Does it cost more to have heating & water on?

dawnie1972

I normally have my water on for an hour in the morning, then i have my heating on in the morning and at night, however my 3 port valve has packed up and the heating is only working if i have the water on - what i would like to know is, will it use more oil to have the water and heating on that it would to just have the heating on?

Cardew

Yes it will, but not a huge amount more.

A fully lagged tank kept heated 24/7 will lose about 3kWh a day.

So you keeping it on at the same time as your heating, shouldn't use more than about 2kWh a day. Between 10p to 20p a day depending on your boiler efficiency and the price you pay for oil.

dogshome

The usual problem with a motorised 3 Port valve is the motor that operates the valve, but this is virtually a plug-in componant for which spares are available at a cost of, depending on your type, around £50. Fixing it or having it fixed is worthwhile - programming our boiler to produce hot water only for 30 mins at 6am yealds a full storage tank of hot water that will deliver 2 showers & a bath during the day, has cut my oil consumption by 27%. The downside is that to programme this function the Heating has to set on 'Constant' and controlled by the room thermostat, which means it's a bit chilly first thing on winter mornings for the first one out of bed, which is usually me, but I'm the one paying the oil bill.

lowbrim

Depending on the length of pipework between the boiler and the hot water tank and the lagging of this pipe it is cheaper to heat your water via an electric emersion heater there is a lot of losses between the boiler and the water in the tank. I always use the electric heater rather than oil when I am not using the central heating as this in my view is more efficient than heating the water up in the boiler transporting it via an electric pump to the hot water tank and then transfering the heat from the water through a copper pipe into the water in the tank which add up to a lot of losses.

espresso

lowbrim wrote: »

Depending on the length of pipework between the boiler and the hot water tank and the lagging of this pipe it is cheaper to heat your water via an electric emersion heater there is a lot of losses between the boiler and the water in the tank. I always use the electric heater rather than oil when I am not using the central heating as this in my view is more efficient than heating the water up in the boiler transporting it via an electric pump to the hot water tank and then transfering the heat from the water through a copper pipe into the water in the tank which add up to a lot of losses.

Your theory would not be true in most properties!