Excessive Gas Consumption - Not sure what to try next!

[mjr_havoc]

I am also with Octopus and for the same day where you had 174 consumption mine was 54. Whilst our houses are different sizes mine is a 2 bed bungalow (1960’s) which has a large kitchen/dining extension. Our loft has at least 300mm insulation, DG, gas combi boiler with 7 rads and 2 towel rails. Our fireplace has been boarded up.

The biggest difference is turning off the heating at night. Ours is set to 15 degrees at 11pm but the lounge rarely drops below 17 by morning. We have the temps gradually ramping up during the day starting at 17 then rising to 20 by evening as we are generally doing chores etc during the morning/early afternoon.

We are at home all day and if I remember I turn the heating off if we are intending to be out (I rarely remember). We have found its best to have all the rooms heated as it does limit heat loss throughout the property. The boiler is in the kitchen.

Thanks for your insights. I am currently suffering from information overload!

Things I have learnt so far is to:
1) Block up the fireplace. This seems to be the primary source of heat loss.
2) I turned of the early start function in the Tado heating system yesterday on all my radiators. So far, this has reduced my gas usage quite a bit today.
3) For days where it's only me at home, instead of heating just my study, I am turning down all heating and instead using an electric heater to avoid cycling the boiler and wearing it out.

I still need to:
1) Do a consumption test on the boiler
2) check if there is some way to connect the Vaillant boiler's ebus controls to my Tado system.

 

[mjr_havoc]

I was curious so just done some digging... it seems that the EU version has support for only one heating circuit and no support for DHW i.e. is not able to read the NTC connected to a VR65, so Tado market it saying it's only compatible with Combi's not for tanks.

It also seems to struggle with VR66's saying Vaillant changed the ebus protocol on it, but works with the VR65.

@mjr_havoc eBUS as a protocol as @SpecialK says works with all boilers, it's just the Tado control which has very limited support. The Vaillant controls support and work well with eBUS on open vented systems.

Thanks both. I am a novice so appreciate you looking into this.

Do I then need to look into an alternative system to control the boiler that is compatible with ebus? Is there options I should look at?

 

[UpgradeME]

eBUS allows the room control to tell the boiler what temperature it needs, based on current inside and outside temperatures. Weather compensation / flow modulation makes your system more efficient (~10%) vs cycling the boiler on/off (which uses more gas / less efficient)

Vaillant controls are expensive but work well with Vaillant boilers. See the graph I posted earlier, you will see the flow temperature changing, rather than being set at a constant temperature, therefore using less gas.

 

[mjr_havoc]

eBUS allows the room control to tell the boiler what temperature it needs, based on current inside and outside temperatures. Weather compensation / flow modulation makes your system more efficient (~10%) vs cycling the boiler on/off (which uses more gas / less efficient)

Vaillant controls are expensive but work well with Vaillant boilers. See the graph I posted earlier, you will see the flow temperature changing, rather than being set at a constant temperature, therefore using less gas.

Thank you. I will look into vaillant's own controls

 

[UpgradeME]

Another thing you can add to your list would be to complete a whole house heat loss survey (there’s maybe better ones than the link, but should be good enough as a starting point)

It could be that your boiler is oversized for your property, If the heat loss calc comes out a lot below 30kW, there are settings you can change on the boiler to range rate it down to something more suitable, which will also save gas.

 

[mjr_havoc]

Another thing you can add to your list would be to complete a whole house heat loss survey (there’s maybe better ones than the link, but should be good enough as a starting point)

It could be that your boiler is oversized for your property, If the heat loss calc comes out a lot below 30kW, there are settings you can change on the boiler to range rate it down to something more suitable, which will also save gas.

That's amazing. Thank you so much.

I will add it to the list of things to do!

 

[fixitflav]

Logically, it simply must use more.

This is central heating, not logic . Another thing is if the room gets too cold the heating needs to be a ° or to 2 higher for the same comfort.
I think there must be some other explanation for the OP's huge bills.

 

[DP]

Not sure about controls on the hot water cylinder. I know the immersion heater is off at the switch. I did see a thermostat on the cylinder but it's in an awkward position and the hot water is only on for a total of 1 hour a day which is sufficient at the moment, so don't think hot water is the issue. Also, not sure what a 24/7 heat up time is...

There is a wireless room thermostat but it's almost not needed as the Tado TRVs fitted to each radiator are effectively thermostats. No separate zones, all heating is on a single zone.

I made changes to the central heating configuration last night and will report on the outcome this evening. So far, looks better but I don't want to jinx it!

Have you programmed the smart heads to reflect room usage and temperature?

 

[mjr_havoc]

Have you programmed the smart heads to reflect room usage and temperature?

Yes I have. For rooms we do not use (as they need work or simply used for storage currently) I have turned off the SRVs completely.

I purchased a temperature & humidity sensor from Amazon and placed it into each room. I then left it in the room for a few hours to acclimatise. After this I compared the temperature reading from the SRV to the sensor and adjusted the SRV in the settings to match. I have done this a few times for rooms with high usage to ensure that the readings are accurate.

 

[mjr_havoc]

This is central heating, not logic . Another thing is if the room gets too cold the heating needs to be a ° or to 2 higher for the same comfort.
I think there must be some other explanation for the OP's huge bills.

You are correct.

I have only started investigating the issues but so far I can say that I have managed to HALF my usage by doing the following things:

1) Turn off Tado's "early start" for all radiators. For one radiator in particular, I noticed that the system was going crazy and starting to pre-heat at about 2am when I had scheduled for it to be at a particular temperature by 8am. The same was happening throughout the day and this radiator was effectively calling for heat all day, forcing the boiler to run 24/7. Instead of the "early start", I have just changed the schedules on each radiator to fire 1 hour earlier than before and stop heating 1 hour earlier.
2) The room mentioned above has an old fireplace from which you can feel a draught if you stand anywhere near it. I think the house is losing heat from the chimney and I plan to block the chimney (as soon as I can find an old pillow!). For the moment I have kept the door to the room closed and we are not using the room.
3) During the day when it is only me at home, I am turning off all heating and using an electric heater to keep just my study warm. This stops the boiler firing up just for a single radiator and cycling.

There are other measures that people have mentioned and I have made a list of things to do/investigate. But I am already seeing dramatic improvements with just the above. And no-one has mentioned that the house is cold at all!

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

The Vaillant controls support and work well with eBUS on open vented systems.

That I can certainly confirm.

 

[mjr_havoc]

That I can certainly confirm.

Yes but I would I need the optional VR65 (i think its called?) wiring centre and the discontinued Tado extension kit, correct?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

This is central heating, not logic . Another thing is if the room gets too cold the heating needs to be a ° or to 2 higher for the same comfort.
I think there must be some other explanation for the OP's huge bills.

Heating behaves in a perfectly logical way, and this point has been discussed at length many times. The outcome was - it is without doubt, worthwhile to shut it off. The warmer you maintain a house, and the longer the period, the higher the amount of energy which absolutely must, be lost to the outside, assuming the outdoors is cooler - simple logic.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Yes but I would I need the optional VR65 (i think its called?) wiring centre and the discontinued Tado extension kit, correct?

I have no idea what might be involved with the Tado, but the V65 is far from being just a wiring centre. You could say it also serves as a wiring centre, but it's a fairly complex lump of electronics too.

 

[mjr_havoc]

I have no idea what might be involved with the Tado, but the V65 is far from being just a wiring centre.

Sorry! I misread UpgradeME's earlier message! Please ignore!