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Original poster

How much is your gas bill if you have the heating on most of the day?

60 replies

username29472 · 05/12/2021 17:16

I know everyone has different rates/size houses but just trying to grasp on average what others pay and their usage.

I have the heating on in the morning from when we get up for 1-2 hours and then in the evening for 2 hours. For gas and electric just doing this and having the tumble drier on once is costing us £6 per day. That is £180 per month for our gas and electric. We live in a 3 bedroom Terrance house. Our rate has just gone up and I know at the minute it's very expensive.

But when I go to other family/friends they seem to have the heating on all day and I don't understand either our rate is very high or are people paying even more and just accepting that is the price to stay warm?

OP posts:
Waxonwaxoff0 · 05/12/2021 19:30

I've got a smart meter. If I have the heating on all day it's about £5 a day. My boiler is ancient though. I don't usually have the heating on all day as we're not in the house, it comes on from 5am-7am before we leave and then comes back on from 3pm-8pm. Meter runs to about £3.50 a day.

Waxonwaxoff0 · 05/12/2021 19:31

Also I do not have a tumble drier and never have a bath as I don't like them.

ThePoisonousMushroom · 05/12/2021 19:32

We have ours on all day in the winter. For gas and electricity we pay £200 per month.
We don’t have a smart meter but I input my meter readings every month to generate a bill so I can keep on top of how much we’re using.

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Cost of living
HaaaaaveyoumetTed · 05/12/2021 20:05

We've received our bill today - £408 combined. Up from £217 this time last year. We're not in the house any more this year than dame time last so have similar amounts of heat BUT we no longer have a hob or cooker (of any description due to renovation AND we've installed a new energy efficient boiler.

The rise is absolutely ridiculous. I'm considering moving our office to a room with a fireplace as we have loads of wood.

CrimbleCrumble1 · 05/12/2021 20:16

I pay £99 a month for gas and electricity combined . I have heating on 18 degrees in the day time all day and 19 in the evening. I live in a large 4 bedroom 8 year old house and have lots of gadgets on all the time but don’t tumble dry or iron. I have a solar panel and hardly ever have to hear water in the summer.

DinosApple · 05/12/2021 20:37

Ours would be horrendous if it was on all the time. We're in a large-ish house with high ceilings and an old boiler. Last month's dual fuel on an actual meter read was £89. The heating had barely been on.

We're hoping to get a new boiler installed, and possibly a fuel burner in the living room next year. We're also looking into solar panels.

Madmog · 05/12/2021 20:40

There are a lot of different factors that can affect energy bills, cost of tariff, insulation, how long heating is on,. temperature, room sizes, number of people using hot water, even the room thermostat is in.

We're live in what was originally a two bed bungalow with two beds upstairs now. Heating set to 18.5c 6am-10pm. Have been giving monthly readings to Bulb - last month it cost us £85 gas and electric. Mainly just two of us, but very draughty upstairs when windy

Userevermore · 05/12/2021 20:49

3 bed 1930s detached, £108 a month gas and electric, just looked and we are on track at their amount, still on fixed rate from last April with BG. Heating on from 7am until 10pm between 18 and 20c

onemouseplace · 05/12/2021 20:55

We are in a draughty 3 bed Victorian house with single glazed sash windows and someone is in most of the day in winter months (we'll turn the heating off if we are not in for more than an hour or so). GCH.

Monthly DD is £120, that's an average over the year rising to £198 in the very coldest winter months, down to as little as £40 a month in the summer.

2X4B523P · 05/12/2021 20:56

I have my heating on 24/7, set at 21 degrees for 0700 to 0900 + 1900 to 0100 and 19 degrees the rest of the time. Live in a Victorian semi and my recent projection for the year is just under £800 for gas.

I have a combi boiler so don’t have to heat a large tank of water and don’t use much anyway as mostly use the electric shower.

ScarletPower · 05/12/2021 21:04

I''m sat next to my smart meter and have the heating on all day at weekends (waking hours, winter only) and it's at £4.55 now.

