Approx how much gas gets used to heat up a ordinary gas cooker's oven?
Approximately how much does it cost?

I need to run my oven for about 10 minutes to heat it up to Regulo 6. But
I can't get a reading of gas used because my meter is so cronky.

"Pete Brown" wrote in message
...
Approx how much gas gets used to heat up a ordinary gas cooker's oven?
Approximately how much does it cost?

I need to run my oven for about 10 minutes to heat it up to Regulo 6. But
I can't get a reading of gas used because my meter is so cronky.

Surely your meter can tell you this information, otherwise how are they
going to bill you if it is not taking an accurate reading?

As the oven is not going to use a lot of gas to heat it up, the main numbers
probably won't go up, but the part units should...
When you are using gas, does a dial turn round?

If so, turn off any other gas appliances and count the number of turns in,
say, a minute, then you know how much gas it is using per minute, then times
this by the amount of time it takes to het up (assuming the oven does not
modulate down as it gets near the set point!) then look at your last bill to
see the calculation used, and the units the meter is in (Ft or m3) and work
it out.

Different ovens of different sizes and amount of insulation levels are going
to be different.

On 10:16 21 Sep 2009, Toby wrote:


"Pete Brown" wrote in message
...
Approx how much gas gets used to heat up a ordinary gas cooker's
oven? Approximately how much does it cost?

I need to run my oven for about 10 minutes to heat it up to Regulo
6. But I can't get a reading of gas used because my meter is so
cronky.


Surely your meter can tell you this information, otherwise how are
they going to bill you if it is not taking an accurate reading?

As the oven is not going to use a lot of gas to heat it up, the main
numbers probably won't go up, but the part units should...
When you are using gas, does a dial turn round?

If so, turn off any other gas appliances and count the number of
turns in, say, a minute, then you know how much gas it is using per
minute, then times this by the amount of time it takes to het up
(assuming the oven does not modulate down as it gets near the set
point!) then look at your last bill to see the calculation used, and
the units the meter is in (Ft or m3) and work it out.

Different ovens of different sizes and amount of insulation levels
are going to be different.


I originally tried what you suggested but my gas meter doesn't seem
sensitive enough to give an actual measurement for 10 minutes of gas.
That's why I posted. Here's a pic of the meter:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28vzrkp&s=4

The dial on the right goes round about once for 10 minutes of gas to heat
up the oven. However the digits don't advance.

I have no idea how to interpret the meter's reading. I think the pic
above shows "9612.90" cubic feet. Is that right? Maybe the dial has to
rotate 100 times to move this to "9613.00".

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 16:30:44 +0100, Pete Brown wrote:

The dial on the right goes round about once for 10 minutes of gas to
heat up the oven. However the digits don't advance.

The printing below the maind numbers shows the max flow rate of 212
cubic feet per hour and the amount of gas per revolution of the dial
0.071 cubic feet.

I have no idea how to interpret the meter's reading. I think the pic
above shows "9612.90" cubic feet. Is that right? Maybe the dial has to
rotate 100 times to move this to "9613.00".

14 times (more or less) 1/0.071 = 14.084.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Just noticed the meter is in cubic-FEET.

If you suspect your gas bill is "3x what it should be" then check
billing are listing your readings in cubic-FEET and not cubic-METRES.
It is a not uncommon mistake and can go undetected for low-usage (E7)
houses for years.

On 20:29 21 Sep 2009, js.b1 wrote:

Just noticed the meter is in cubic-FEET.

If you suspect your gas bill is "3x what it should be" then check
billing are listing your readings in cubic-FEET and not cubic-METRES.
It is a not uncommon mistake and can go undetected for low-usage (E7)
houses for years.

My gas bills always seem high so I checked this out.

The bill shows my readings as "imperial units". (Each imperial unit is
equivalent to approx 32 kWh.)

Is an imperial unit the same as a cubic foot?

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:55:41 +0100, Pete Brown wrote:

Thank you for the info. Can I check my understanding with you....

If one revolution of the dial is 0.071 ft^3 then 14 revs would be
equivalent to 1 ft^3.

However, it looks as if the red digit is 0.1 ft^3. So wouldn't the red
digit get advanced for every 1.4 revolutions of the dial?

Yes, it should.

--
Cheers
Dave.

Pete Brown wrote:

However, it looks as if the red digit is 0.1 ft^3. *So wouldn't the red
digit get advanced for every 1.4 revolutions of the dial?

