Turning off my boiler at night? (Silly question perhaps)

bernieuk

Good morning all

This is probably an obvious question. A couple of days ago I had to submit my meter readings. I was shocked at our monthly electricity payment having to increase from £16.00 to £54.00. Npower checked it all out and we are simply using too much electricity.

So, we are going to be doing our best to be a lot more prudent.

We have a Vaillant ecoTEC boiler that heats our hot water and provides heat via gas. It is timed not to heat at night. Considering that should we turn it off at the mains and not have it on at all during the night?

It may be that the savings may not be huge but every little helps I suppose!

macman

What is your annual kWh consumption? £'s DD's don't really tell us anything.
A modern boiler uses relatively little in standby-certainly nothing that would account for an increase like that. If you switch it off, you will wake up to a cold house, because the timer will not operate.
£16 pm is far too little for electricity in almost any property. Your DD has most likely been increased because it was inadequate to cover your ongoing consumption and you have now built up debt. Your DD has been increased to recover this and cover your actual ongoing consumption. To avoid this in future, submit readings at least every 3 months.

tim_n

I was in a 1 bed flat with gas heating and water, everything eco (lights even the rarely used game console was a wii). My electricity bill was about £25 as was the gas.

bernieuk

Thank you for the replies! It does seem like I did build up a debt as the amounts I was paying - £16 for each - were too low. The new charges are now £13 for gas and £54 for electricity. This is for a 2 bedroom flat with just two of us living here. A £38 increase in electricity was a shock. We have been customers of Npower since August 2011. During the first 3 months we used 877 kWh and the last 3 months 1188 kWh.

We are going to a good look at what we use and try & cut down if we can. The biggest use is probably our electric cooker. We do not have any heating on at night anyway and waking up to a cold flat will not worry us too much so I may just flick the switch on the boiler overnight.

Thanks again.

victor2

The electricity used by your boiler controls is going to be negligible.
You need to identify what your big users of electricity are. Your cooker could, as you have stated, be a major user. Do you have any other heavy user of electricity, such as an electric shower or tumble dryer? Take electricity meter readings at different times of the day, such as before and after cooking a meal, to get an idea of how much you are using.
Your supplier may even offer a free electricity monitor, or see if you can borrow one. They're not terribly accurate, but do give a good indication of when power is being used and roughly how much.

bernieuk

victor2 wrote: »

The electricity used by your boiler controls is going to be negligible.
You need to identify what your big users of electricity are. Your cooker could, as you have stated, be a major user. Do you have any other heavy user of electricity, such as an electric shower or tumble dryer? Take electricity meter readings at different times of the day, such as before and after cooking a meal, to get an idea of how much you are using.
Your supplier may even offer a free electricity monitor, or see if you can borrow one. They're not terribly accurate, but do give a good indication of when power is being used and roughly how much.

My computer is on most of the day & night as is my Wife's laptop. No tumble dryer or electric shower but the washing machine is on most days as is the cooker so they are the likely culprits. I suppose it is common sense really! :j

macman

So you are not actually using £54 of electricity per month. Part of that (how much?) is recovery of the debt. Once the debt is recovered, your DD will fall.
What is needed is your annual kWH figures, but 1,188kWH during a winter quarter is not high.

JimmyTheWig

Test it.

Take a meter reading before you go to bed.
Leave boiler electric switched on.
Take a meter reading when you get up.

The next night switch the boiler electric off and take readings again.

See if there is a difference between what is used each night.


Obviously this will only be a fair test if everything else is equal. E.g. will be garbage if one night you have an electric blanket on, or a turkey roasting overnight, etc!


I can't imagine that the boiler uses any measurable electricity.

gas4you

My software for my UPS on my computer tells me it is using around 3Kw/day as I have it on 24/7.

Doesn't sound much, but it soon adds up.

Leave your boiler on, as the pcb will want to monitor the boiler and spin the pump, usually at night, to prevent it from sticking etc.

lithopsian

As mentioned, most boilers should be left on. Electricity use is far from zero even when the heating is not being used, but they are not designed to be turned off either for short or long periods, unless they are drained of water.

Typical power use will be 10W-20W when not running, and up to 100W or more when the heating is actually on, as in heat being demanded by your room thermostat or other controller. Much of this is the pump which uses over 100W on its own on some boilers. More expensive system or combi boilers, and some other heating systems, may use a proportional power pump that uses less power most of the time, but the total for the boiler will still be over 50W in most cases.

The rest of the power is going to operate the computer that runs your boiler and all the lights that manufacturers feel compelled to put on there. My boiler even has a light to tell me when it is in "Eco" power-saving mode. Muppets! I feel it is excessive for the boiler electrics to use more power than the computer I'm typing this message on, but they do.

A daily total of 3kWH for the boiler alone seems excessive. That's the equivalent of 125W continuous. If your pump is running continuously 24/7 then maybe that's right but you might want to consider whether that's the best use of your money. Most people have a thermostat that turns the pump off when the house is warm enough.

JimmyTheWig

lithopsian wrote: »

A daily total of 3kWH for the boiler alone seems excessive.

I believe the figure of 3kWh was for a computer, not a boiler.

[Otherwise a very helpful post, thanks.]