To ask how I’m supposed to pay this heating bill?

[ye10000]

This month I put the heating on set to 18. It automatically clicks off when it’s got to 18 and it goes off entirely at 10pm until the morning. I’ve looked at usage and it says the heating has been on an average of 7 hours a day. This had meant a bill of 502 pounds. We are in a three bed detached. That is almost a quarter of my income and I have one dc in nursery, single parent. I am so worried about the coming months, is 7 hours a day average a lot? I thought I was being careful.

I wfh, mine is on most of the day so 7 hours doesn’t seem much to me. I say it’s on; the thermostats are set individually (underfloor heating so each room is just set based on use/need).
comes on around 6am before we’re all up for showers and getting ready for work/school and goes off at 10pm. I’d reckon most of the bedroom thermostats don’t click in during the daytime but downstairs and up in my office it’s on if the temperature drops below 20. So it’s currently 21 and the heating isn’t actually running but when it drops it will kick back in.
Are you well insulated?

It's not bragging, it's a way of not running up unpayable bills, which was the question in the op.

Is the £502 for a monthly or quarterly bill? Is it based on an actual reading rather than an estimate?

We have our heating set to 18c, normally a couple of hours in the morning and it's been coming on for an hour in the evenings. That's totalled £110 and £127 last couple of months. We did leave it on on Saturday though and set to about 17.5c.

It's a bit nippy at times, so sometimes I wear my dressing gown and DH had his dressing gown over his legs last night as he has circulation problems. Obviously make sure you've got 2-3 layers on and look at ways you can insulation your home, close curtains when sun goes down.

Fair enough, I'm just in a bad mood today.

Is your bill based on estimate or actual readings ? Our heating is on 20 constantly and bill is nowhere near that

Our heating is on 7.30-9.30, and 4-10, thermostat set to 19. We often boost at lunchtime. So maybe 9 hours a day, but obvs regulated by stat. Our combined bill last month was £350. Large 5 bedroom house. All rooms kept warm, albeit with radiator stats too.

What kind of house is your house OP?

7 hours of heating a day is tonnes. No wonder you have a high bill.

We don’t have ours on a timer but we pop it on for 30 mins in morning if needed (often it isn’t) and then 30 mins in the evening - probably most days when it’s cold.

I live in Greater Manchester and recently my bungalow has struggled to get up to the set temp of 19° during the day. It was still on full 5 hours after coming on in the morning - boiler only 6 years old and serviced annually.

It’s a 3 bed bungalow, not draughty and with third bedroom in roof space. I have it coming on at 7 am now I am retired and it goes off at 10 pm. If it’s cold or I’m up late, I will increase the temp to 21° or extend the time. I prefer to have a constant heat during the day rather than allow the house to get cold then have to heat the space again in the evening. It’s set to come on overnight if the temp drops to 14° but I don’t think it has ever come on. I leave my boiler set at these temps all year.

I pay £138 a month for gas and electricity all year round so build up a surplus during the summer to cover winter costs. So my annual bill is just over £1600 at the moment. I doubt very much that I’ve ever used £500 worth of energy in a winter month so maybe a constant heat is better than intermittent?

My bungalow was built in 1954 on low lying farm land ( hence only bungalows were permitted) and I have had damp problems with my old boiler which was inadequate for the size and inefficient, the outer walls felt cold and black mould grew on them. At that time I was working and did not heat the house during the day.

Ours is on couple of hours morning then few hours evening.
When I wfh I use a small electric oil radiator in my office room rather than heating the whole house. Could you get hold of a cheap one?

It will be a lot cheaper to just heat the one room you are in rather than the whole house. Or heat just yourself with a heated throw etc. 7 hours of daily heating in a cold snap even at 18 will mean your heating is on pretty much constantly over the 7 hours if your house isn't well insulated.

7 hours is a lot. I would look at:

Window film (I'm assuming your windows are shit like mine, if your house isn't retaining any heat).

Draught excluders on all the interior and exterior doors.

Draught excluder TAPE on any particularly breezy windows before you put up the film. Obviously don't film up any bathroom or kitchen windows!

Chimneys - are they all blocked off? You can buy balloons on Amazon that block them, or you can stuff a bin bag full of scrumpled up newspaper or bubble wrap. I did this on Friday morning.

Turn off the heaters in all the rooms you don't use during the day. The kids radiators only need to be on for an hour before bed, really, unless they play in their bedrooms. I don't have the radiator on our bedroom on at all, but I like a cosy bed and cold bedroom.

My house is the pits for heat retention, but I'd have the heating on for an hour in the morning for getting up, breakfasts, then off half an hour before you leave the house to take child to nursery. Only heat the room you're in during the day. Heating on throughout for a couple of hours in the evening. Warm clothes! Wool is better than cotton, hit up Ebay for Aran jumpers which are insanely warm.

😉

7 hours isn't a lot. Mine's on for 5 hours during the morning/evening and I'm at work during the day. If you work from home it's essential. Your bill does seem an awful lot.

My DH works from home and will only put the heating on when he's absolutely freezing, and then will normally only put it on for an hour to take the edge off. He works in a small room and wears a big fleece.

