Idea of cost of running a immersion heater

MFewings

My daughter and her partner are venturing into renting their first home and the property they like only has hot water via a immersion heater.

I know nothing about the cost of running these and have been told by people that its very expensive.

Could anyone offer some advice please as we dont want them facing huge electricity bills way outside their budget.

Sorry if this is in wrong place, if so could someone move it to correct message board. Thanks

tanith

Mine used to be expensive to run many years ago but if they are careful and only have it on long enough to heat adequate water when they need it , trial and error for a few weeks , they should be able to keep down the costs... also make sure the tank is very well lagged....

Cardew

It really is impossible to say.

Firstly they have a powerful heating element - normally 3kW. So while it is heating up the water it will cost 25-30p an hour. ( much less at night if you have an economy 7 tariff)

However they are thermostatically controlled(which means the heater switches on and off automatically when the water is hot enough. - if it didn't do this the water would get too hot and eventually boil.

So the important thing is how long the heater is running for(i.e.using power.
That depends on how much hot water you use, and how well insulated the hot water tank is(using a thick jacket or covered in foam)

If that is the only way of heating water, then it should be on a timer or they need to switch it on and off as required. Bear in mind that a well insulated tank will keep the water hot for many hours.

Depending what type of heating for the home they have it might be worth changing to Economy 7 electricity.

missy1

I'm glad i found this forum, then this thread.
I just switched off my hot water for the first time in nearly yrs!!! This is because i have 2 children, 2 dogs and a partner whose a mechanic! I'll take the advice here and start getting into a routine of switching on and off.

Thanks

Sam

space_rider

Does the property have storage heaters too? if so it could already be on E7 and already have a timer for the immersion heater. If not I would be very wary of using an immersion heater because of the costs and it is so easy to forget to turn it off. Would definetly recommend a timer assuming the landlord will let them fit one or fit one himself.

MFewings

Thanks for all the responses.

It is just a little 1 bedroomed house (like a semi detached property split front and back so making 4 1 bedroomed properties), with just a gas fire in living room. Electric Shower and the immersion heater.

As the sprial staircase leads from living room to bedroom the gas fire will be heating both rooms.

We have been and viewed the property twice this last couple of weeks and its been empty for a month. It hasnt seemed very cold inside so not to concerned about gas bill.

MATH

If you have an off-peak metre it is worth you buying a timer. For £15-20 you can buy and immersion timer which is easy to install yourself (I did mine and I'm no sparky!) I now wake up to a full tank of hot water each morning using only cheap rate leccy and any unused water is still toasty in the evening for washing up and night time face washing.

The last price comparrison (emid off-peak prices are generally V good) I did showed almost no difference in using off-peak leccy and gas for water heating.

Cardew

As the house has an an electric shower, you won't need a lot of hot water; so there will be no point in getting Econamy 7.

Just be aware that some gas fires are very inefficient and much of the heat is wasted.

tomstickland

I have Economy 7 heating and I only run my immersion heater on the night circuit (the hot water tank has two heaters. The lower one is on the night cirucuit and the upper one is a top up heater). The water stays hot enough to do the washing up the next night.
If they have an electric shower then it might be cheaper to leave the immersion heater off and use a kettle to boil washing up water. I considered doing that, but decided that with Econ7 it was cheap enough for me to use the immersion heater. At least in winter the wasted heat is used to warm the house.