Boiler/heating system - help

[dhw78]

Hello everyone, i am new here and know nothing about plumbing. But wonder if someone could help me point me in the right direction. My dual Gas and Elec bill came for an exhorbitant £912 for just 2 and bit months!!!! The provider said my Gas consumption is very high 118% more than the average house on my road.
I have a 58kw boiler according to my husband (means nothing to me) is regular. I don't do anything different to what i used to before we moved to this house just 6 months ago.
Can someone please help me understand what this boiler is doing to my house/gas consumption?? What should i do I cannot afford to pay this bill. Are there places people I can contact to come and check this system? Or is this just normal?

Thanks for any help

 

[kbdiy]

What proportion of that amount is for gas/electric? How often do you run the heating and what temperature? Do you have lots of baths or showers? Who is your provider and are you on the best tariff? Should you have switched provider by now? Is this property much bigger/older/less well insulated than your old one? How old is the boiler and has it been serviced?

And that's just for starters. Far too many variables to give an accurate analysis, there are so many factors involved.

 

[Servotech]

Hello everyone, i am new here and know nothing about plumbing. But wonder if someone could help me point me in the right direction. My dual Gas and Elec bill came for an exhorbitant £912 for just 2 and bit months!!!! The provider said my Gas consumption is very high 118% more than the average house on my road.
I have a 58kw boiler according to my husband (means nothing to me) is regular. I don't do anything different to what i used to before we moved to this house just 6 months ago.
Can someone please help me understand what this boiler is doing to my house/gas consumption?? What should i do I cannot afford to pay this bill. Are there places people I can contact to come and check this system? Or is this just normal?

Thanks for any help

I'm sure it's a faulty utility metre that you've got (more common than anyone realises).
However, the utilities won't want to know about this and it will take some mighty effort from yourself in order to get a refund.

Put it down to experience and just tell them that you would like a new smart metre fitted (this they'll understand) then your next bill should be a lot less because you will have a nice new and correctly calibrated metre!

 

[Dan Robinson]

Exactly what boiler have you got?

 

[stardanny]

Yeah, 58kw boiler is big, is it? You live in a mansion?

Daniel.

 

[gigz]

As already said, you need to find out what is high (gas or electric) first. Check you haven't got the immersion switched on constantly for starters. Use some common sense first and check for obvious problems. I had a lady telling me she was paying £30 a month for gas. It was over the winter, she had a quantum meter and had the heating on from 6am till 11:30 pm.

 

[dhw78]

Thank you very much everyone for your replies. It is very appreciated you have taken the time.
The house is not big is actually old built in 1962 (sorry don't mean offence to anyone born on or before this date) is like a challet bungalow with an annexe I guess thats whay it has a big boiler. However we don't use the annex and the heaters there are not working. No mansion, I wish.

The only paper work with the boiler says it is a Potterton CF 125 & 150 on the actual boiler it also says Kingfisher 2.
My heating comes on from 7am-9am and 4:30pm - 10:30pm we only have showers one a day and the kids share shallow bath (they are toddlers) one a day.
The energy provider said my high bill comes from my gas, they told me i might have read the meter wrong. I know how to read numbers. The meter looks pretty knew was fitted July 2012, if it is faulty I will call them and raise the issue as I never thought this things could be faulty. I don't smell gas anywhere so it is not a leak.

If the metre is not faulty can someone tell me what qualified professional should i be looking for? or can my energy provider help me in this case? as I have the suspicion I am going to have to call someone to come and look at all this system pipes etc to tell me maybe I bought a house with a heating system from hell! A gas devouring boiler maybe?

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Have a nice day everyone.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

MaccaPlumbing, Paul126, lavinia, dhw78, Guyandkaren.

In the last couple of days you have each looked at this:

and thought "durrr..... I'll post my question about Plumbing and CH in Forum Information".

What is wrong with you?

 

[Dan Robinson]

50% of what you burn is going straight up the chimney.

Depending on what the boiler is set to it can be burning a lot of kW.

But you haven't said how much of your bill was gas.

Ignore what your company says is average. My dad's house is much bigger than most of those around him, so any energy company that said he was above average for his area would be stating the bleeding obvious.

 

[stardanny]

The only paper work with the boiler says it is a Potterton CF 125 & 150 on the actual boiler it also says Kingfisher 2.

Are you sure it is the Kingfisher 2? CF 125 & 150 kingfisher 2 doesn't exist, I may be wrong, think it might be potterton Osprey? How wide is the boiler?

Edit: yep, it do.

Daniel.

 

[D_Hailsham]

The only paper work with the boiler says it is a Potterton CF 125 & 150 on the actual boiler it also says Kingfisher 2.

The CF125 is 49kW input, 36kW output and the CF150 is 59kW input, 44kW output. So your husband is probably correct when he says it is a 58kW boiler.

The boiler is almost certainly oversized for your house (not unusual) and will most likely be installed for gravity hot water and pumped heating.

You need to check that your bill.

1. Is it based on actual or estimated readings?
2. If estimated, are the readings close to today's actual readings?
3. Has the gas consumption been converted correctly to kWh?

You do this as follows:

Check your gas meter. It will say if it measures in cubic meters (m³) or cubic feet.

Now check you bill. There will be a formula showing how the gas consumption (m³ or cubic feet) is converted to kWh. The important thing to look for is the multiplier 2.83 (or thereabouts) in the formula. This number converts cubic feet to cubic meters. So, if you have a metric meter this number should not be present in the formula; if its a cubic ft meter then 2.83 should be present in the formula.

Obviously if you have a metric meter and the formula incorrectly shows the multiplier of 2.83, your gas consumption will have been calculated as 2.83 times greater than it really is.

 

[D_Hailsham]

Are you sure it is the Kingfisher 2? CF 125 & 150 kingfisher 2 doesn't exist

Oh yes they do!

The CF 125 is GC No 41-607-15 and the CF 150 is 41-607-16.

 

[dhw78]

Hello everyone thanks for all your replies I hope everyone had a good Easter.
My gas consumption for this bill was £877.24!! out of 912.17 total bill from end Jan to mid April. I challenged this and the provider said maybe i read the meter wrong they have calculated the bill again and half the charges to £486.52 for gas.

However this doesn't change the metre clocking gas the way it is. I called them this morning to request they check the metre as I think it is faulty, will follow the advice given here and request a smart metre fitted, but no surprisingly they cut me off whilst put on hold over the phone.

The current metre reads on cubic metres (m3).

Thanks again everyone