average running costs (gas/electric) for a 3 bed house

sparkie1984

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Good morning,

We have basically been offered a lovely 3 bed house, next a family member up a private road in a nice area for £800 a month, now I have looked into the council tax and rent and we can afford those just fine..

What I am wondering though is what very rough I know, costs are on average for a 3 bed house for things like gas/electric, never had anywhere with gas before so am totally out of the loop..

were currently living in a 2 bed terrace and are totally unhappy where we are, but I obviously don't want to take on something I cannot afford

thanks for any help or advice
 
Whats the gas used for- heating and cooking?
My energy bill is £150 pm but is 4 bedrooms and with some elec underfoloor heating.
If you said around £80 pm I don't reckon you will be too far off.
 
my is £98pm combined. We're a three bed house with me, the wife & a baby (oh, and two cats but they don't cook often).
 
That's a fair bit less than I thought, we pay nearly £80 with economy 7 storage heaters!

Unsure about the cooker but it'll be heating.

It's just me and the mrs and a dog and were both at work all day
 
im in a 2 bed and my electic is about £120 max every quarter

in the summer gas costs about £10 every 4 -6 weeks, about £10 a week in winter
 
3 bed detached here . 7500 of leccy and 22000 of gas per year. Bit higher than average due to shift work mainly. Not to mention the sheer amount of stuff we have plugged in these days :(
 
Three bed detached. 30's place so not that efficient. Remember the house age and insulation installed will make a difference. Also cheaper if it's a semi as you aren't losing heat from the shared wall

Ours is 190 a month all in for a family of 4. But we do have a lot of gadgets including a projector which eats leccy :)
 
It's detached but fairly modern, no more than 20 years old.

Didn't realise projectors were power hungry, I don't have one though.
 
4 bed detached 1920 build - forget the gas right now but the leccy is roughly £450-£500 per quater.
 
3-bed detached house built 45 years ago.

Combined gas & electric direct debit = £90 per month (and that's in credit).

Spent quite a bit over the years on double-glazing, wall insulation, loft insulation and combi boiler; proved to be worthwhile.

:)
 
3-bed detached house built 45 years ago.

Combined gas & electric direct debit = £90 per month (and that's in credit).

Spent quite a bit over the years on double-glazing, wall insulation, loft insulation and combi boiler; proved to be worthwhile.

:)

When you say Wall Insulation Alan do you mean cavity filled ? Your costs are much less than ours so I'm wondering whether to get the cavities done now it is so cheap
 
When you say Wall Insulation Alan do you mean cavity filled ? Your costs are much less than ours so I'm wondering whether to get the cavities done now it is so cheap

Do it, brothers house was like a fridge before CWI, after you turn it off you can feel it cooling within minutes (shiver as temp drops quickly) after CWI filling hardly needs to put it on and when you switch it off, room stays warmer and drops in temp much slower.

Do you also have double glazing? And thick loft insulation? Recently topped ours up with 200mm thick insulation.
 
When you say Wall Insulation Alan do you mean cavity filled ? Your costs are much less than ours so I'm wondering whether to get the cavities done now it is so cheap

Yes - cavity wall insulation using a bonded-beading system.

This was the first thing done and made a BIG difference. We are on top of a hill and in a detached house, so all four walls + loft loose heat rapidly. Getting the insulation sorted was number one priority when we moved in.
 
3 bed 1930s semi. 2 full time workers. cavity wall insulation/combi boiler. We are on a monthly dual fuel online tariff. direct debit averages out at about £80 a month across the year.
 
Do it, brothers house was like a fridge before CWI, after you turn it off you can feel it cooling within minutes (shiver as temp drops quickly) after CWI filling hardly needs to put it on and when you switch it off, room stays warmer and drops in temp much slower.

Do you also have double glazing? And thick loft insulation? Recently topped ours up with 200mm thick insulation.

Yup got UPVC and odd loft insulation. old owners have been using loft as a room so had taken insulation out of loft floor and put it between plasterboard and roof tiles. Not sure its as efficient as it could be. Will have to take up floorboards and do that as well to be sure. Anyone know if you can still get pourable insulation rather than in the rolls. Thats going to be easier to push under the boarding
 
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Yes - cavity wall insulation using a bonded-beading system.

This was the first thing done and made a BIG difference. We are on top of a hill and in a detached house, so all four walls + loft loose heat rapidly. Getting the insulation sorted was number one priority when we moved in.

