SSE Total Heat Total Control Water heating

PokerPirate

Hi all,

We've just bought a property in Aberdeenshire off the gas grid. We have electric storage heaters and an immersion hot water tank.

We are currently on the total heat total control tariff with SSE as that's what the previous owners were on. I have been advised SSE will switch this for free to an economy 7 should we desire, at which point Scottish Power currently offer the best rate.

I've got a decent handle on how to use the storage heaters based on reading many a thread on many a forum, however the immersion heater is providing me with a headache.

Our timer is a Horstmann B73X, there is no clock, only a boost switch.

I seem to have no control over how long and when my hot water gets heated. When our cheap rate energy kicks in (as determined by sse) does our immersion heater kick into gear? Are we paying for 5-12 hours a day depending on the weather?

Ideally I'd like to be able to choose an hour or two in the morning as there are only two of us to shower.

Do I need a more sophisticated timer? All help is greatly appreciated, thanks.

Wolf3

Not sure if its much help, as far as i can remember, i'm going back a decade or so, the immersion heating is wired in with the THTC timing so is all dependent on the distributor, when its heated and is based upon the weather forecast.

molerat

Yes the water will be on at the same time as the heating - between 5 and 12 hours a day - but once the tank is hot it will switch off. The tank should be super insulated so will not lose much heat. If you go to E7 the same will apply. The only alternative is to fit a timer but that could lead to the water being heated on full price electric.

PokerPirate

Thanks for the replies.

Molerat - Our tariff includes 24 hour water heating at the lower rate. Yesterday when we had guests staying I needed to manually start the immersion tank for an hour in the afternoon and I watched the meter to confirm it did in fact use the cheaper rate.

With this knowledge, and your answer to my original question, it seems that fitting a timer would be my best option.