Efficient Heating Use

Danja123

Hi,
I'd be extremely grateful if I could some receive some advice on our heating system.

We have just moved into a new two bedroom, all-electricity flat. We are on a pre-payment meter and having just received our welcome letter from Scottish Power we have found out that we are on the Standard Tariff. This has thrown me a bit on how to best use our heating system as I assumed prior to this that we would be on the Economy 7 tariff.

In terms of heating hot water etc I'm assuming we have a dual immersion heater (as there are two switches next to the heater which if I'm right in thinking one heats the top part and second heats the bottom). However, I cannot seem to locate the thermostat to check whether the temperature setting is too high.

In addition there is a water heater timer in the kitchen with a separate plug socket style ‘water heater’ switch at the side. For the first week I originally had the timer set up to come on for the duration of “off-peak” electricity as I assumed that we would have been on the Economy 7 tariff. However, with this not being the case I am wondering how to best use the immersion heater and the timer?

Our daily hot water use comes on average to two showers with the occasional bath to replace the shower at night, washing the dishes once a day and one use of the washing machine a day.

Would we get enough hot water for this via the top element of the immersion heater? How long would it take to heat the whole immersion heater or the top element only?

I’m not sure on which switches should be left on constantly in order to provide our hot water at the most efficient price and whether we should use the timer at all? We have moved in without any instructions and I have never used this type of heating before!