No, the red digit is 10 ft^3 and your meter is displaying 961290 ft^3. For
the purpose of your gas bill the red digit and the static zero are ignored
and the "units" are hundreds of cubic feet

--
Mike Clarke

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:24:30 +0100, Mike Clarke wrote:

No, the red digit is 10 ft^3 and your meter is displaying 961290 ft^3.

Oh yes, I was wrong previously. (Mitigating circumstance is that I've
not lived in a place with a mains gas supply for 10 years so the
nitty gritty details of billing is but a hazy memory, so only sending
the 100's of cuft figure had slipped my mind).

So the red digit should advance one for every 140 revs of the dial.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 10:29 22 Sep 2009, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:24:30 +0100, Mike Clarke wrote:

No, the red digit is 10 ft^3 and your meter is displaying
961290 ft^3.

Oh yes, I was wrong previously. (Mitigating circumstance is that
I've not lived in a place with a mains gas supply for 10 years
so the nitty gritty details of billing is but a hazy memory, so
only sending the 100's of cuft figure had slipped my mind).

So the red digit should advance one for every 140 revs of the
dial.



This is important guys!

I want to know how much extra it costs to warm all my ready meals in
the oven (with good results) rather than using the microwave (with
crap results). :-)

If the dial goes round 140 times for each time the digit advances
then it's no wonder my gas meter was useless when I tried to see how
much gas it took to heat up the oven.

I'm back to square one. I need to ask if someone in the UK with a
decent gas meter can give me an approx answer to that.

My cooker takes about 10 minutes to get to Regulo 6 which is the
setting I usually use. What's it costing me?





--
new group added: uk.food+drink.misc

Pete Brown wrote:
On 10:29 22 Sep 2009, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:24:30 +0100, Mike Clarke wrote:

No, the red digit is 10 ft^3 and your meter is displaying
961290 ft^3.
Oh yes, I was wrong previously. (Mitigating circumstance is that
I've not lived in a place with a mains gas supply for 10 years
so the nitty gritty details of billing is but a hazy memory, so
only sending the 100's of cuft figure had slipped my mind).

So the red digit should advance one for every 140 revs of the
dial.



This is important guys!

I want to know how much extra it costs to warm all my ready meals in
the oven (with good results) rather than using the microwave (with
crap results). :-)

If the dial goes round 140 times for each time the digit advances
then it's no wonder my gas meter was useless when I tried to see how
much gas it took to heat up the oven.

I'm back to square one. I need to ask if someone in the UK with a
decent gas meter can give me an approx answer to that.

My cooker takes about 10 minutes to get to Regulo 6 which is the
setting I usually use. What's it costing me?





entirely depends on heat lost into the room, how much that replaces heat
the CH would have been generating otherwise (at probably lower
efficiency) and how burnt you like your prepackaged garbage to be, I
suppose.

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:53:32 +0100, Pete Brown wrote:

If the dial goes round 140 times for each time the digit advances
then it's no wonder my gas meter was useless when I tried to see how
much gas it took to heat up the oven.

Didn't you say it took 1 revolution of the dial for one oven heating?

That is 0.017ft^3 gas consumed, find your bill and do the maths.

Simples.

--
Cheers
Dave.

On 2009-09-25 12:53:32 +0100, Pete Brown said:

On 10:29 22 Sep 2009, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:24:30 +0100, Mike Clarke wrote:

No, the red digit is 10 ft^3 and your meter is displaying
961290 ft^3.

Oh yes, I was wrong previously. (Mitigating circumstance is that
I've not lived in a place with a mains gas supply for 10 years
so the nitty gritty details of billing is but a hazy memory, so
only sending the 100's of cuft figure had slipped my mind).

So the red digit should advance one for every 140 revs of the
dial.



This is important guys!

I want to know how much extra it costs to warm all my ready meals in
the oven (with good results) rather than using the microwave (with
crap results). :-)

If the dial goes round 140 times for each time the digit advances
then it's no wonder my gas meter was useless when I tried to see how
much gas it took to heat up the oven.

I'm back to square one. I need to ask if someone in the UK with a
decent gas meter can give me an approx answer to that.

My cooker takes about 10 minutes to get to Regulo 6 which is the
setting I usually use. What's it costing me?

Too many variables, such as the heat of the room in the first place
etc. But if you don't enjoy the end result from a micro-wave, it's
costing you too much anyway, IMO!
--
Sacha

On 13:43 25 Sep 2009, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 12:53:32 +0100, Pete Brown wrote:

If the dial goes round 140 times for each time the digit
advances then it's no wonder my gas meter was useless when I
tried to see how much gas it took to heat up the oven.

