Cheapest way to use the immersion heater

argonout

Ha Ha,

Cardew, you take this very seriously.

Open your mind to the fact it may not just be heat loss form the cylinder but also from the outlet pipe, pipes to the taps, uninsulated feeder tanks supplying colder water to the cylinder and old cylinders with maybe more tank heat loss.

I agree that it is not megabucks but from listening to everyone I think 2kw is a very conservative loss and I would be more pushed to the 8kw from the previous posts when you take in other losses.

A car maybe sold as using 35mpg at 65mph. But is that counting for extra passengers, incorrect tyre pressures, windows open, roof rack, cold temperatures, heaters on, car is several years old and not running efficiently. No, it is 35mpg in perfect conditions!. It may be 15mpg with other effects.

Your argument is the fact you have found the 35mpg from the manufacturer book you are unwilling to listen to other information.

Hence open your mind!, this isn't a place to just argue but to listen to what people say and have a think about it unless you have hard fact to dispute this.

I listened to proctalgia and it opened my mind on the debate.

argonout

Blimey djohn2002uk , your taking this very seriously as well.

I would say that might be classed as nit picking.

I would like to ask you why a top up immersion at the top of the cylinder will give you a large bath of warm water but half a bath of hot water.

Logically I would say it is the same as having a fire on the floor of a room, it would fill with smoke at the ceiling and over time the room would fill up in a downwards direction.Warm air/warm water. I might be mistaken but the room in my opinion would not be instantly filled up with smoke then just get denser with time.

What do you think?.

djohn2002uk

argonout wrote: »

What do you think?.

I'll tell you what I think. I think that you have little knowledge of the subject you are attempting to explain. Therefore I also think that this conversation with you is a waste of time. And I don't mean to be rude to you, that is my honest opinion.

argonout

I'm sorry to hear that djohn.

I think I have come up with reasonable facts and information to help the original question and it seems you use this site to hold pub room arguments, how about you come back with hard facts to prove me wrong or encourage me to side with you, or even help?.

fattyrae1

Apologies if this question was somewhere in this thread. Way too much information!!

I only have solid fuel heating and in summer need to use the immersion or i would have no hot water. Does the consenus still stand that it's cheaper to put it on as and when needed or keep it on all the time?:o

Bearing in mind i need to put it on at least every other day...

Cardew

fattyrae1 wrote: »

I only have solid fuel heating and in summer need to use the immersion or i would have no hot water. Does the consenus still stand that it's cheaper to put it on as and when needed or keep it on all the time?:o

...

Without question(regardless of any consensus) it is cheaper to have it on for as little as possible.

That said, some people think that having it switched on 24/7 costs vastly more - and it doesn't if you have a well lagged tank.

Most tanks(at 60C) 'lose' heat at rate that takes 2kWh to 3kWh every 24 hours to replace. So say 20p to 30p a day.

In practice you will always lose some heat from the tank however careful you are with switching it on and off; so I suspect that it will cost around £1 a week extra to have it on 24/7.

fattyrae1

Thanks. I'll go and turn the immersion off then.:D

germanjulian

Been reading this quite a bit but I am trying to find out how much it actually costs a month to run these.

I take it most immersion heaters use 6kwh (dual heating elements) per hour so do we then multiply this by 24 (hours) x 30 (days) times cost of electricity per kwh to get the costs?

Does anyone know the average electricity costs as all my bills have night and day and then first x hours costs this much next x hours cost x amounts?

Premier_2

germanjulian wrote: »

Been reading this quite a bit but I am trying to find out how much it actually costs a month to run these.

I take it most immersion heaters use 6kwh (dual heating elements) per hour so do we then multiply this by 24 (hours) x 30 (days) times cost of electricity per kwh to get the costs?

Does anyone know the average electricity costs as all my bills have night and day and then first x hours costs this much next x hours cost x amounts?

Whilst each element is typically rated at 3kW, you only usually use one at a time; either the top one for a boost or the lower one for a full tank full.

Furthermore, they are controlled by thermostats, so once the temperature of the water reaches the desired temperature, they should cut out.

If you have a 2 rate supply, you should heat the tank up overnight using all cheap rate electricity ... and 7 hours is normally far more than enough to heat the whole tank full.

Chef1980uk

We've managed to get in a routine of turning it on when our girls wake up around 8am and then turning it off when they have their afternoon nap at 1pm. Astonishingly there is enough hot water for a bath full for me at 10pm so it can easily be done. Taken us a year to find a routine like lol. Just hope we stick to it when the girls lose their afternoon naps