Browse Forums Heating, Cooling & Insulation 1 Aug 28, 2009 6:42 pm Yesterday I got my first gas bill. We have been here now for just on two months and it was $450...
We have the Brivis Wombat 2PW 20 (20kw) unit. It is 3 star. My last house was 2.8 star. We have the same setup in this house as the last house (gas ducted heating, gas hot water, gas stove) except now we have solar hot water with gas booster. We only have 1 more room than the last house (and 1 extra vent). So with the solar hot water, I expected to pay a little less than the last house. This time last year at our old house for July/August period our bill was $240. At this time my DW was on maternity leave and the heater went 24/7, 23 degrees during the day and 19 degrees at night (I hate it on at night, but I don't get a choice.. ). Now she is back at work 3 days a week. So now it is only 24/4 at 22 degrees day and 18 night.. After doing some testing today it is definetly the heater that is using all the gas (I turned off hot water and checked that meter wasn't going with nothing on). Anyway, so I called my SS even though we had handover 2 months ago.. but he is happy to look into it and definetely agrees it isn't normal so will get the guys that installed it to come and check it out. So just wondering if anyone here has had a similar problem? Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 2Aug 28, 2009 9:05 pm $450 of usage?? holy crap!! 'A bottle of wine contains more philosophy than all the books in the world.' Louis Pasteur Vegie garden: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27637&start=0 My Backyard Adventure Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 3Aug 28, 2009 9:14 pm I'm patiently waiting for our first bill as I'm sure something is faulty with our heating unit too. When it is on I go outside and can literally hear the meter rolling out numbers - I never saw the numbers move that fast at the other place We have zoning too so am only heating the one area for a small amount of time. My karma ran over your dogma Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 5Aug 28, 2009 10:09 pm well I'm hoping the installer comes out to check on it.. I just measured 10mins of it with the heater going (I turned my hot water system off first). For that 10mins it was burning at 50.4MJ/hr. I'm not sure what rate they are meant to burn gas at.. Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 6Aug 28, 2009 10:45 pm wakeboardandy well I'm hoping the installer comes out to check on it.. I just measured 10mins of it with the heater going (I turned my hot water system off first). For that 10mins it was burning at 50.4MJ/hr. I'm not sure what rate they are meant to burn gas at.. That is about 14 kWhr per hour. It's definitely burning gas but where is the heat going? An uninsulated house loses about 0.13 kW/m2/day. An energy efficient loses at least half of that. So an insulated house house that is 250m2 would lose 32 kWh/day or 1.35kWh/hr. That would be the ongoing heating requirement once you have reached target temperature. You should find that the house should reach target temperature in less than an hour and then find that the heater starts duty cycling intermittently to maintain it. Does this happen? Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 7Aug 28, 2009 11:02 pm dymonite69 You should find that the house should reach target temperature in less than an hour and then find that the heater starts duty cycling intermittently to maintain it. Does this happen? Yep that sounds about right.. The house is only 155m2 inside and has insulation in ceiling and external walls.. my last house didn't have external wall insulation and was on stumps. So this house should be alot more energy efficient. Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 8Aug 28, 2009 11:26 pm $hit!!! To give you an idea of our gas bill.....Jan-Feb $22.38 (half of that was set up charge or something....), Feb-Apr $55.12, Apr-June $188.18, June-Aug $240.93. I only set my temp to 19 degrees though. Heater goes on anywhere between 5:30am-6am and it goes off when the last person goes to bed (which is usually me ) most days I have both upstairs and downstairs on, maybe 2 days a week just downstairs. When the kids go to bed I turn upstairs off. We also have solar hot water with gas boost and gas cooktop. I hope they find something wrong with it, I'd be if I got a bill like that. A Mum at school has a 33sq house, heater on 24/7 and her bill is around $300 per month Happy at Home Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 9Aug 30, 2009 10:13 am Just me, but do you really need it running at night? Also i find 20 degrees very comfortable. A good friend reckons he needed 27 degrees and paid for it ($600 bills). So i think it just comes down to usage and the fact that power costs are continually rising. Have you done a comparison on charges from your old home to the new home? I mean the cost of the gas. Daryl Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 10Aug 30, 2009 10:38 am Daryl Just me, but do you really need it running at night? Also i find 20 degrees very comfortable. A good friend reckons he needed 27 degrees and paid for it ($600 bills). So i think it just comes down to usage and the fact that power costs are continually rising. Have you done a comparison on charges from your old home to the new home? I mean the cost of the gas. Daryl My first post pretty much explains all the questions you asked.. Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 11Aug 30, 2009 11:30 am wakeboardandy Daryl Just me, but do you really need it running at night? Also i find 20 degrees very comfortable. A good friend reckons he needed 27 degrees and paid for it ($600 bills). So i think it just comes down to usage and the fact that power costs are continually rising. Have you done a comparison on charges from your old home to the new home? I mean the cost of the gas. Daryl My first post pretty much explains all the questions you asked.. True, but i pay about $240 and have gas hot water, cook top and heating and the unit is a Braemar, about the same as yours in size and efficiancy. Was only looking at the use differences and i could see you run yours at night while i don't and i run mine at a lower temp. But yea, $200 more is a bit excessive. Hope you get a solution. Daryl Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 12Sep 02, 2009 10:47 am We have had exactly the same experience with a Brivis Wombat, they burn a lot of gas. We did about $400 in 2 weeks when we moved in to our place in July. Now that I figured out the programming on the thermostat and have it idling at 10 overnight, and only hitting a max of 22 our consumption seems to have dropped. Our biggest issue was that the burners had been originally setup for LPG and when town gas came through it was never converted, resulting in a massive BOOM every time it lit. Thankfully it only cost us $350 to have it converted and serviced. Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 13Sep 02, 2009 11:37 am Another factor to take into consideration is do you have higher ceilings? this is something else to take into account when looking at higher ceilings these days - running costs and they are going to get even higher in the future. Site Start: 10th September, 2010 PCI : Friday 27th January, 2011. Handover: 3rd February, 2011 Build Thread: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=37677 Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 14Sep 02, 2009 11:59 am ring09 Another factor to take into consideration is do you have higher ceilings? this is something else to take into account when looking at higher ceilings these days - running costs and they are going to get even higher in the future. Even with our modest 2700mm ceilings we found having ceiling fans running at low speed gave a better distribution of heat to the floor level and improved our comfort for the same thermostat setting. Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 15Sep 03, 2009 1:21 pm Sorry Andy for this slightly OT question - I do not know the answer to yours unfortunately. The house we are building is about 230m2 living area, the heater our builder has proposed to put in is the HE20I (20KW 5 Star). Basically I am just wondering how you are finding the 20kw heater in your house? Is it more than sufficient? One of things I worry about is a cold house, or a heater that is overloaded costing a lot of cash. Re: First gas bill $450!!!! me think heater faulty... 16Sep 05, 2009 4:33 pm Hi our first bill in new house was $360 as we had temp on 24 in arvo's and nite at 18 since then have dropped temps to 20-22 and off at nite winter bill now around $280 summer $80 anything above 20 has a huge impact on gas usage. DIY, Home Maintenance & Repair Hi everyone Question about Brevis gas heating undergound - was recently installed by previous owners (<1 year old) but live in a relatively large house - 4 bdr - and only… 0 1259 0 1341 No. It's not original. Circa early to mid 90s would be my guess and maybe even as late as early 2000s 1 6631 |