Timed water or heating??? Eon customer

scrummy_mummy_2

Sorry to be so dim, but have a question about my 'set up' for heating and water.
I have a controller in the airing cupboard that allows me to programme when the water will come on and when the heating will come on. The critical thing with this is that the two operations cannot be independently programmed to come on and off at different times...don't know why....anyway.

Previously, I have had the hot water set on the timer function so that the water heats up twice a day...on at about 6am and off at 8am, the on again about 4pm and off again about 9pm.
I cannot programme in different times for the heating to operate, so set this constantly to 'on' and used the thermostat in the hall to control when it comes on and off by setting the temperature to 19 degrees c.
This means that the heating is on constantly 24 hours a day, but only operates when the internal house temperature drops to 19 degrees.
The water is controlled on the timer and only comes on for two periods as per the time control clock......
My heating and hot water are fuelled by a gas boiler. My water is stored in a modern, well insulated tank in the airing cupboard. The boiler is only 5.

My question is (just having received a bill for £900 odd for gas an electric this winter!! AAARRGGHHHH!!!) what is the cheapest way to run my home....

is it cheaper to run the heating on the timer from say 6am till 10.30pm (also regulated by thermostat) and have the water on all the time the heating is on....or the way I have been doing it.?????

Sorry for being so dim but I genuinely have no idea.
I am on an Eon price capped tariff until Oct 09. if that makes any difference.

WestonDave

What you need to do is avoid waste - which means not heating water just to allow it to go cold (or maintaining it hotter than it needs so it just "bleeds" heat out through the tank albeit insulated), and not heating the house for longer than you need.

At the moment because you can't separate the two, you have to compromise unless you get the thermostat changed for a programmable one - ours costs about £70 to buy plus fitting charge and allows you to programme different temperatures for different times of each different day (i.e. comes on later on Sunday etc, not on at all during the day on Wednesday because we are all out etc).

Assuming your tank is pretty efficient and you don't change the thermostat I'd guess that stopping heating the house at night may save you some money. You don't need it at 19C when you are under the duvet etc so you could get it to turn off at bedtime and come back on just before you are due to get up. It probably won't cost much more to maintain the water all day, but not heating over night may make some savings.

The ideal would be to cut the water down to minimum - i.e. around the times it is being used for showers, baths and washing up (with a bit of time after to reheat) and the rest of the time use the residual heated water in the tank. It may not be quite as hot and you may need to save nasty greasy dishes until the evening heating slot but most things should be OK. You then have the heating on constant but controlled by the programmable thermostat so that you have the house heated for a minimal amount of time.

I'd imagine if you got the thermostat changed next time you had an engineer out to service your boiler the labour costs wouldn't be that much extra over the cost of the actual part.

scrummy_mummy_2

WestonDave wrote: »

What you need to do is avoid waste - which means not heating water just to allow it to go cold (or maintaining it hotter than it needs so it just "bleeds" heat out through the tank albeit insulated), and not heating the house for longer than you need.

At the moment because you can't separate the two, you have to compromise unless you get the thermostat changed for a programmable one - ours costs about £70 to buy plus fitting charge and allows you to programme different temperatures for different times of each different day (i.e. comes on later on Sunday etc, not on at all during the day on Wednesday because we are all out etc).

Assuming your tank is pretty efficient and you don't change the thermostat I'd guess that stopping heating the house at night may save you some money. You don't need it at 19C when you are under the duvet etc so you could get it to turn off at bedtime and come back on just before you are due to get up. It probably won't cost much more to maintain the water all day, but not heating over night may make some savings.

The ideal would be to cut the water down to minimum - i.e. around the times it is being used for showers, baths and washing up (with a bit of time after to reheat) and the rest of the time use the residual heated water in the tank. It may not be quite as hot and you may need to save nasty greasy dishes until the evening heating slot but most things should be OK. You then have the heating on constant but controlled by the programmable thermostat so that you have the house heated for a minimal amount of time.

I'd imagine if you got the thermostat changed next time you had an engineer out to service your boiler the labour costs wouldn't be that much extra over the cost of the actual part.

That is what I had thought, try to keep heating the water to a min but the heating then on 24/7!!!....maybe the bill was humungous just because we have had the coldest winter in 13 years????? and it shocked me.

E.ON_Company_Representative

Hi scrummy mummy,

I’m afraid my knowledge of boilers and heating systems is a bit lacking so I’ll leave that for someone else to post about!

I thought its worth mentioning that E.ON can offer you lots of energy efficiency advice and we have a special department who will be happy to discuss your consumption, these guys will know a bit about boilers and heating systems as well.

There’s loads of information that will help reduce the amount of energy you’re using and help bring down the amount of your bills.

You can call them free on 0500 20 10 00, seriously worth ten minutes of any ones time!

Brian

penrhyn

The simplest method maybe for the OP to buy a programmable thermostat that could control the heating. There is no way heating needs to be on 24/7 unless its a medical issue.
It does sound that the controls need looking at.

I replaced my old room thermostat with on of these as it was a straight swap.


With it you can set up to 4 different temperatures per 24 hour period, and have different settings for the weekend.
It runs off a couple of aa batteries which last 2 years.
There are more sophisticated ones available, got mine from B&Q.

scrummy_mummy_2

penrhyn wrote: »

The simplest method maybe for the OP to buy a programmable thermostat that could control the heating. There is no way heating needs to be on 24/7 unless its a medical issue.
It does sound that the controls need looking at.

I replaced my old room thermostat with on of these as it was a straight swap.


With it you can set up to 4 different temperatures per 24 hour period, and have different settings for the weekend.
It runs off a couple of aa batteries which last 2 years.
There are more sophisticated ones available, got mine from B&Q.

Genius...I love you and want you to knw that!!!!...is it a simple wiring job?? I'm ok if it is simple!

scrummy_mummy_2

What is the best thing to do in the meantime????
Timed water, or heating????

WestonDave

I would switch to timing the heating so that you aren't heating the house overnight when you don't need it. You would be heating water for another 9 hours a day, but heating the house for 8 hours less. Given that a well insulated tank of water will lose much less heat energy in an hour than a house will, I would suggest this is the best option. You might also want to think about turning the heating off a bit earlier than 10:30 as the house won't cool that quickly. Also if you are going out during the day, flick the thermostat down a couple of degrees before you go out and turn it back up when you get in - it won't take long to heat back up and initially when you come in from the cold you won't notice it being cooler while it heats up.

Rikki

scrummy_mummy wrote: »

What is the best thing to do in the meantime????
Timed water, or heating????

I do the same as you.

I have my heating on constant and regulate by using the thermostat. My hot water only comes on once a day for one hour in the morning. Occasionally I need to put on for another hour at night but very rarely.

I turn my heating down between 8.30pm and 9pm to 10c and at present I don't turn it back up to 18c till about 4pm / 5pm.

scrummy_mummy_2

Gonna get one of those room programmable thermostat thingies...sounds like the solution longer term.
Thank you so much everyone.....just hope I can wire it in!

allan673

scrummy_mummy wrote: »

Genius...I love you and want you to knw that!!!!...is it a simple wiring job?? I'm ok if it is simple!

its a fairly straight forward job to wire this programmer up, but you could get a heating engineer to do it for you if your unsure.depends if youve got a wiring diagram for your current boiler etc but a heating engineer will sort it easy.
it will definetely save you money.