Didn't you say it took 1 revolution of the dial for one oven
heating?

That is 0.017ft^3 gas consumed, find your bill and do the maths.

Simples.



I *thought* it was almost one revolution because the digit hadn't
changed. Now I realise it could have been anything up to 140
revolutions.

I would have to watch the rotary dial like a lynx throughout the
heating up period to get a reading. Ughhhh!

On 13:04 25 Sep 2009, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Pete Brown wrote:
On 10:29 22 Sep 2009, Dave Liquorice wrote:

On Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:24:30 +0100, Mike Clarke wrote:

No, the red digit is 10 ft^3 and your meter is displaying
961290 ft^3.
Oh yes, I was wrong previously. (Mitigating circumstance is
that I've not lived in a place with a mains gas supply for
10 years so the nitty gritty details of billing is but a hazy
memory, so only sending the 100's of cuft figure had slipped
my mind).

So the red digit should advance one for every 140 revs of the
dial.



This is important guys!

I want to know how much extra it costs to warm all my ready
meals in the oven (with good results) rather than using the
microwave (with crap results). :-)

If the dial goes round 140 times for each time the digit
advances then it's no wonder my gas meter was useless when I
tried to see how much gas it took to heat up the oven.

I'm back to square one. I need to ask if someone in the UK
with a decent gas meter can give me an approx answer to that.

My cooker takes about 10 minutes to get to Regulo 6 which is
the setting I usually use. What's it costing me?


entirely depends on heat lost into the room, how much that
replaces heat the CH would have been generating otherwise (at
probably lower efficiency) and how burnt you like your
prepackaged garbage to be, I suppose.

I am looking for an approximate figure.

I don't need it accurate to three significant digits. Within 50% or
100% is good enough to give me an idea of cost so I can compare it to
the microwave.

:-)

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 19:02:13 +0100, wrote:
On 25 Sep,
Pete Brown wrote:

I am looking for an approximate figure.

I don't need it accurate to three significant digits. Within 50% or
100% is good enough to give me an idea of cost so I can compare it to
the microwave.

For the first 10 minutes or so it will be working at full rate.

Well, an electric oven is rated at about 3kW, so I would expect a gas
oven to provide roughly the same amount of energy. Check what your
supply charges per kW*Hr and then work it out for the time (10 mins, as
above or maybe 20 for a ballpark figure) or however long it takes until
the thermostat turns down the heat.
I'd reckon, mebbee 1kW*Hr to get up to 200 Celcius ~ say about 10p.

Why not look up the rating in the handbook and calculate from there? You
should have the handbook and service manual if it was (correctly) installed
and commissioned by a corgi (now gas safe).

I'm sure plenty here can do the calcs if you can't.

"Pete Brown" wrote in message
...
On 10:16 21 Sep 2009, Toby wrote:


"Pete Brown" wrote in message
...
Approx how much gas gets used to heat up a ordinary gas cooker's
oven? Approximately how much does it cost?

I need to run my oven for about 10 minutes to heat it up to Regulo
6. But I can't get a reading of gas used because my meter is so
cronky.


Surely your meter can tell you this information, otherwise how are
they going to bill you if it is not taking an accurate reading?

As the oven is not going to use a lot of gas to heat it up, the main
numbers probably won't go up, but the part units should...
When you are using gas, does a dial turn round?

If so, turn off any other gas appliances and count the number of
turns in, say, a minute, then you know how much gas it is using per
minute, then times this by the amount of time it takes to het up
(assuming the oven does not modulate down as it gets near the set
point!) then look at your last bill to see the calculation used, and
the units the meter is in (Ft or m3) and work it out.

Different ovens of different sizes and amount of insulation levels
are going to be different.


I originally tried what you suggested but my gas meter doesn't seem
sensitive enough to give an actual measurement for 10 minutes of gas.
That's why I posted. Here's a pic of the meter:

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=28vzrkp&s=4

The dial on the right goes round about once for 10 minutes of gas to heat
up the oven. However the digits don't advance.

I have no idea how to interpret the meter's reading. I think the pic
above shows "9612.90" cubic feet. Is that right? Maybe the dial has to
rotate 100 times to move this to "9613.00".

You have a U6 imperial meter which records gas usage in cubic feet.
The white digits are hundreds of cubic feet and the red digits are tens of
cubic feet so the moving red counter will revolve 10 times to increment the
white digit by 1.

