Technical question re: boiler + water heater - HUGE electricity bills, please help!

mountainlioness

Dear All

I've been struggling for a while now to work out why our electricity consumption in our new house is so high (btw I mean REALLY high - and unexplained, we do all the energy-saving lightbulbs, turning things off at the socket stuff - plus we have always been very light users)

Having tested appliances and come up with nothing untoward we decided to look into the boiler system. I'd really appreciate a techie's advice with this!

Here we go: we have an Ideal Icos condensing regular boiler. Rated A for efficiency.

In addition we have an OSO Indirect water heater 170, which, we have found out has an immersion element. As I understand it (I may be wrong) this allows the storage of hot water at pressure so you get mains -pressure hot water on demand. OSO seem to have a reputation for being at the forefront of technology on this (and are Norwegian - usually a good sign for energy efficiency!)

My questions are: do we need the OSO immersion socket on all the time? Or is this an optional extra for periods of high demand? Will we still get hot water courtesy of the boiler, even if it's at lower pressure??

And finally: is having the immersion switch on a likely cause of astronomical electricity bills?

Any insight on this gratefully received as we are now at the end of our tether (and bank balance!)

Thanks,

ML

Canucklehead

mountainlioness wrote: »

Here we go: we have an Ideal Icos condensing regular boiler. Rated A for efficiency.

Hi Cardew,
It's not a combi!

ML..

You don't need the immersion on unless the boiler packs up, so turn it off.
It won't make any difference to your water pressure, that's the water mains pressure which is not the heating system pressure displayed on a pressure gauge somewhere.
You haven't said how much your bill is, so no idea what constitutes huge.

Corgi Guy.

Cardew

Canucklehead wrote: »

Hi Cardew,
It's not a combi!

Doh.

Not only do I know little about plumbing - I can't read! and I criticised my son for not reading the exam question correctly!

Have deleted my accurate but totally irrelevant post above!

Canucklehead

Hi

I've had my moments too!

Corgi Guy.

mountainlioness

Thanks Corgiguy - really helpful

So if the immersion is off does the OSO just act as a regular water tank? I guess that with a regular boiler you need to OSO as a water tank and the immersion element is just there for a boost for high demand?

On bills we got £90 for the first 2 months... ok that's not that high for some people but we're a working couple who are hardly in and are v careful with our useage... in our last house i paid about a third of that and we were always getting our bills reissued when we sent in our meter readings.

Canucklehead

Hi

The immersion heater does not affect your water pressure in any way.
It is intended as a back up in the case of your boiler not working.Turn it off and see how your consumption goes.

Corgi Guy.

dc

You seem to have a modern equivelant of the standard hot water storage system.

Gas boiler heats the water in the cylinder ( in your case, the OSO which will be at mains pressure) for use when required at the taps. The immersion heater if switched on will heat the water when the boiler is not on as Canucklehead says. It has a thermostat so will switch on when the temp is lower than its setting.
If the immersion heater is left switched on and the boiler water heating is timed via a programmer, it will tend to switch itself on when the boiler is off and the temperature inside the tank drops. (Dependant on how good tank insulation is).
I suspect that this will happen if you are out all day with the boiler off, immersion heater beating the boiler in heating the water before the boiler timer switches on. I would leave it off and set the boiler programme to suit your needs, gas costs a quarter that of lec per Kw.

£90 for two months leccy is not too bad considering it costs 2/- a unit (10p)
It is suprising how much tellies and computers and other modern use items use. I keep chasing reducing £50 a month bills.