Immersion heater

CashStrapped

It sounds like the flat once had storage heaters and an Economy 7 taiff.

An economy 7 set-up ment that the electric switched to a much cheaper rate during the night. This allowed storage heaters to charge and store all the heat ready to be released the next day. The water tank, using the large bottom element would also heat the whole tank ready for the next day. As I said, this would have been done at a much cheaper rate.

It sounds like that who ever have the flat before changed the set up to panel heaters and a single rate tarrif.

This new set up could be a lot more expensive (but it depended on how the previous owner used the flat).

A lot of the time the problem is that a lot of people do not learn how to properly use storage heaters and under a false impression that panel heaters are cheaper, rip them out. Like I said, it can depend on living habits and how occupied the house is, but if used correctly an Economy 7 system can be much cheaper.

The best you can do is maybe find the cheapest standard electric tariff you can based on your usage. It terms of heating the water, heat only what you need.

The water tank should have two elements. The bottom one heats the whole tank, so will be more expensive to use. The top element will be the boost element, and will only heat the top quarter of the tank. This (when economy 7) was designed so that the cheap rate used the large bottom element for the whole tank. You then used the top "boost" element if you needed it during the day on the much more expensive rate.

In your case, if you are on your own, you may get away with just using the top boost element to heat the tank.