Two hot water taps on large hot water cylinder!

Scribos

I have a one bedroom flat, electricity supply only. It has a legacy, very old and badly insulated huge hot water cylinder with a cold water supply tank above it. It supplies hot water to just two taps, one in the bathroom for the basin, and the other in the kitchen sink. My bills are large! There must be a cheaper, more efficient way of providing hot water for my two taps?

Any suggestions would be very welcome!

Scribos

Subject should be ‘Two hot water taps and one large hot water cylinder!’

Got fingers in a twist. ��

greyteam1959

You say 'badly insulated'..........
Get it properly insulated would be a good starting point.
Cheap & effective.

Carer

You could buy a sink water heater that just heats the water when you turn the tap on and just turn off the large one.

We have these in our work sinks.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/bhp/over-sink-water-heater

ceredigion

Your central heating is by ?

Ectophile

Under sink water heaters are an alternative to over sink ones, and you can hide them.



Lots of insulation on the tank would help a lot. Also make sure all the pipes going in and out of the tank are lagged, at least for as far as you can see them.


Assuming it's an immersion heater, don't leave it on all the time. Just heat the water up before you need it.

jk0

I had a similar arrangement in my first flat 30 years ago. The first thing I did was ask for Economy 7, and I fitted a timeswitch. Next thing I did was put a further jacket over the lower tank.


When I was unemployed, (and really hard up) I used to experiment with reducing the time the thing heated overnight. I think I got it down to one and a quarter hours a night. This gave sufficient hot water for one lot of dishes and one bath every two days.

naf123

define "huge". how any liters?

FreeBear

greyteam1959 wrote: »

You say 'badly insulated'..........
Get it properly insulated would be a good starting point.
Cheap & effective.

Some tanks come with an integrated header tank, so the one in the loft can be jettisoned. Depending on how old the pipework is, it may even be a simple swap out job.

I also have a large HW tank to supply a sink in the bathroom (plus bath) and another tap in the kitchen. It is not worth heating a whole tank just to wash the dishes or a face, so I'll boil the kettle instead.

bluewater

I had a similar situation. You could consider removing the tanks entirely and fitting one of these:

http://www.ariston.com/uk/Electric_Water_Heaters/andrislux

You can never have a bath but fit an electric shower.

You will gain a lot of useful space.

It's not a big job - plumber would use existing pipework.

Robin9

Are you renting ? If so you will need your landlords consent.

or boil a kettle.