Otherwise our heating is on from around 6am until 8am, then 5pm until 9 pm, so 6 hours a day. With the extra hour or two a day when it's really cold, it can easily be 8 hours a day.

7 hours of heating a day, when you're home all day, doesn't seem that unreasonable really.

Our costs in November were £215 for the month and December so far (only 3 days recorded on the app) is £30, so £10 a day on average. November was obviously a lot warmer at the start of the month, but if December keeps on going the way it is, our bill will be c. £300.

Last winter, our worst, coldest, day was about £15 for the day, so would work out at about £450 for the month.

Luckily we've built up a massive credit on our account (over £800) from the increases last winter being combined with us reducing our usage. As a result Scottish Power reduced our DD this month to just £100.

Two things to do:

• check you're on the best tariff and your costs are based on actual and not estimated usage; and
• consider how you can reduce your usage. Rather than paying to heat the whole house during the day, would a small electric heater or heated blanket, just where you're working save you money? We bought new curtains last year, some cheap Ikea rugs and made sure we kept internal doors closed in the draughtiest rooms (hallway and downstairs loo particularly) and it made a massive difference to the heat retention.

We rarely set ours above 16, and we both WFH, just have blankets/hot water bottles and wear many layers! We turn the radiators off in rooms we're not in. Our bill is about £100 a month total.

Can you turn down the radiators in areas not in use during the day, such as the bedrooms.
Can you spend some money improving efficiency:
● fitting draught proofing around doors and windows.
●stick tin foil to cardboard and attach this to the walls behind the radiators to reflect heat into the room.
●Make sure furniture is well away from radiators to ensue good convection flow.
●Get the boiler serviced to ensure the burner is clean and fuel is burned efficiently.
●Turn of lights and appliances not in use.
●Replace halogen and incandescent bulbs with Low wattage LED bulbs.
●Fit and use TRV (thermostatic radiator valves) so room temps can be individually adjusted.

If all else fails, heat the human not the room. If working from home get a single bed electric blanket, heat mat or heated blanket to cover your chair.

If you aren't at home during the day then I'd put a timer on for the heating to come on an hour before you get home. I do WFH and my heating is struggling to keep 18oC during the day. For me hot water bottles and a lap blanket help me keep warm when the heating goes off. My heating is on 2hrs in the morning, 3hrs in afternoon / evening. I sometimes pop it on for an hour midday to get the temp back up as it's really chilly this last couple of weeks.

I solved a ridiculously large bill by changing supplier, then offering to pay my outstanding balance with the old supplier back at £6 a month for several years.

£500 a month is a lot but so is having the heating on for seven hours a day, every day, even if it's only set to eigteen.

Ours is set at 18 and goes on for an hour in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoons. A bit more at weekends or when we're both off work. Our bill for gas last month was about £80. Combined gas and electric was less than £150. We're with British Gas.

That’s a lot. Try having it set at 16 instead.

I work from my own little studio and although it does have (storage) heating and good insulation, I get chilly sitting still on cold days whilst I work.

I have a hot water bottle behind me on the chair, a blanket over my knees and if I get really cold turtle doves fingerless gloves and I stay very very toasty.
I think working from home especially if you are sitting still on a computer can make you feel colder than usual due to the inactivity so you need a boost.
I also have alpaca wool socks which are the best for keeping feet warm.

I WFH and do need heating on throughout the day but since nobody else is home till 5, I turn radiators off in all the rooms except the one I am working in and the kitchen. I turn them back on at 4.30 so the house if warm by the time everyone gets home and it is set to turn off at 7, unless it's an unusually cold evening.
Over the years I lived in unheated flats and freezing houses and there are really no medals given out for being cold. I am also worried about the bills but won't have my house below 17 during the day unless we absolutely couldn't afford the heating. As I get older, being warm seems more important than spending money elsewhere and I am blessed that we can just about manage it in winter months.

£500 sounds very high to me, even if you do have it on for 7 hours a day. Our bill was £150 and we switch it on for an hour or two whenever we get cold, it's probably about 5 hours a day in all. Maybe contact them to make sure it's accurate and your meter etc is all working properly? Otherwise I'd turn it off while the DC is at nursery

Well I have spent £86 on gas this month and the apart from the odd morning before work this mostly comes from usage in the last three days so I'm not surprised! Luckily there is usually no one home during the day except at weekends. My house is old and poorly insulated and the boiler isn't very new either.

Is the £502 for a monthly or quarterly bill? Is it based on an actual reading rather than an estimate?

This I'd also check the tariff you are on.

I read a Martin Lewis post once that doing it the way you have done isn’t efficient, even though we’ve all been told that for years.

I read an article quoting him saving this this -exception being damp housing - after leaving heating on while we were away overnight to 16-17 degrees worried about cost only to come back and look at monitor and find we'd spend about a quarter of what we'd spend previous days when we'd let it get very cold and then put heating on high.

So now wondering of the house is damp - we do have dehumidifiers under washing.

You can try cutting it down to 16 degree or lower and using heated throws or extra heating for one room you are in - but you do then have to keep an eye on damp and cold air is worse for lung conditions and I think colds.

We are in credit still as we pay over year - and as Dh says heating is there to be used so we are using it more this winter while still being sensible.