4 bedrooms, one rarely used where I keep the temperature a tad lower. 10 rads, including a smallish one in the bathroom, mostly with TRVs. W-plan with roomstat in the hall and no TRV on that rad. Roomstat set to 20°C.
Excessive Gas Consumption - Not sure what to try next!
- Thread starter mjr_havoc
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Mine was 1527Kwh, Nov 3rd to 8th Dec. 3 bed semi, heated to 14C 10pm to 10am, then 18C 10am to 10pm - except that last 18C, is frequently replaced, by lighting the 1kw living room gas fire, and taking the thermostat in the same room, which basically means the CH system shuts down.
I have a 120L HW cylinder, that is heated and maintained at 60C starting at 3pm, through to 8pm. We usually take a bath every other day, at around 7pm, so the boiler gets a chance to replenish the stored hot water, before it goes off a 8pm.
We also have a gas hob, and double oven gas cooker, used daily.
22nd Dec to 19th Jan, consumed 1628Kwh of gas. My readings are logged every Sunday, into a spreadsheet.
Boiler is an 18Kw Vaillant, open vented, with the fancy Vaillant controls, and outdoor sensor. Eight TRV's fitted, to the 9 radiators. Hall radiator, where the wireless thermostat normall lives, lacks a TRV.
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Thanks both. My next bill will be until the 24th which gives me a fresh start going into the next month to see if the changes I have made so far have paid off.
I will continue to monitor and tweak it (and make more changes mentioned here). But I am a lot happier knowing I can do something about the huge bill rather than just accepting it. I will of course continue to update and report here on my findings.
Thanks to everyone here, I am now more knowledgeable and you can't put a price on that. So thank you all.
I think I will begin logging everything into a spreadsheet too. Might have to look into logging the data automatically using the Octopus API.... (later down the line maybe haha, too many projects on the go!)
I will continue to monitor and tweak it (and make more changes mentioned here). But I am a lot happier knowing I can do something about the huge bill rather than just accepting it. I will of course continue to update and report here on my findings.
Thanks to everyone here, I am now more knowledgeable and you can't put a price on that. So thank you all.
I think I will begin logging everything into a spreadsheet too. Might have to look into logging the data automatically using the Octopus API.... (later down the line maybe haha, too many projects on the go!)
If you don't mind another company seeing your usage data, you can sign up to https://www.glowmarkt.com/bright and access your data in graphs, tables or download as a CSV and there is a plugin for Home Assistant too.
The data is obtained directly from DCC (the middle man between smart meters and your energy provider), so it's updated at the same time as your supplier (Octopus) gets it from the smart meter, it doesn't matter who your provider is!
- If you buy one of their CAD's, you can get real time data in MQTT format too!It looks like Glowmarkt now have a whole house heat loss tool now too (not tried it personally), which you may find useful!?
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Thanks, just when I thought I had enough to be getting on with!If you don't mind another company seeing your usage data, you can sign up to https://www.glowmarkt.com/bright and access your data in graphs, tables or download as a CSV and there is a plugin for Home Assistant too.
The data is obtained directly from DCC (the middle man between smart meters and your energy provider), so it's updated at the same time as your supplier (Octopus) gets it from the smart meter, it doesn't matter who your provider is!
It looks like Glowmarkt now have a whole house heat loss tool now too (not tried it personally), which you may find useful!?
I think I read earlier on this thread (or maybe elsewhere) that there is an Octopus plugin for HA... Might try that first and if not then maybe what you suggested above.
I will definitely give the heat loss tool a go at some point as that seems very useful. Thanks again!
Interestingly, I just read on Glowmarkt's site it says "See historical data from when your smart meter was installed." - so if your interested in seeing the usage data from before you moved in (assuming the smart meter was already installed), you may be able to see it
Thanks! It was installed the month after we moved in, which is handy which means I can effectively get all my data since we moved in!Interestingly, I just read on Glowmarkt's site it says "See historical data from when your smart meter was installed." - so if your interested in seeing the usage data from before you moved in (assuming the smart meter was already installed), you may be able to see it
If you're an Octopus customer and have a gas smart meter - I'd recommend the Octopus Watch app.
I can, for example, see exactly when we used our 21kWh of gas yesterday...
I can, for example, see exactly when we used our 21kWh of gas yesterday...
Thanks, someone else mentioned it too but since the app costs as well as requiring an ongoing subscription on top of this for all the features, I would be doing myself a terrible disservice if I didn't at the very least try and do this myself for free. Especially as I consider myself technically literate.
But who knows, I might get fed up and ends up paying for the app. So thank you for your suggestion.
Given that it (and I'm sure other apps are available) costs about £9 a year, and especially given what you must be paying for gas every day, it would seem mathematically illiterate not to buy it or something similar...Thanks, someone else mentioned it too but since the app costs as well as requiring an ongoing subscription on top of this for all the features, I would be doing myself a terrible disservice if I didn't at the very least try and do this myself for free. Especially as I consider myself technically literate.
But who knows, I might get fed up and ends up paying for the app. So thank you for your suggestion.
I entered my data into the above and found it came out very similar to the whole house and stelrad surveys I have previously conducted. You just need to enter room and radiator sizes & types. This will give you an indication on how much kW your radiators can disperse vs your boiler output and may help you narrow down where to focus next.
Thanks again for your opinion.
But since I can access the data for free and feed it into home assistant, I don't see the point in paying for it?
Yes absolutely - sorry I was a little brash there!
There are lots of apps for Octopus. Octopus itself has gone to extremes to ensure you know your consumption, when and how much, but it relies upon the DCC, as the intermediary, to forward the data in a reasonable time. So customers can get near real-time updates, Octopus developed a gadget called an Octopus Mini. That is a tiny 2" square plastic box, needing just a USB power source. It connects the HAN of your meters, to your LAN, then on to an Octopus server. Using that, on the Octopus website, you can see you electrical consumption updated every 10 seconds. That way, both you and Octopus know what your consumption is, near instantly.
You can also download a CSV of your consumption data, to feed into a spreadsheet.
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Yes. I have the Octopus Home Mini + the Octopus HA plugin. HA fetches data from Octopus once a minute [but - to keep it relevant to this thread - not gas readings as the gas meter is battery powered].
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