How much do you spend on gas each day?

[Bobby Dazzler]

We’ve been away for 10 night so it was an ideal time to see how much energy the “house” uses on tick over. Over the course of the last 7 days it used 77.33 kWh of gas at a cost of £20.65 and £13.07 of electricity.

The gas will have been for heating water only as I leave it to do it’s thing even when we’re away, and the electricity will be for simulated “at home”lighting, security, cameras and air circulation system.

The electricity sounds about right as the air recirculation system is on constantly, however the gas sounds more than I expected both in terms of volume and cost, as the water would stay in the cylinder..

 

[HappytalkAgain]

Rob, have you tried reducing the timer settings for the boiler heating the hot water? Our new system is set for just 45 minutes at 6am and 45 minutes at 4pm daily. As the tank and secondary return pipes are heavily lagged we find it’s more than enough for our daily uses. Just a thought.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

Rob, have you tried reducing the timer settings for the boiler heating the hot water? Our new system is set for just 45 minutes at 6am and 45 minutes at 4pm daily. As the tank and secondary return pipes are heavily lagged we find it’s more than enough for our daily uses. Just a thought.

Thanks for your suggestion Ant. We’ve experimented with it it on for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening and it didn’t make a noticeable difference compared to being in all of the time. That said, perhaps if we did that when the heating was in it would mask the real benefit, so perhaps worth repeating now whilst there is no heating on.

 

[ToeKnee]

It doesn't help that Rob lives in a 80 bedroom stately home......

 

[190]

We’ve been away for 10 night so it was an ideal time to see how much energy the “house” uses on tick over. Over the course of the last 7 days it used 77.33 kWh of gas at a cost of £20.65 and £13.07 of electricity.

During the summer when I'm away for a week I use exactly 0KW of gas because the boiler is turned off.

Electricity while we are away is a little over 1 KWh per day as it's only running a fridge and freezer. Everything else is turned off with nothing on standby except the electric garage door opener and that only consumes 2 or 3 Watts. Turning electrical consumers off is not just penny pinching. We had external lights on a timer and came home one time to find the power tripped and the freezer contents spoiled which I put down to a brief power outage which neighbors reported and the external lights tripping the main RCD when the power came back on again. I eventually traced that to a faulty timer but now I leave as little on as possible to give the system the best chance of surviving what are not uncommon power outages.

 

[Skd884]

It doesn't help that Rob lives in a 80 bedroom stately home......

Ahhhh so i am not the only one who has been informed

 

[SpikyMikey]

It doesn't help that Rob lives in a 80 bedroom stately home......

Those stables, olympic-sized swimming pool and the Plantetarium in the walled garden need a lot of kWh also.

 

[BTB 500]

We’ve been away for 10 night so it was an ideal time to see how much energy the “house” uses on tick over. Over the course of the last 7 days it used 77.33 kWh of gas at a cost of £20.65

That can't be right, surely

£20.65 for 77.33 kWh is nearly 27p per kWh ... that's almost 5 times what we pay on OVO's basic/default tariff (5.44p per kWh)??

10 kWh a day would be extremely good though ... the two pilot lights on our Rayburn consume that without any heating/hot water usage. We got back last night after a trip away - we have solar water heating so the only gas used with the house empty is the pilot lights. Electricity is about 1 kWh a day with timer lights in the evening and a porch light on overnight:

 

[190]

10 kWh a day would be extremely good though ... the two pilot lights on our Rayburn consume that without any heating/hot water usage.

Pilot lights are a waste of energy particularly in the summer which is why modern boilers don't have them. I made a significant saving on an old boiler by adjusting the pilot light to the minimum necessary to keep the thermocouple latching. I presume the Gas Engineer who originally set it up didn't make any attempt at an economic adjustment, it will have been set to be ultra reliable by a wide margin. When I started, I found the pilot light was using 4 KWh per day and was able to reduce it to 1.2 KWh per day with reliable operation. That alone saved £60 per year in gas consumption not to mention a reduction in emissions.

 

[BTB 500]

Pilot lights are a waste of energy particularly in the summer which is why modern boilers don't have them. I made a significant saving on an old boiler by adjusting the pilot light to the minimum necessary to keep the thermocouple latching. I presume the Gas Engineer who originally set it up didn't make any attempt at an economic adjustment, it will have been set to be ultra reliable by a wide margin. When I started, I found the pilot light was using 4 KWh per day and was able to reduce it to 1.2 KWh per day with reliable operation. That alone saved £60 per year in gas consumption not to mention a reduction in emissions.

