Advice needed please

jessie4109

I am currently with Eon for both gas and electricity.

I live in a 3 bedroom house there are 3 occupants (myself, 4 year old and 5 year old). It is a council property and has an old back boiler for heating and water but also has an immersion heater for hot water. Cooking is all done by electric means.

I am just wondering if anyone could give me any advice on how to run this money eating machine back boiler cheaper?

I've turned the number underneath the boiler down to try and cut the cost but when it is on the radiator feels luke warm at best.

I have no room thermostat so it is either off or on.

For the past month i've had it switched off (as I have a timer switch on the wall) but have noticed that my gas reading has gone up from last read from 7/5/2013 as 06212 and as of today its 06216. I am positive that i've not had any heating on but I dare not get it checked out incase 1 of the kids had accidentally pressed something on it as there's a £51 fee if they check it and its all ok. I'm keeping an eye on it though.

I am even considering having someone come out and cap the gas off and to use an electric heater in the evenings in the living room and putting the kids in onsies in bed as in October my tariff ends and there will be a standing charge to pay.

WestonDave

Very likely an old back boiler is running a pilot light (a small flame which will then light the main burner when required) which will use some gas - maybe enough for the readings you have given.

You do however seem to be going about this the wrong way! Electricity costs more per kWh than gas, despite them being more or less as effective when used. In principle therefore heating with gas is always cheaper than doing the same job by using electricity. Using your immersion heater rather than gas boiler will more than likely increase your costs rather than decrease them unless your gas boiler is more inefficient than anything yet known!

Things to get checked are that the gas central heating isn't operating every time the water heating is on - this is wasteful because in summer you don't need heating - it sometimes happens if valves stick in the system. Turning the boiler down as low as you have simply lowers the operating temperature of the radiators - it doesn't really save money as it just means they have to be on for longer to heat the house up. At this time of year you shouldn't really need heating on - warm clothes and extra duvets might be nice if its a cooler day but it should be manageable without heating. Again using electric heating is normally more expensive but sometimes you can save if only using one room.

(My guesstimate is that worst case scenario - if you have a meter marked Cuft or ft3 your usage will have cost something like £5, if its a metric meter marked m3 then it will be around £1.35)

jessie4109

Thank you for your response and I fully appreciate it as back boilers are somewhat new to me as previous properties have had condensing boilers or no gas at all.

The pilot light does seem to make lots of sense now you've mentioned it.

Just another Q as you seem to know what you're talking about.

Does me turning down the boiler also mean that i've turned down the temperature that the water gets hot?
I'm only really using the immersion as it gets much hotter than using the gas way of heating it up (unless im not giving it enough time to get hot).

If I did get an electric heater it would just be for the small living room as that is the main room we all use in the evenings then just pop a hot water bottle in each of kids beds about 30 mins before kids go to bed and remove them before i get them in bed.

The meter is a metric meter so seems to be about right at £1.35 yet this time next year it will have cost the price of the gas + £3.75 (or more) standing charge oh well.

Candy53

We have one of these too, no thermostat and not even any switches downstairs.

No, turning the knob on underneath the boiler doesn't affect the temperature of the water. It only turns the burner up or down for the heating, and as you've noticed, by turning it to low, your rads are only warm.

Our rads need flushing out, so we've had to put them on full, but in the winter we only set the knob at 3 and a half, which is what the gas man advised us to do.

Your water, with you being in a council house, has probably been set at 60° as ours has.

It is alot cheaper to use the gas to heat the water than electricity, and you should be able to do this separately to your heating.

Even though we have asked the gas men and plumbers, as we were also new to this old heating system when we moved in 3 years ago the jury is still out on whether it is cheaper to turn the rads up and the knob on boiler down or keep the knob turned up and the rads on low.


Candy

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

Hi Jessie

Already some good advice on here. Just thought I'd mention a couple of ways we might be able to help you save a bit on your overall energy usage.

We've a specialist team of Energy Efficiency advisors. Have a chat to these guys. Tell them about your property and appliances. They'll be happy to advise of ways you might be able to cut back.

Ask for a copy of a booklet called '100 ways to save money by saving energy.' It's free and contains lots of good advice.

Check out our website, too. Particularly, the 'Interactive House' and 'Energy Menu.' More good tips here.

Hope this is of interest Jessie. Give me a shout if you need any more info as will be happy to help.

Malc