The rising cost of gas

Saturday, October 7th, 2023 at 10:31am

It has been almost ten years since I started monitoring my home power usage from my smart meter. Since then I have improved how I do that and I also track the usage of my computers via a UPS.

Also hooked into Home Assistant is the control of my central heating, this has been working well and I have been comfortable (especially while working from home) but recent price increases have highlighted that it would be a good idea for things to change.

I get a gas bill every two months with the last one being $580 and the one before that $520. These are over winter when the heating is used the most, so I expect the next bill should be around $550. I checked my bills from last year and while the gas consumption is similar, they were around $180 cheaper. That is a big increase that I don’t like. I need to dig into things further, looking back over all my bills for the last couple of years, including from before I started working from home.

Once I have the information what am I going to do with it? There won’t be much I can do about the increasing prices so what can I do to reduce consumption? Getting around to replacing/upgrading insulation and similar changes could reduce the consumption, but what about eliminating my gas connection completely? Is it finally time to get reverse cycle air conditioning and use that for heating? That heating is during the day, so it is also time to get solar panels? What about my hot water, where are we up to with using heat pumps for hot water?

Lots of questions… as I get answers I will try to write them up.

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