How is my water heated?

chocolatelover93

Hi,
Not sure if this is the right forum or not but I was wondering how I find out how my water is heated?

I know it sounds like a stupid question but I don't actually know, I don't have a airing cupboard in my house, I'm guesing it is a water tank in the loft as we have two lofts, one upstairs and one downstairs. The downstairs one is above the bathroom which is also downstairs.

Hope this makes sense!! As I need to know because I've been told by NPower this could be why my energy bill is so hight. And yes again I know it's odd I don't know, but I am only 21 and although I've lived in my house over a year I live on my own (wth my hubby) and it's the first time I've had to think about these things!!

Thanks for reading.

tanith

Do you have a boiler which does your heating/water? Do you have a copper tank with an attached emersion heater anywhere in the house? If you have a central heating boiler have look at the controls does it have heating and water?

SeduLOUs

Sounds from other thread that the bulk of your general house heating is electric. Do you have a gas supply i.e. to a cooker? Do you have a gas account with NPower?

chocolatelover93

My whole house is electric so there is no boiler, I've never been in the loft so I have no idea what is up there as I don't have any ladders or anything to stand on to get up there.
All I know is that I am on a water meter, I have no idea where the meter is located but there is a timer thing next to the bathroom, when I get home shall I take a photo of it and upload?

Cardew

As you have no gas, and have storage heaters, your water will be heated by an immersion heater in a hot water tank.


The HW tank will usually be covered by polystyrene foam or a quilt


Depending on the wiring in your property, the electricity will be supplied to the immersion heater in the 7 hours of cheap rate electricity on an Economy 7 tariff.


There may be a facility to boost the hot water if it runs out and that is likely to be on the 'timer thing next to the bathroom'.


You need to find out how to control the timer

macman

I think from the OP's other thread it's been established that her usage is not excessively high (about 11,800kWh pa, with 45% on night rate): the problem has been that her DD was set unrealistically low, resulting in the usual huge catch up bill and the inevitable hike in the DD. NPower's chaotic billing has of course clouded the issue.
The most recently advised DD level was £94pm, which appears about right (before taking any debit balance into account).
The only suggested change was to stop heating rooms on peak rate power as at present.
Also the OP is on a very uncompetitive tariff and is about to switch to another uncompetitive Npower one tomorrow. Make sure this has no exit fees in case you want to switch away shortly.

lstar337

If you are on E7 hot water and your tank is properly insulated, then I doubt this would be the cause of high bills. Unless you are boosting all the time, or there is some kind of wiring fault.

Are your bills unusually high for an all electric property, or are they just higher than you expected?

All electric properties do have higher (than gas) bills anyway, so we need to establish if yours are normal high, or over the top high.

lstar337

macman wrote: »

I think from the OP's other thread it's been established that her usage is not excessively high (about 11,800kWh pa, with 45% on night rate): the problem has been that her DD was set unrealistically low, resulting in the usual huge catch up bill and the inevitable hike in the DD. NPower's chaotic billing has of course clouded the issue.
The most recently advised DD level was £94pm, which appears about right (before taking any debit balance into account).
The only suggested change was to stop heating rooms on peak rate power as at present.
Also the OP is on a very uncompetitive tariff and is about to switch to another uncompetitive Npower one tomorrow. Make sure this has no exit fees in case you want to switch away shortly.

That makes my new post redundant. :rotfl:

Why do OP's feel the need to scatter information across multiple threads?

macman

Because she thought that water heating should come under 'water', rather than electricity and gas.
Link to other thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5228054

chocolatelover93

Thank you everyone for uour help