The test dial records 1 cubic foot of gas per revolution and this is used to
determine the gas rate of the appliance under test.

Using a stop watch accurately time how long it take to complete one
revolution of the dial.
It is difficult to gas rate an oven because it could get up to temperature
before the end of the test and modulate down to a lower flame and perhaps
this is why it took around 10 minutes to revolve the test meter.

I turned my oven to 9 and left the door open to test and recorded
405seconds.

Divide 3600 (seconds in 1 hour) by time in seconds for 1 complete revolution
gives gas rate in cubic feet.

3600 multiplied by 1035(calorific value of gas) divided by time in seconds
for 1 rev of dial multiplied by 3412(number of BTu/h in 1 kW) gives kW

Bit mind numbing those sums so I just looked up my gas rate chart and came
up with 8.9 cubic feet and 2.7 kW per hour.
When you have calculated your consumption in kW then look up your most
recent gas bill to see your supplier charges you per kW and divide that by
your warm up time.

I need a sleep now.

Heliotrope Smith wrote:

The white digits are hundreds of cubic feet and the red digits are tens of
cubic feet so the moving red counter will revolve 10 times to increment
the white digit by 1.

The test dial records 1 cubic foot of gas per revolution and this is used
to determine the gas rate of the appliance under test.

The text below the digits on the meter says that it's 0.071 ft^3 per
revolution which makes it 14.08 revolutions per ft^3 so that's about 140
revolutions for one red digit.

--
Mike Clarke

"Mike Clarke" wrote in message
news
Heliotrope Smith wrote:

The white digits are hundreds of cubic feet and the red digits are tens
of
cubic feet so the moving red counter will revolve 10 times to increment
the white digit by 1.

The test dial records 1 cubic foot of gas per revolution and this is
used
to determine the gas rate of the appliance under test.

The text below the digits on the meter says that it's 0.071 ft^3 per
revolution which makes it 14.08 revolutions per ft^3 so that's about 140
revolutions for one red digit.

--
Mike Clarke

The 0.071 ft3/rev could be a bit misleading but it does not refer to the
test dial but to the internal volume of the measuring device.

This information is required to determine the amount of gas required to pass
when purging the gas installation.

The test dial does in fact show one cubic foot of gas passing for each
complete revolution.

On 19:02 25 Sep 2009, wrote:

On 25 Sep,
Pete Brown wrote:

I am looking for an approximate figure.

I don't need it accurate to three significant digits. Within
50% or 100% is good enough to give me an idea of cost so I can
compare it to the microwave.

For the first 10 minutes or so it will be working at full rate.

Why not look up the rating in the handbook and calculate from
there? You should have the handbook and service manual if it was
(correctly) installed and commissioned by a corgi (now gas
safe).

I'm sure plenty here can do the calcs if you can't.


Corgi? Of course the cooker doesn't get serviced. :-)

Service manual? The cooker was in the house before I moved in.

In article ,
pete writes:

Well, an electric oven is rated at about 3kW, so I would expect a gas
oven to provide roughly the same amount of energy.

These assumptions are wrong.

A standard sized electric oven will be under 3kW (2.4kW is common),
although some large ones are higher.

Electric ovens are well insulated nowadays, but gas ovens can't
be, because there has to be a flow of gas and air in, and
combustion products out.

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
pete writes:
Well, an electric oven is rated at about 3kW, so I would expect a gas
oven to provide roughly the same amount of energy.

These assumptions are wrong.

A standard sized electric oven will be under 3kW (2.4kW is common),
although some large ones are higher.

Electric ovens are well insulated nowadays, but gas ovens can't
be, because there has to be a flow of gas and air in, and
combustion products out.

fan blown ovens also remove a lot of hot air and bring in cooler, so as
to get even heating and dry the interior somewhat.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...

fan blown ovens also remove a lot of hot air and bring in cooler, so as to
get even heating and dry the interior somewhat.

Not electric ones.
They circulate the air inside the oven with a very small vent to allow
pressure equalisation.

dennis@home wrote:

They circulate the air inside the oven with a very small vent to allow
pressure equalisation.

A vent is provided elsewhere to let steam out, the bleed by the fan is to
cool the fan and bearing I think.

AJH

"andrew" wrote in message
...
dennis@home wrote:

They circulate the air inside the oven with a very small vent to allow
pressure equalisation.

A vent is provided elsewhere to let steam out, the bleed by the fan is to
cool the fan and bearing I think.

Not on the new one I just fitted.
The steam comes out when you open the door though.