Bills

[brummiesue]

We have moved into a large 7 bed detatched victorian house with secondary glazing only and I have just worked out our yearly gas bill is £1700! I feel a bit ill, is this normal for this type of property? Thanks

Are you heating all those rooms? To what temperature? How is other insulation? Are you on the right tariff?

No we heat 3 rooms downstairs (really high ceilings), 2 bedrooms on one floor then 2 on floor above, solid brick walls so poor insulation and thin loft insulation, standard british gas tariff, thermostat set to 24 I think

Depends on your boiler etc but that's only a bit over £30 a week. For that size of house, if you're keeping it warm I don't think it's bad at all. Ours is 4/5bed Georgian and our combined g&e is around £2k pa with a brand new boiler.

£120pm here - heating only on oct- March but water heater on all year, and costs spread over the year.
Double glazed, upstairs recently renovated to include insulation ( none before- old house) heating 3 rooms upstairs and 4 rooms downstairs plus hall. Depressing!

Ahh ok thanks for the reassurance, having a complete panic this morning after getting the yearly summary! Only lived here a year, its still cold a lot but the rooms we use are bearable at least!

What are you all wearing in winter? A thermostat set at 24 would be pretty darned punchy in my book.

Oh - and you need to get some proper loft insulation in.

PS - and for goodness sake, look at your tariff. It sounds as if you're on 'our most popular tariff' - i.e. the bog standard, most expensive one. They'll have you on that at the least provocation.

I was also going to say 24 sounds a bit warm, i think 18-21 is what's generally recommended.

standard tariff and temperature to tropical - that will be it then.

turn stat down, wear more clothes, get on the comparison sites and with the aid of a quick spreadsheet find a cheaper tariff NOW. Get a fix NOW because energy prices are going up, inflation is already over 2%.

up the loft insulation, make sure you have thick curtains not farty frilly jobs, close doors, hunt down draughts etc etc.

I've found that the real 'biggie' is not so much the temperature - although 24 would probably bankrupt me in the long term - but the number of hours you have the heating on. (I have smart meters so can compare day on day.) What hours do you have it on?

On the other hand, longer hours may be worth it for you if you have 'circumstances'. Might you have other areas you could cut down on a little in order to afford extra heat if that's the case?

To save energy:

Get off the standard tariff!
Set your boiler to max, not eco. Your thermostat should shut it off when the room reaches the right temperature.
Move your thermostat down to no more than 21.
Get a smart meter/Economy 7 meter so you have more choices when it comes to tariff.