Worcester 18ri installation

[gskmr2]

Hi everyone,
Just a quick question, think I know the answer already but want it clarified - we had a complete heating system installed in November, got our bills through yesterday and were shocked to see the direct debit has gone from £78 to £273. We think the boiler consumption is way too high and have the installers coming on Monday, could anyone tell me how much an hour it is roughly to run or even break it down cost and m3/kwh wise?
Thanks

 

[xr4x4]

Don't know the answer but people will need to know boiler model, number of rads, sizes etc.

Size of house also, insulation.

 

[gskmr2]

Thanks for the quick reply, its a 3 bedroom bungalow with 100mm loft insulation. Part cavity insulated but that has recently been fixed along with more loft insulation.
The boiler make is in the subject line, Worcester 18ri combi with a megaflow . 7 radiators off come it, 2 large 5ft and the rest smaller 2 to 3ft ones. The consumption of the boiler is about equal to us running a gas fire, 4 hobs, a gas oven and gas grill.
I could probably post a video of the meter with the boiler running if it would help.

 

[Agile]

A property like that with three people would probably cost about £900 a year for gas with timed 8 heating hours a day in the winter and a room temp of 21 C.

Its virtually impossible for that boiler to take more than its rating.

Your problem is with whoever set the dd level and NOT the actual gas consumption.

Tony

 

[ianniann]

It is almost irrelevant what the direct debit payment is. How much gas are you actually using? Has it tripled compared to the same period a year ago? Let's assume it has, and not that the gas company is just inflating your payments to improve its cash flow.

The boiler would cost about 50p/hour to run flat out (possibly more depending on your tariff) but it wouldn't normally be running flat out all the time the heating was on. You will find it very difficult to convert this into a meaningful estimate of how much your bill should be. You know your boiler will be using a maximum of 18kW, but the total gas used depends entirely on how long it is on for. I agree the bill is much higher than expected fr the property though.

Cost of water heating depends almost entirely on how much hot water you use. It may be comparable to the cost of your heating if there are several people in a well insulated house, or perhaps 10% for a single person having short showers.

The gas fire could be using a third as much as the boiler (about 20p/hour on full), or as much as the boiler once it modulates down after getting the radiators up to temperature. Gas fires are a very inefficient way to heat your home, just use them for a nice focal point and keep the house warm with the radiators.

The other gas appliances won't normally make much of a dent on your gas bill.

 

[Agile]

Hi everyone,

got our bills through yesterday and were shocked to see the direct debit has gone from £78 to £273.

Thanks

The OP seems to me to be concerned by the size of the DD.

That often has no relationship to the actual consumption. I was once charged £2200 per month for a house with no gas actuall being used.

Tony

 

[D_Hailsham]

got our bills through yesterday and were shocked to see the direct debit has gone from £78 to £273.

The bill should show:

1. How much you have paid in since the last bill
2. The cost of gas supplied.

They will have estimated, based on your previous consumption what you will spend on the gas over the next year. If you have a debit on your account, this will be added in and the new DD calculated.

Some suppliers just take the last quarters bill and multiply it by 4 to get the annual consumption. This means they will over-estimate the consumption if based on the winter figures.

Another trick they do is assume that, if you are on a special deal, you will revert to the more expensive standard pricing when the deal ends, even though there will be another special deal available.

If necessary, phone their customer support line and ask for a detailed explanation of the calculations. I do this regularly every time my supplier changes the DD and I nearly always get the DD reduced when I point out the errors in their calculations.

 

[gskmr2]

A little background info for you here:

We moved into the bungalow last July, the heating system and hot water didnt work at all so in November we had it replaced with an 'Energy Efficient' version.

Since that time our gas usage was nominal as we only used it for cooking. The meter reading from the date we moved in was 8588.027, currently it reads 11512 so thats a total of 2924m3, translated to Kwh this is 32,560, used since we moved in 11 months ago.
2680 * 7.26 makes £194, 29880 * 3.158 makes £943, a total of £1,138.

The boiler has been installed along with the water tank in the loft so we cannot tell when it fires up or how long for.
The £273 per month is based on us owing £900 to Eon.

In the past few minutes I realised the meter serial number they have is different to the meter we have, although this cannot really make any difference to the readings. (can it?)

 

[OvertonPlumber]

My girlfriend has a 15ri in a 2 bed semi detached house she consumes £31 of gas per month.( but she does have solar hw)

How well is your loft insulated?

Your boiler is only capable or roughly 18kwh usage. very roughly 10kw equals 1m3 gasrate.

So at maxrate your boiler would use say 1.8m3 for say 5 hrs a day. Thats 9m3 but in reality would be much less as the boiler will modulate in and out.

2924m3 divided by 330 (days in 11mths) = 8.86m3 per day

Afraid to say sounds about right.

 

[hansthebear]

room stat fitted and functioning? 22mm gas supply pipe?

 

[Agile]

A little background info for you here:

In the past few minutes I realised the meter serial number they have is different to the meter we have, although this cannot really make any difference to the readings. (can it?)

Something ius seriously wrong here.

The meter readings apply to another meter.

You have also been over rated on your consumption.

Reclaiming debts has no relevance to the actual on going consumption.

You need to analyse the meters and their readings. It sounds as if they may have changed your meters and not properly registered old and new meters/readings.

You may ned to register a dispute and agree to resolve based on your consumption for the last year as indicated by the next year's consumption.

Tony

 

[D_Hailsham]

translated to Kwh this is 32,560, used since we moved in 11 months ago.
2680 * 7.26 makes £194, 29880 * 3.158 makes £943, a total of £1,138.

So your annual bill should be about £1200

The £273 per month is based on us owing £900 to Eon.

Adding that to the £1200 gives £2100, which is equal to £175 per month for one year. After that it will fall to about £100pm.

Ask Eon if you can repay the £900 over two years. This will bring your DD down to £137.50 for two years, after that it will fall to £100pm. (Price rises not taken into consideration.)

In the past few minutes I realised the meter serial number they have is different to the meter we have, although this cannot really make any difference to the readings. (can it?)

That needs sorting immediately. I seem to remember reading that they are actually billing you illegally if the meter number is incorrect.

 

[gskmr2]

Just to let you guys know, and to close the thread, we had the heating installers come out and it turns out we have a gas leak! A few months back we thought we could smell gas so called the gas hotline, they came the same night and checked it and according to them all was well.
The test on yesterday confirmed we had a loss in pressure from the gas, not sure where it is but they are back tomorrow to try to find the source. Thanks for all the replies, we have now corrected the meter serial with Eon, if there is any more info I will post it.