Central heating - help needed!

[Ady2012]

Hi all

I have recently moved into a rented house and am having problems with excessive gas useage in the region of about £6 per day during a warm spell and £8 per day during a cold spell. There is no leaks and there is only the boiler which is using gas. There was a service contract for the boiler and an engineer has been out and said that the burner pressure and gas rate where correct but said that, that was all he could do. He then went on to say it was himself that had personally looked after the boiler for the last 10 years and said to look elsewhere for the problem and then left. I have been on to the landlords and they said that they only spent £110 a month on gas and electric when they lived there and I got the feeling that they thought I must have the heating on 24 hours a day on hot. I run the heating for about 6 hours a day and the temperature is 18 degrees in the living room.

It is a Bosch Highflow 400 boiler with no room thermostat and only temperature controlled valves on the radiators. I have turned these down as much as I can in all but the living room and switched some radiators nearly off. Even so, I have noticed that the boiler seems to fire up a lot. I monitored it for an hour and it was firing for 35 of the 60 miniutes. Other people I have spoken to said that theirs only fire up for 10 mins per hour.

I had the boiler temperature control turned to number 1 in an effort to reduce gas but have recently turned it up to number 3 and turned the radiator valves down to compensate as I was told this was more efficent but it is just as expensive.

Can anyone help please, I just can't afford to put the boiler on at this rate and I don't know how I am going to pay the gas bill of over £500 that has just landed on my mat for 2 months supply.

I have spoken to the landlords about getting a roomstat fitted and they have refused saying it was ok when they lived there. What am I doing wrong compared to them?

 

[JohnKay]

I am surprised you are having blls of that size.
As far as the settings go - the boiler will run the most efficiently at a high setting, not the lowest. There would be no need for a room thermostat if the thermostatic rad valves are controling the temp, in fact if you had one, the thermostats would tend to 'fight' each other.

I could not say how often the boiler would fire up, but 10 mins / hour wouldn't warm much up. In this weather mine runs nearly constantly !

It may be a good idea to ask another Gas Safe engineer to take a look, and advise, or to ask your local gas supply company to check the meter.

Let's know how you get on.

 

[Ady2012]

Am I using the heating system wrong? When it gets to warm I either switch the boiler off or turn it down. Is this wrong, should I leave the boiler turned up and turn all the TRV's down instead? Are the TRV's meant to be leaft alone when you have got the right heat distribution throughout the house or are they meant to be adjusted frequently on a daily basis according to your needs?

In my last house, the main temeprature of the house was controlled via a room thermostat located in the hall and the TRV's were used to balance the heat between the rooms (ie make the rooms that you don't use cooler). Once these were set how you wanted them, they were virtually never adjusted again. Is it wrong to adopt the same process with this system?

 

[JohnKay]

Leave the boiler controls alone, set quite high. Both the boiler and the radiators are more efficient at a high temp Adjust the TRVs as required. As you say,
it's likely to find a setting you can leave them at.
Obviously turn the system off if you don't need the heat.

If you had a room stat as well, it could cause a problem, if you were to set it to a higher temp than the TRV will allow, or the other way round, so they 'fight' If one is fitted in a system with TRVs it's usual to fit a conventional valve in that room.

If your use of the system is causing the high consumption, I very much doubt it !

 

[petej]

The Worcester Bosch highflow 400 has an integral water storage unit built in which will store aprox 60 ltrs of hot water ready to supply to your taps when required. This may cause slightly more gas usage keeping that water hot but the advantage is that it will react quicker and usually you have a better flow.
Regs now are you should have a room stat on a new system and fit a manual valve in that room (usually the hallway).
Once set you should not have to keep adjusting the TRV's .
I would agree that running your non condensing boiler stat slightly hotter is OK but I suspect that on the new condensing boilers a lower boiler temp does aids condensing and thus efficiency.
Have you thought about having your meter checked ? I believe they initially charge for this service but if the meter is found to be faulty you get a refund.

Pete

 

[nick]

(1) Make sure you have nothing using gas in the property
(2) Take a meter reading.
(3) Check your meter 24 hours later check the reading.
If there is a difference between (2) and (3) you can guess either the meeter is broken in some strange way, you have a gas leak or someone is stealing your gas!

If there is not change (2) to (3)
(1) Set your temperature controls so that the bolier will come on full power and stay that way.
(2) Take a meter reading.
(3) Check your meter 1 hour later check the reading.

You will be able to work out the amount of gas used and compare this to your boiler maximum usage.
If it is more then it is likely your meter is faulty or your boiler is leaking gas while in use. If it is not then you are back to the boiler being on more than it is needed to be and you may have to work out the control/TRV settings that are causing this.

If you have a gas cooker you can check this independently to get an idea if the meter is overcharging you.