Using a timer in the washing machine.

Cardew

livelife wrote: »

I have just moved into a house that is supplied by my work which has economy 7. As well as thinking about the washing machine I was wondering about the hot water system. The system is a standard old one (which I won't change as its not my house) run by gas with a hot water tank and immersion . Has anyone set up a timer to heat the hot water via the immersion heater at 7am or so? This would heat the water for the day on economy 7 which is cheaper than the gas price.
Mike

Yes when I was on E7 I fitted a timer to the immersion heater. I simply cut the cable* and connected it. - some immersion heaters plug into a 13 amp socket and you can fit a timer on that. It had timing facilities and an overide for an hour if you needed a top up in the day.

The advantage is you can completely shut off gas(including pilot light) in the summer.

That said there is very little to choose in running costs between heating water by gas and E7 electricity.

I take it you are aware that you pay more for daytime electricity when you have an E7 tariff? Depending on your supplier and area you need to use quite a lot of electricity at night to make E7 viable and this is difficult to achieve if you use gas for heating.

I needed to use 30% at night to 'break even', which I couldn't achieve, so changed from E7 to'normal' tariff.

* obviously ensuring all power was disconnected!!!!!!

diamond_dave

I have to echo post #17 by Rogro- these basic timers should only be used for items like lamps and such i believe that many fires are started by people putting too heavy load on them especially washers and dryers.Similar thing applies to uncoiled extension leads and vacuum cleaners -heat builds up within the cable - please ensure that all leads are fully unwound.