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

mountainlioness

Dear All

Just posted on gas and elec but realised now my question's probably better here - hope someone can help!

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

Cardew

See post in gas and electricity forum - I suggest you delete your post above.