£293.21per quarter

4264kWh, from 380 m³

£264.364,264 kWh of gas

£28.85Standing charge, 91 days

This is an estimate. It uses a mid-range calorific value rather than the one for your period, so it will not match your bill exactly. Enter the value printed on your bill for a figure you can check against it.

That is £3.21 a day, or £1,172.85 a year at this rate of use. Gas use is strongly seasonal, so an annual figure derived from a winter quarter will overstate the year and one from a summer quarter will understate it.

What this assumes, and what it leaves out

A metric meter, reading directly in cubic metres.
A volume correction factor of 1.02264, which is fixed for domestic meters.
A calorific value of 39.537.5 and 43, so using the wrong end changes the answer by about 14%. Your bill states the value for your period.
The bill covers 91 days.
Your unit rate and standing charge stayed the same for the whole period.

Not included:

VAT. Domestic energy is charged at 5%, and suppliers show prices including it — so if your rates came from a bill, VAT is already in them.
Any credit or debit already on your account, and any fixed discount or warm home payment.
Rate changes part-way through the period, which happen whenever a price cap moves or a fixed deal ends.

Your bill is about what your usage and rates imply

Nothing stands out. That does not mean the bill is small, only that it is consistent with the usage and rates you entered — so reducing it means using less or paying less per unit, rather than finding a fault.

Confidence Moderate — consistent with what you have entered, but not proven.

What this rests on

The cost works out close to what your usage and rates imply, with no single part standing out. (moderate)

What to do

Everything worth doing here is free.

Use eco programmes, and wash cooler
Nothing stands out, so these are the general-purpose ones.
Almost all of a washing machine’s energy goes on heating water, so dropping from 60°C to 30°C cuts the cost of a cycle by around two thirds. Dishwasher eco programmes run longer at a lower temperature and use less energy despite the longer time.
- Reduces how much energy you use
- Do it now
- Free
- Evidence: moderate
How to tell if it worked: Read your meter before the change and again a week later, at the same time of day, and compare the two weeks.
Switch off what is on standby but never used
Nothing stands out, so these are the general-purpose ones.
Worth doing, and worth being realistic about. A modern television on standby costs pence a year; a games console left in rest mode, an old set-top box, or a desktop computer sleeping rather than shut down can each cost £15 to £30. Target those rather than trying to unplug everything.
- Reduces how much energy you use
- Do it now
- Free
- Evidence: moderate
How to tell if it worked: Read your meter before the change and again a week later, at the same time of day, and compare the two weeks.
Find your overnight base load
Nothing stands out, so these are the general-purpose ones.
Take a meter reading last thing at night and again first thing, with nothing running that you would not expect. Divide the difference by the hours between them to get the constant draw of your home. Under about 0.1 kWh an hour is unremarkable; much above it means something substantial is running around the clock, and finding what is usually worth more than any other single change.
- Does not save anything by itself — tells you where to look
- A few minutes
- Free
- Evidence: strong
How to tell if it worked: Repeat the measurement after making a change and compare the two.

What this assumes

The bill covers 91 days.
Your unit rate and standing charge stayed the same for the whole period.

Worked out by energy rules 1.1.0. Nothing you entered leaves your browser.

Why gas needs converting at all

Your gas meter measures volume— how much gas passed through it. Your bill charges for energy, in kilowatt hours. Converting between the two is a formula set out in the Gas (Calculation of Thermal Energy) Regulations, and every UK bill prints the figures it used.

The formula is: volume in cubic metres, multiplied by a volume correction factor of 1.02264, multiplied by the calorific value, divided by 3.6.

Metric and imperial meters

A metric meter reads directly in cubic metres and usually says m³ on the face. An imperial one reads in hundreds of cubic feet, and each unit is 2.83 cubic metres.

Forgetting that factor is the most common mistake in a gas calculation, and it makes the answer roughly a third of what it should be. If your figure comes out far below your bill, check the meter type first.

The calorific value is the part that matters

Gas is not a constant product. Its energy content varies with what is in the network that day, and National Gas may deliver anywhere between 37.5 and 43.0 MJ/m³. Your bill states the average for your billing period, usually near the meter readings.

Using our mid-range default instead changes the answer by up to 14%. That is why this page tells you which figure it used and whether the result should match your bill. With your own calorific value it should agree to within rounding; without it, the result is an estimate and is labelled as one.

What the volume correction factor does

A cubic metre at your meter is not a cubic metre at standard temperature and pressure. The correction reconciles them, and for domestic meters it is fixed at 1.02264 — so leave it alone unless your bill states something different.

Reading it back against your bill

Once you have a kWh figure the cost works exactly like electricity: usage times the unit rate, plus the standing charge times the number of days. The electricity cost calculator does the same for the other half of the bill, and the standing charge calculator shows what the fixed part costs across both fuels.

One thing to expect: gas use is strongly seasonal. Multiplying a January quarter by four will overstate your year considerably, and a July quarter will understate it just as badly.