hour, to have gas heating on.

Also what is normal to use on the timer/clock? E.g. how many hours per day do people usually keep it on? For now we have it on 10 hours per day and off 14, and we think it is pretty cold, especially my wife that is home all days with our children.

And lastly, which temperature is normal to set it to, currently ours is set to 50 degrees, and that would give us a decent temperature indoors, but at times it can feel a bit cold.

Would it be a nightmare to keep it on 24/7 and raise the temperature?

10 hours a day is crazy!!! You need to change your heating controls

nedews

Our boiler is set to 50 degrees, and the valves are fully open on the wall heaters, our indoor temperature I would gesstimate to about 15-18 degrees during the day, much less at midnight though.

Now when we keep it on for 10h a day it's really chilly at times.

When our baby is born we will have to keep it on 24/7, or else it will be way too cold indoors, especially now at winter.

How much could it cost to keep it on 24/7? Any idea? If €150-200/month we could probably take it, but not much more than that...

People I've spoken to around us say they keep it on for 8-12 hours a day and they pay about €80-100/month.

John.G

nedews wrote: »

Our boiler is set to 50 degrees, and the valves are fully open on the wall heaters, our indoor temperature I would gesstimate to about 15-18 degrees during the day, much less at midnight though.

Now when we keep it on for 10h a day it's really chilly at times.

When our baby is born we will have to keep it on 24/7, or else it will be way too cold indoors, especially now at winter.

How much could it cost to keep it on 24/7? Any idea? If €150-200/month we could probably take it, but not much more than that...

People I've spoken to around us say they keep it on for 8-12 hours a day and they pay about €80-100/month.

My 3 bedroom (+ attic conversion) semi with oil fired (SE boiler) heating on for 15 hours/day uses ~ 7 litres Kero/day=3.95Kw/hr useful heat to rads/hot water. The boiler stat is set at 75C and room stat at 21C.
If you have a condensing boiler, then based on the above usage, the gas boiler input should be ~ 4.4 Kw and cost, based on your gas price ~ €0.28/hour, €2.8 for a 10 hr day and/or €6.72 for 24/7 usage, €205/month, almost within your budget?.
I would suggest raising the boiler stat from 50C to 55/60C which will give a more comfortable room temperature and the boiler should still be running very efficiently

Your neighbours usage based on 10hrs/day and €90/month would equate to a boiler input of 4.6 Kw/€0.3/hr which corresponds pretty closely to the 4.4 Kw/€0.28/hr that I have estimated above.

serox_21

Last year I payed 700 on gas(during heating season) for a 3 bed house.
I had a thermostat that was on all the time set to 20 -21 degrees (basically boiler fired every time the temperature was 0.5 bellow set temp) and heating full house all the time.

For this year I upgraded controls
- wireless thermostats on each floor (3 heating zones including the attic)
- temp is set 20-21 degrees in bedrooms
- 20 degree(5:30Am - 10:30 PM) ground floor(thermostat in the kitchen + a stove in the living room)

Estimated cost for last 2 months (heating is on all the time depending on the temperature) around 100euro (will see in the next few days)

phester28

I'm sure people are reading this and say my bills are much higher than that. I take it people are posting the cost per month of gas usage (and similar) + vat.

Otherwise some of these readings are way to low. 700 on gas inc vat and work it backwards. Less vat and then standing charge and pso levy would be a very small gas bill.

serox_21

The prices I quote are including VAT. 700 was for the heating season Oct -April(corrected the above post)

My bimonthly price during summer without heating is around 50 euro

heating season was around 700. I'll get the bills for 2017 and do the math

serox_21

back with exact bills for Oct 2017 -April 2018

BILLING PERIOD: 05 Oct 2017 - 08 Dec 2017 (increase in gas prices at the end of oct)
Total Including VAT €65.19
Total Including VAT €98.56

BILLING PERIOD: 08 Dec 2017 - 07 Feb 2018
Total Including VAT €124.38 (based on estimation. See next billing period)

BILLING PERIOD: 07 Feb 2018 - 04 Apr 2018
Total Including VAT €339.88 (I haven't send the meter reading in previous billing period)


P.S. This bills also include hot water + cooking

serox_21

See attached screenshot

John.G

serox_21 wrote: »

See attached screenshot

Just looking at this from a energy point of view.
If I am interpreting your bill correctly then you used 5748 Kwh over a 56 day period (Feb8th-April4th) which means you used 102.6 Kwh/day or 4.28 Kwh/hour. Have you any idea what contribution your stove is making to keeping the gas usage down? and is it a non boiler (room heating only) stove.

serox_21

John.G wrote: »

Just looking at this from a energy point of view.
If I am interpreting your bill correctly then you used 5748 Kwh over a 56 day period (Feb8th-April4th) which means you used 102.6 Kwh/day or 4.28 Kwh/hour. Have you any idea what contribution your stove is making to keeping the gas usage down? and is it a non boiler (room heating only) stove.

Hi,

those bills are from last season. I ve installed my stove last month. there was no addition to the heating system then.

Also your calculation is wrong. Previous bill was an estimation while feb-apr(what you calculated) bill has higher reading than actual consumption.

do the math for full period oct- apr or last two bills dec - apr. full costs are above

Also my current stove is 4kw max non boiler. It can heat the full house(without attic) in around 4-5 hours if I have all doors opened. Living room at 24 -25, upstairs bedrooms 21-22 kitchen 21.

I don’t light the stove daily, usually weekends starting in the afternoon till late evening.
I’ll update my last 2 months heating cost in the next days. this will include the stove usage.

Total house space 110m2 without the attic.

serox_21

7 oct - 10 dec bill - 135 euro

seamus

That €135 probably seems fairly in line. We've just recently got gas installed in a 3-bed mid-terrace and our usage for September to October was €118. And the house was basically empty for the first two weeks of September, though the heating was on quite a bit to dry out the house and make sure everything was working.

Ours kicks in for 3 hours a day, though some days I'll give it another hour in the evening.