Help please!

minibudgetgal

We live in a 6 bedroomed three storey house. I am so sorry if this has been asked before but can someone answer these questions. I trawled throughn the forums last night, and looked on the internet, but got conflicting info.

From what I understand, we have a gas powered boiler in the garage (potterton kingfisher II)- very old but we cant afford to replace it at the moment. This is switched on to heat our hot water for 2 hours per day and gives us loads of water. Would it be cheaper to turn off the timer and just put it on manually for an hour each evening. The hot water NEVER runs out at the moment.

We also have a separate immersion heater in the airing cupboard. It is newish and has been lagged by the manufacturers. WE have had this switched on 24/7 since we moved in (gas bills are bad enough, but we are averagin £1040 per annum in lleccy)- I have read some advice that it is more economical to have it switched on all the time, but that makes no sense to me, as it would be like leaving your kettle on all the time! What should I do?

At the moment I am doing an experiment.
1. The timer is switched off and I will put it on manually every evening between 7-8pm so everyone has enough for a shower.
2. Immersion tank is switched off. I have also reduced the temp of water slightly in the immersion tank (but I guess this only saves money if the immersion is on! D'oh!)

I think we will run out of water, but would like to find out where the cut off is, if you know what I mean, between having way too much hot water and just enough. Our combined gas and electricity is about £1800 per year (atm! price hikes aside) and I am anxious to get the bills pared back as much as poss.

Sorry for the horrendously long post, but I would appreciate some kind person giving me some advice,
Mini xx

ForkHandles_2

Hi,

It's difficult to know your setup but I would imagine that the boiler heats the water in your tank in the airing cupboard. It appears to me that you're heating the hot water with both gas and electricity.

I would turn off the immersion and only use gas. Take daily meter readings for a few weeks and switch to weekly meetings. See how thing pan out.

I have a 5 bedroom house (3 kids, lots of baths etc), my gas heats my water and it's on for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon, enough water for all of us.

FH