How much gas and electricity are we all using? (ours attached)

[MNisMyGuiltyPleasure]

We just got our latest bill. It's so confusing because instead of sending us a bill every month, or even every two or three months, they send it every 50 days.

Anyway. Here is our latest bill - it shows consumption for both gas and electricity, and price per unit. There are two of us in a four-bedroom house, we both work from home, and are quite careful with both utilities. But the gas bill seems horrendous to me when we only have the heating on for an hour a day to 17 degrees, and hot water on for half an hour a day.

Interested to know how we fare compared to people with similar set ups.

I take a meter reading every Wednesday morning (morning Im most likely to be at home)

last week my gas was 470kwph and electric 46kwh
week before it was gas 501kwph and electric 36kwh
week before gas 474kwph and electric 46kwh
week before gas 317kwph and electric 37kwh

I guess the first week of jan wasn't as cold?

add its a detached house with heating on 20 minutes every morning, then an hour at 1pm and again for 3 hours in the evening at 17 degrees. The heating comes on if the temperature dips below 14 degrees. This week the heating has been coming on during the day and night to keep the house from dipping below 14 - but Ive yet to do tomorrows reading.

I use a body warmer during the day to keep warmer

I agree, that seems a huge amount of gas for 1 hour of heating. As a comparison we are in a 5 bed detached, heating on 5am to 9pm at 17 most days and we don't use more than 65kwh a day unless it's really cold.

332 units of gas used? I used 8!!!! Call it 12 for the same period as you. Have you got a gas leak?

You use 8 kWh of gas in 50 days?

What type of boiler do you have?

When was it last serviced?

Does your house have insulation? When was your house built?

We used 153 units of gas in that time frame.

We work from home maybe 3 days a week, but even on those days we try not to have the heating on as much as possible. We have 2 DC and the heating is on for almost an hour in the morning and roughly 2 hours each evening.
But all our cooking is electric, showers are electric. Apart from our heating the only thing gas is when the children have a bath, but that's maybe one bath a week total. I could quite easily see how we could double our usage if cooking and showering also used gas.

Is your boiler efficient? If you have a smart meter, try not putting the hot water on for just one day and see how the usage compares.

Monthly bill eon 201 and we have a large 3 bed house and I actually have 3 babies to keep warm and a disability that makes me feel cold so our heating is pretty much on almost 24.7

@MNisMyGuiltyPleasure four bed house, almost the same period 17th Dec to 4th Feb 2830 kWh used. Heating and hot water on 3-4 hrs per day, thermostat usually set between 16-18 degrees.

To put 2830 into context that’s the same that we used for June to end October in total.

our gas usage for the rolling 12 months is almost bang on the Ofgem average figure.

That seems on the high side from your description. We are 3 people in a 5 bed 30s detached house, some insulation but not great.
Heating is on at 19 (but sometimes boosted) for about 9 or 10 hours a day with daily showers and regular baths and over 50 days we used about 5300kwh.
I would suggest you take daily readings for a week or two and see how much you are using to see if the daily usage looks high, or varies each day.

Are you sure your timing settings are correct @MNisMyGuiltyPleasure . Do have any comparable figures for last summer / early Autumn when you probably were just using gas for hot water.

we typically used just 8-10 units, or c90 to 113 kWh per week with just water probably a couple of hours per day.

It's no surprise to use a lot of gas in that time period. If you remember, just before Christmas, it was very cold for a good week or two. If your insulation isn't great you might find that your heating was on for more than an hour a day to keep your house at 17 C. We have a 2 bed house and very good insulation and the house will drop to 15/16 C overnight if it's very cold.

That bill doesn't look at all unusual. You'll probably use more than half your annual gas in the 3 month period Dec - Feb.

Plus the unit rates are 2-3 times higher what they were last winter, which makes gas especially look so much higher.

Probably not helpful but for two people your electric looks a bit, but not hugely, on the high side. We used 500kwh in that period largely driven by two DC back from uni running the equivalent of small server farms!

We have a system boiler (the one with an immersion heater - immersion heater is NOT turned on to heat water. We rely on the half-hour use of the boiler to heat the water)

It was serviced earlier this year

House was rebuilt 20 years ago and has good insulation.

That is very high, your gas is costing you just over £7.00 a day without standing charge. If you are only having it on for an hour and a half a day something isn't right.

I agree @Mamamia7962 I will try and get Scottish Power to check it but they are terrible at taking any kind of action.

MNisMyGuiltyPleasure - I am with Scottish Power as well. Do you have their app? I pay my bill monthly with them via the app, you can see how much energy you are using monthly as well as daily via a graph. We have a 3 bedroomed end terrace and have our heating on between 4-6 hours a day depending how cold it is and our bill is lower than yours. I will check what my last bill was for you.

Right so I have checked my gas usage from 1st-31st Jan. We used 50 units of gas at 9.80 a unit which came to £153.71 for 30 days usage without the standing charge. That worked out at £5.12 a day and we have our heating on a lot more than you.

That is a lot of gas. You are using about 6.6 m3 a day.

In comparison for what you use (1.5 hours). I would probably use less than 2m2 per day.

Thing is there is a classic mistake where you use m3 but they bill you in ft3x100.
That makes your bill 3x as much.

BUT your bill appears to be in m3, so if your meter was in ft3x100 then you would pay 3x less !

So it is hard to see where the problem is. Any other calculation mistake tends to result in a bill a lot bigger or a lot smaller.

...but there is something definitiely wrong.

Unless you have a giant boiler the size of an entire room or maybe leave the cooker on all day or have an aga or something.

We've just moved house so still getting to grips with the bill. But the smart meter is showing about £50 to £60 a week. For both combined. That's obviously for this time of year. Not using loads of heating at all may a few yours a day. Just 2 people so not like 20 loads of washing a week ar anything. I feel like this is a lot. Not sure on kwh or gas use in m

Units read incorrect. You read either the current or previous value incorrectly.

That would be my best guess. After that probably something wrong with the meter or a leak.

We only have a smart meter for electricity. Scottish Power is saying they don't know when they will be installing more gas smart meters.

MNisMyGuiltyPleasure - We only have a smart meter for our electric as well, Scottish Power said they couldn't give us one for gas, something to do with our meter apparently. The app will still show you a graph for your gas usage so you can compare it to when you have your heating on.

We're two adults living in a converted dormer bungalow with extension, so I guess similar size property. DD was home for three weeks and we had a visitor for one, so effectively three people in property last month. Unless we're out for day/in town, we only have about eight hours when no one is likely to be at home each week and DD up until 2am so extra minimal electricity. Also, DH sometime works at home with computer, laptop and two phones.

31 days electricity - 157kw
31 days gas - 144 units = 1591

We don't use a tumble dryer, dishwasher and hairdryer only used while DD is around and not every day. Try and keep oven use to minimum. Kettle boiled about four times a day at most, one of which to put on veggies.

Heating set 5.45-8am and 4.30-8pm on 18c. I've got the heat flow rate turned down on boiler and it takes longer to heat that way, but if not up to temperature goes off.