Oil v emersion - any advice please?

Pincher

A._Badger wrote: »

You're right. Country living is a lot more expensive - as I know to my cost! There is another downside to immersion heaters than just he running cost. The current generation seem to be made out of tin foil. They don't last like they used to.

Bought a pair of immersion elements for a Gledhill thermal store from PlumbCenter a few years ago: £130! I asked them why so expensive, they say they're made from titanium.

Subsequently I found I could have bought them on the web for half the price, but they are still very expensive to the bog standard ones. The previous ones lasted ten years in a very hard water (4) area. My understanding is that thermal stores operate at around 80 degrees, above the threshold where lime scale corrosion gets aggressive. Regular hot water cylinders operate around 65 degrees, which is below the threshold. It seems that if you use the immersion element on Economy 7 every day, you can expect three year life span from a regular element, but less in hard water area.

This suggests that you can:

1. Buy expensive elements which will withstand lime scale attack longer

2. Treat your water to reduce lime scale.

I don't like the water softener with salt approach, so I have an electronic one with the wires wrapped around the mains water pipe.

skintmumof2

Hi.
Im in a 3bed semi.
Moved in last August. We had a few inches of oil like you (in a cylinder tank of 1200l) lasted till about november.
We ran out when it got cold and had no choice but to use imersion for hot water and use electric heaters. We are on a electric meter and went from putting about £25 a week to £60 a week over the coldest period. We have a open fire too we burned a heck of lot of wood on it abd it was only warm if u sat right near it. Then you was cold when you moved away from it.
Oil is the best way if you can afford it at the time.
Our plan this year is to use our open fire to warm the main room when it chills and got an oil filled radiator which is more effecient to warm kids bedrooms then when the chill really bites use the oil for heating.
It does not use that much just for hot water. In 3 months our guage has dropped by 2 inches which i reckon is around under 80-100 litres by when we had it delivered.
500l delivered in Dec 11 lasted us 8 weeks to end of jan with heating on for 4 hours a day and hot water for 2 hours so the heating really drains your oil.
hth

alleycat`

skintmumof2 wrote: »

Hi.
and got an oil filled radiator which is more effecient to warm kids bedrooms

Didn't grasp this bit.
More efficient than what exactly?

fishybusiness

Interesting costs for heating water with an immersion heater. I keep an eye on ours and the actual cost is 4 or 5 units per night. That's E7 rate - say 6p per kWh, and the timer keeps it running for 4.5 hrs per night, set to come on about 2:30am.

Enough water for a couple of baths and washing up all day.

On paper I wouldn't be able to estimate accurately just how much time the immersion is actually running, so the night rate meter is my most accurate method. Anyway, that equates to 5 x 6p, 30p per night, £110 per year.

macman

alleycat` wrote: »

Didn't grasp this bit.
More efficient than what exactly?

I suspect that what the OP means is 'quicker'. Certainly not cheaper.

notrouble

Whichever you use, double insulate the hot water cylinder. Modern ones come with pre-formed insulation but for £3-4 you can buy those red tank jackets at B&Q. Well worth adding on top of the tank.

twiglet98

Interesting discussion, I wish I had a better understanding of the figures. I have continued to use oil to heat our water in the summer, having the boiler on for half an hour morning and evening provides plenty for three showers, sometimes four, per day, and washing up. When DD and her partner get their own place and it's just me rattling around in here, it will be one shower and one load of washing up, which will probably need the boiler on for half an hour a day, or even alternate days.

My boiler is 26 years old and I'm terrified that if I don't use it for a while, it won't fire up again.

The hot water cylinder is hard-wired into a socket with an on/off switch, but it doesn't have any means of setting a timer. My electricity is Economy 10 and if I run out of oil, which is very possible, or the boiler gives up the ghost, equally likely, I will have to set an alarm to remind me to switch the immersion on - and off - during cheap rate electricity, and will just light the open fire each evening.

TiredGeek

twiglet98 wrote: »

The hot water cylinder is hard-wired into a socket with an on/off switch, but it doesn't have any means of setting a timer.

Screwfix and Toolstation do timers for immersion heaters that you just put in line with the wiring. Gonna cost you about £15 and take 30 mins to fit. Dead easy to do, just remember to isolate the socket before you start

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Electronic+Immersion+Heater+&+General+Purpose+Timer/p21022
I use them for outdoor lights as well

Ben84

samandmillie wrote: »

* the house has an open fire in the lounge. !Will this help to heat the house during winter?

It will emit heat, but the value of using it is another matter. Open fires can be very inefficient and firewood often isn't that cheap per kWh to buy, so without more details, it depends really.

samandmillie wrote: »

* should I buy an electric heater for the bedrooms so we don't have to use the heating overnight in winter?

You can also turn off the other radiators and just heat the one room with many systems. Another option is an electric blanket. Very cheap to use and very effective too. Personally, I turn my heating down low overnight rather than off, but even when the heating was broken I was entirely comfortable with the electric blanket. Turning the heating off just creates condensation which I don't like.

Ben84

twiglet98 wrote: »

Interesting discussion, I wish I had a better understanding of the figures. I have continued to use oil to heat our water in the summer, having the boiler on for half an hour morning and evening provides plenty for three showers, sometimes four, per day, and washing up. When DD and her partner get their own place and it's just me rattling around in here, it will be one shower and one load of washing up, which will probably need the boiler on for half an hour a day, or even alternate days.

My boiler is 26 years old and I'm terrified that if I don't use it for a while, it won't fire up again.

The hot water cylinder is hard-wired into a socket with an on/off switch, but it doesn't have any means of setting a timer. My electricity is Economy 10 and if I run out of oil, which is very possible, or the boiler gives up the ghost, equally likely, I will have to set an alarm to remind me to switch the immersion on - and off - during cheap rate electricity, and will just light the open fire each evening.

If you have oil heating, I'm wondering why you have economy 10 as it typically incurs a higher cost per kWh during the day? You do normally have to be consuming quite a lot of electricity overnight in the cheaper rate hours to make it pay off. Most houses with oil or gas heating however use most their electricity during the day.