Yup at the next service (autumn) I'm going to ask the engineer if the pilot lights (one for the boiler and another for the oven) can be tweaked down a bit without causing any issues. Both already go out occasionally so I suspect it won't be possible, but no harm in asking.

As an aside there's a separate safety device related to the flue that trips sometimes in really windy weather. Took me a while to track that down the first time it happened as both pilot lights were fine but neither burner would light!

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

It doesn't help that Rob lives in a 80 bedroom stately home......

Ahhhh so i am not the only one who has been informed

Those stables, olympic-sized swimming pool and the Plantetarium in the walled garden need a lot of kWh also.

80 rooms is quite small for a prison

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

That can't be right, surely

£20.65 for 77.33 kWh is nearly 27p per kWh ... that's almost 5 times what we pay on OVO's basic/default tariff (5.44p per kWh)??

Edited after posting: I think got my electricity and gas mixed up in the post last night: 77.32 kWh is for electricity, rather than gas.

——

That’s helpful, thank you. This was the reading last night - it resets at midnight on Sunday, so this is for 6 days 22 hours and 35 minutes. Maybe the tariff is extortionate or the rate is wrong in the account t or device.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

For completeness here’s the gas reading.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

I’ve just checked the app to see more detail. Whilst on holiday the house used around:

• ELECTRICITY: 11 kWh @ £2.40 per day
• GAS: 30 kWh @ £1.80 per day

I’ve just checked the tariff details in the app for unit and standing charges:

• ELECTRICITY: 20.616p per kWh; 50.334p per day
• GAS: 5.082p per kWh; 29.62p per day

How do those rates compare to those who monitor closely?

 

[BTB 500]

I’ve just checked the tariff details in the app for unit and standing charges:

• ELECTRICITY: 20.616p per kWh; 50.334p per day
• GAS: 5.082p per kWh; 29.62p per day

How do those rates compare to those who monitor closely?

My experience is that the rates stored in the smart meter display unit are often wrong. They're meant to update automatically but frequently don't, so I ignore costs shown there and only display kWh. I just checked and sure enough the tariffs are wrong on mine at the moment.

Most suppliers now have phone apps and/or web pages that give you more accurate usage & cost data.

 

[ALFAitalia]

That can't be right, surely

£20.65 for 77.33 kWh is nearly 27p per kWh ... that's almost 5 times what we pay on OVO's basic/default tariff (5.44p per kWh)??

10 kWh a day would be extremely good though ... the two pilot lights on our Rayburn consume that without any heating/hot water usage. We got back last night after a trip away - we have solar water heating so the only gas used with the house empty is the pilot lights. Electricity is about 1 kWh a day with timer lights in the evening and a porch light on overnight:

View attachment 159734

5.44p per kwh???. Is that right?....seems very low...even my neighbours low rate ovo tarrif for his EV charger is 7 p per kwh. We pay about 20p....
As of July 2024, the average price of electricity in the UK is 22 pence per kilowatt-hour (kWh), according to the Energy Saving Trust. 5.44 seems unlikely tbh....but good for you if that is what you pay.

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

5.44p per kwh???. Is that right?....seems very low...even my neighbours low rate ovo tarrif for his EV charger is 7 p per kwh. We pay about 20p....
As of July 2024, the average price of electricity in the UK is 22 pence per kilowatt-hour (kWh), according to the Energy Saving Trust. 5.44 seems unlikely tbh....but good for you if that is what you pay.

5.44 p per kWh is probably the gas unjt charge.

 

[Fastcar155]

We use a smart thermostat to control our gas heating system.We keep eye on the weather in the UK and adjust the temperature accordingly

 

[ALFAitalia]

Yep....I should have read it better..... that's much more likely and about on par with the UK average of 6 pence.

 

[ALFAitalia]

We use a smart thermostat to control our gas heating system.We keep eye on the weather in the UK and adjust the temperature accordingly

Our gas heating goes off at the end of March and does not come on again until the end of a October most years.....but we do live on the beach of the sub tropical south coast of Sussex!
So that only leaves the gas oven and the pilot light free combi boiler using gas....so minimal cost over the summer. When we are away only the two freezers, fish tank heater, pump and pond pump run...all low consumers....so no gas cost and minimal electricity.