Thanks Alan will look into it. read some scary stuff about it bridging the cavity and damp course in the past. And also not filling the gaps correctly when blown in. Guess someone reputable should be OK though
 
Spent quite a bit over the years on double-glazing, wall insulation, loft insulation and combi boiler; proved to be worthwhile.
:)

What was the cost of this compared with the savings though?
I know I could save money buying a more efficient boiler, but it's going to cost me £2k+
Which, even at a saving of £200 a year, is 10 years.
Simply not worth doing as a cost-saving exercise.
But if the existing boiler dies altogether, which it shows no sign of doing, that's another story.
Same with windows, utterly pointless spending thousands just to save a few quid a year.
But once the existing ones fall apart, I'll obviously have to spend.
 
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Thanks Alan will look into it. read some scary stuff about it bridging the cavity and damp course in the past. And also not filling the gaps correctly when blown in. Guess someone reputable should be OK though

Unfortunately there is always a downside to any major renovation job around the house and the problem with pumping stuff under pressure into a wall cavity is that you cannot see the result!

However, the temperature fall-off inside the house before and after the CWI is proof enough. The difference was quite remarkable.
 
What was the cost of this compared with the savings though?
I know I could save money buying a more efficient boiler, but it's going to cost me £2k+
Which, even at a saving of £200 a year, is 10 years.
Simply not worth doing as a cost-saving exercise.
But if the existing boiler dies altogether, which it shows no sign of doing, that's another story.
Same with windows, utterly pointless spending thousands just to save a few quid a year.
But once the existing ones fall apart, I'll obviously have to spend.

You are quite right.

The old single-pane glass windows with rotting outside wood sills and leaking cold air through ill-fitting catches had to be replaced.

Same with the 17-year-old boiler and old tanks in the loft and airing cupboard - even though everything worked - it had to go. Replaced with a condensing combi boiler and there are now no tanks in the house at all.

This work was done quite a few years ago and at the time I did some cost analysis before and after all the insulation and boiler works were carried out and the saving was (from what I remember) quite large - about £23 per month. These days the saving would be vastly higher. Note though that the house was in dire need of renovation so the work had to be done - no choice! :eek: (The money!!) :eek: :eek:
 
Not just cold, it's more like cellar cold.

However, the temperature fall-off inside the house before and after the CWI is proof enough. The difference was quite remarkable.

yup. Amazing how quickly a non CWI house comes, within 5-20 minutes of switching it off, it starts to feel like a cellar again. During freezing winters in a CWI house heating doesn't have to be on all day, you can have a gap between each time of several hours as the house stays warm.
 
Ours is just under £100 an month on a dual fuel tariff - we live in a modern 3 bed semi. Electricity is about £65 a month, with gas only just over £30.
 
So.... To add on to this, whats an average water bill?

It's been interesting seeing the variation in peoples costs actually! I assume it's due to some at home all
Day, big families etc
 
1930's semi, only half double glazed (front of house) but good insulation otherwise, two getting elderly folks and a young gun (ok, 34..hehe), approx 7000kwh of elec and 28,000kwh of gas. At the moment the bills would average somewhere around £170 on new prices I think.

My parents have the heating on most of the day (to read from 6am to about 11pm) and hot water is combi and always available.

You can always contact the current supplier and ask what kind of consumption was being used for gas when the last person lived in the property, so you can get a vague idea of the costs. Whilst data protection can cause some suppliers to be lazy and go 'oh we cant give you that info', you can ask for the generic industry AQ, which they have to supply you with, however this may not be a good guide if the property has been empty for long periods in recent history as it is averaged over around 5 years.

I'd strongly recommend you take a reading every two weeks for your own sake, to keep an eye on how much you are using, and give the supplier a reading every month. This will make the process of bringing their estimates in line with your living style somewhat swifter. Also, check if the meter is imperial or metric and make sure the billing is in line with that. If Imperial, then for every 1 unit that passes on the meter, they should be charging you approx 31kwh, and for Metric, 1 unit on the meter is approx 11kwh. So if they bill you from a read of 6021 to 6025, or 4 units, then if the meter shows ft3 on it, the bill should be for around 125kwh, if the meter shows m3, then the bill should be for around 44kwh.

Oh yeah, and always round down when reading an old analogue style meter. For example, if the 10,000kwh dial is virtually or more or less looking like its on the 8 (but favouring the 7 side, not the 9 side), then check the 1,000kwh dial. If thats on a high number like a 8 or 9, then the 10k kwh dial is still a 7. If its a low number like a 1 or 2, then the 10k kwh dial has progressed to 8.
 
We rent a 1940's semi detached 2 bedroom, although its a pretty decent size that most modern 3 bedrooms would fit into. When we moved in it was around £100 a month, - Npower Dual Fuel,

But just being a bit more careful remembering to turn things off at night (had a good play with the extension leads t(o leave only 1 plugged in i needed for sky box/slingplayer) over the space of a year of having heating on/off due to winter ect its dropped to £75/80.

So if you both at work and turn things off when not needed prob around £85-90.

to post #23 my water bill is £19.50 a month
 

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