which is best to heat water - oil or immersion?

mcds01

Hi,

In our house we have oil fired central heating which also heats the water. However it does not seem to be able to heat the water on its own without heating all the radiators.

So with the slightly milder weather coming in I was wondering if it is better for us to use the immersion heater for a bit in the morning to get us hot water or continue to use the oil. It just seems rather wasteful to heat the radiators whenever we are just getting up, showering and leaving the house but then its not cheap to run an immersion!

Any advice appreciated.

Cardew

Oil!

At current prices oil is about the cheapest fuel available.

You don't have to heat radiators, switch off the Central heating.

mcds01

Im not sure I can do that. The control panel has no option for hot water only. It appears to be all or nothing as far as I can see.

benichembla

It will all depend on how much water you intend heating, immersion would be more expensive the more you heat, but for small ammounts could be better.

staffie1

can you not switch the radiators off one by one using the valve on each rad?

mcds01

switching rads off doesnt make a difference - the same amount of water is heated and pumped around the system

Cardew

mcds01 wrote: »

switching rads off doesnt make a difference - the same amount of water is heated and pumped around the system

You have that totally wrong I am afraid!

If a radiator is turned off, then the water in the radiator is not being pumped around the system. If every radiator is off only the water in the pipes is being pumped around the system. However there really shoud be a way to turn off your CH and have only Hot water, or a wall(room) thermostat that when turned down switches off the pump.

Every radiator, that is turned on, disippates heat and cools down the water in the CH system.

The more radiators that are turned off, the less the water is cooled and you use less oil.

master_of_puppets

you might have a lever on the pipes that leads to the rads next to the tank which would turn off the rads, if you don't have the facility on the programmer.
i would say, if you can't turn the rads off at all it would be cheaper to use the immersion.