(3 bed semi, 6.5p per kwh)

Seasidemumma77 · 05/12/2021 21:11

I live in a Victorian mid-terrace. Monthly combined gas/electric is £123. I put my heating on continuously from end of October, thermostat set at 18c, all doors in house kept shut. I've been in this house for 15yrs, learning how to efficiently heat it has taken trial and error. It only drops below 18c a couple of times on a cold day and heating kicks in for no more than 15mins and bring house back to temp. Keeping doors shut has reduced bill and draughts.

museumum · 05/12/2021 21:15

Ours has just jumped from 96 to 140. We are being transferred to a new supplier as ours went bust so can’t switch right now. The whole market is a mess!

ThisMustBeMyDream · 05/12/2021 22:03

I'm paying £119 a month combined fuel. I'm fairly certain that I pay a much higher electric cost than gas though.
My heating is on the majority of the time. Even in the summer I regularly have it on. I really feel the cold. The house is reasonably well insulated I believe.
I don't have a thermostat. The rads are a bit dodgy, only 2 of them reliably work (I think they need a power flush, but not got round to it). They do have trv valves though. I find it easier to keep the heating on and just run the two rads that work well (living room and kitchen). I only put the upstairs ones on when it's below 20 up there (I have a little thermometer that tells me the room temp up there).
I strongly suspect mine is about to go up, but it is hard to know as I can't view my old bills to check as my old supplier went bust, helpfully.

IdrisElbow · 05/12/2021 22:28

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Tayegete · 06/12/2021 04:09

We were with a supplier that went bust. We were paying £118 a month for gas and electric in winter 2020 (3 bed 1950s semi with a loft conversion). Then over the summer our bill went up to £186 after a weirdly high month in February. They now owe us £550. But god knows when we will get it back. We have the heating on 19 all day and 16 overnight. Currently paying £98 a month with new supplier but they are about to put that up to £130. House is well insulated and we have a combi boiler. We do use the tumble dryer and oven a lot and have baths fairly regularly though.

FancyFlipFlops · 06/12/2021 05:47

Have a watch of the Martin Lewis Money Show from last Thursday, he has lots of interesting stuff to say about what’s happening with the energy crisis at the moment. He also made a comment about those who have bills that have gone up more than 50%. He’s done a couple of programs this series about the crisis that are worth watching, they are on ITV so you should be able to watch the old ones.

MrsLargeEmbodied · 06/12/2021 07:01

£150 gas and electric is what they wanted.
i dont have the heating on all day

nannybeach · 06/12/2021 10:55

Scarlettpower,what supplier are you with,the average at the moment is 21p per kw?

CrimbleCrumble1 · 06/12/2021 10:58

Does it cost a lot more to have heating on a constant for example 18 degrees all day compared to on in the just the morning and evening? I’m curious to know the difference in price.

BarbaraofSeville · 06/12/2021 11:06

A lot of people think it is cheaper to have the heating constantly on a fairly low setting rather than a couple of shorter periods at a higher temperature but that's a myth.

www.cse.org.uk/advice/energy-saving-tips/energy-mythbuster

www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/energy-saving-myths/

It's one of those things that's hard to test conclusively, because you'd have to compare the two methods when the outside temperature is the same, which is not necessarily the case.

HalfWomanHalfMincePie · 06/12/2021 11:10

4 bed detached, newish so well insulated and newish boiler. People home all day. Gas heating and water.

We have it set to 19 in the morning, 18 through the day and 19 in the evening then off overnight. Total cost (inc elect.) is around £180 per month.

HalfWomanHalfMincePie · 06/12/2021 11:12

I do think cost is a tricky way to compare, though. Because of different rates and because people often quote their direct debit as the cost, when the reality could be higher or lower.

For comparion, we use 6000kwh electricity per year and around 10,000kwh gas.

ParkheadParadise · 06/12/2021 11:23

5 bed detached DD is £270 a month.
With Scottish Power, we were £190 in credit but unknown to us SP refunded it to our bank account then sent a email telling us our payments are going up to £340 a month.

Woeismethischristmas · 06/12/2021 11:26

@Livedandlearned

Actually my dad was saying that his gas bill has gone up from £40 a month to £200.

He only has a gas fire, no central heating, and he lives alone.

His supplier sent him an email one day and announced that his direct debit would be increased whether he liked it or not.

I find this happens annually worth considering a change in supplier, new fixed rate redo in a year when the same thing happens.