Immersion Heater - Timer Issue vs Bill

R007cwi

Hi there, I recently moved into a house in December with an immersion heater. We got a bill from British Gas for the electricity only covering 45 days usage (mid December to beginning of Feb) for £540, saying we used on average 61.2 kWh per day. At the end of February, we stopped getting hot water entirely from the immersion heater, called out an engineer who advised that the timer needed to be replaced. I fear that in the run-up to the timer breaking, the heater could’ve been running all the time. Could this be a possible reason for the insanely high bill in your opinion?

Since having the timer fixed on March 10th I’ve been tracking the meter and have seen the usage fall to approximately 18kwh per day.

Thanks

JJ_Egan

Yes
Did you have constant hot water .
Immersion are normally temp controlled and switch off at x temp .

Robin9

The heater will not run full time unless you have a tap fully open all the time.

In practise the immersion tank heats up - possibly in a couple of hours - and runs on a thermostat for the rest of the E7 hours and consumes nothing the rest of the day unless you use the boost facility.

AndyPK

how do you heat your house ?

Cardew

Did you read your meter when you moved in during December; and give the reading to BG?


If you didn't supply BG with the reading, the bill for £540 could well mean you paid for some of the previous occupant's consumption.


Anyway the answer to your question is that there is no way an immersion heater left on 24/7 would account for a large increase in your bill. An average well insulated hot water tank will only lose 1 or 2kWh in 24 hours if the immersion is left on all the time.