I'm concerned that my meters over charging me it's a smart meter so readings are automatically sent. Every month I've been getting charged £100 for gas and £50 or less for electric. I'm in a small one bed room flat only the heating uses the gas nothing else so how on earth is it that high 😬
Best answer by Jeffus
View originalYep that's what we're on .
So is two hours a day too much for hot water?
Just trying to figure out if it's not used much why is it costing so much .
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Can you measure the temperature of the hot water coming off your tank, eg using an infra-red thermometer. If it’s more than 60 deg your boiler will be running inefficiently to get it that hot. You should be able to turn it down on the boiler controls.
If you don’t run out of hot water after you’ve all had showers then maybe reduce the two hours, see if you can get away with less time heating?
I've recently installed a E-ON 😡 Smart meter . E-on is saying I owe £80 p.w yet my smart meter is showing I'm using £30 pw . How is this possible? ALSO according to the meter I'm using 06.0p gas per hour yet I have NO gas appliances on ..
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Howdy
It usually takes up to six weeks for newly installed meters to fully commission. Try giving it more time as things should settle down. If it still doesn’t seem right, try asking them to run the SMETS Command Update Tariff Configuration against both meters.
It’s also worth noting that gas meters only heartbeat every 30 minutes, so real-time data isn’t possible. What you see on the IHD is based on the previous 30 minute snapshot and will not reflect your live usage.
Thanks .
Looking for some advice please….not sure whether my gas usage is really high due to an inefficient boiler or it is just the cost of sort of heating my house!
Live in a semi detached house built in 1910. Got an extension built couple of years ago and a new boiler was installed at the same time.
I have 2 living rooms, 3 double bedrooms, box room, kitchen dining area and 2 bathrooms.
Target temperature set to 19 degrees (it never really gets there). Heating on a timer to come on at 7am and go off at 8pm.
Yesterday usage showing as 140.270kWh equaling £13.72
Not sitting in tropical conditions and still having to wrap up a bit. Is this the reality of the high cost of energy or should i be getting someone to check my boiler??
Any guidance would be appreciated.
I have a modest 3 bed semi in the south east, built in the 50s, and we used 105 kWh yesterday. Upstairs set to 18, downstairs to 20, so call it 19 average, same as you. We are two retired adults. Only one shower yesterday and a bit of hot water for washing up. No gas cooking yesterday. So most of the gas was for heating.
I've done everything I can reasonably do to improve insulation, given my solid brick walls. We have double and triple glazing throughout, fitted in summer 2021, so fairly new. Loft is fairly well insulated. Some (all but one) air bricks in rooms have been covered. The walls are the weak points.
I have a Tado smart thermostat system to keep room temperatures controlled accurately. My radiators are balanced and my combi boiler is always running in condensing mode, with max flow set to 60C, but that temperature is only reached for a few minutes per day if at all.
Your property is clearly bigger than mine and older too. With all that considered I don't think that 140 kWh sounds unreasonable.
The most obvious concern with boiler efficiency, if it is a condensing combi boiler, is to keep the return water temperature as low as possible - below 54C if you can - but the lower the better. Limiting flow temp to 60C should easily achieve that, so long as your radiators are balanced. If you have a hot water tank then you need to keep temps high enough to avoid legionella, so don't be tempted to reduce flow temp below 60C in that case.
Oh, p.s. Rising energy costs don't increase your consumption, only your spend. Rising energy consumption is down to what is probably the coldest December since 2010.
And for what it's worth I've been seeing it as a personal challenge to lower consumption every month this year vs last. Up until November it was easy victories every month, but December looks like it's got me beat.
Not quite half way through the month and already consumed 70% of last year's December total. :-(
Thank you eezytiger…
It’s really helpful to understand other peoples usage so appreciate the detailed response.
We have a smart meter and I have become rather addicted to reviewing my energy usage on a daily basis. Think what annoys me most is that I feel that I am paying a lot and still not feeling comfortable (clothing layers, blankets etc….)
Moved to OVO just under a year ago so don’t have the same visibility regarding this year v previous year.
Unfortunately due to the age of our house we are unable to get the walls insulated as there is no cavity and our loft is too small to have insulation installed (apparently). The best I could think of was radiator foil for each radiator, curtains closed etc....
Thanks again, your explanation re house size and usage has put my mind at ease a bit. Didn’t want to be throwing money away had there been a chance that the boiler was not doing what it was supposed to do. As I say…..we never seem to get to our target temperature according to our digital thermostat so the boiler is constantly churning away.
Can’t wait to get back to the summer months!
I don't know how much radiator foil helps, but we do have it. I'm sure it does something, but quantifying the benefit - no idea. This is the stuff I used, fixed to the wall with double sided tape.…
As for drawing curtains, that should absolutely help, so long as they aren't drawn over the top and in front of radiators. We have roller blinds and I have Alexa remind me to close the blinds upstairs at sunset each day. Every little helps.
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I would look at insulating the loft, whatever size it is you’ll be losing heat there. There must be an access hatch into it - is it big enough to get through ? If you can get 270 -300 mm depth of insulation that should make a difference.
I’m not so sure about foil behind radiators as heating the wall won’t be wasted (maybe different on a single skin exterior wall) on an interior wall it would add to the thermal mass.
That is very similar to the radiator foil I am using….as you say every little helps :-)
Hi Juliamc
thank you… we had someone out a couple of years ago to say they could Not insulate the loft due to the size of it.
there is an access hatch, but very limited crawl space.
I will look into a bit more, thank you
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It’s a fairly straightforward diy if you can get up there. Don’t fall through the ceiling though… Don’t ask !!! 🤦♀️
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