Paying extortionate amount, not sure how to proceed

Noctover

This blinking light is addictive. I can see that putting on just 1 small storage heater changes the blink from 13 seconds to 2. They are so expensive i miss gas!

edwink

Noctover wrote: »

Do you mean 3 to 5am? Only problem is......I cannot find a timer for it anywhere .

Yes from say 3am to 5am so the water is heated up during the Economy 7 time during the night. Doesn't need to be exact as long as it is on long enough to heat the hot water.

Edwink

Robin9

OP - you are on a learning curve aren't you.

The two switches confirm what I expected to see - the only one that should be on is the one connected to the bottom of the tank - the other is the Boost and connected to the top and should be OFF.


4kwh is not excessive - the elements in the I/H are both 3kw and there will be other things - fridge/freezer/lights going on.

What is confusing is the timing. I wouldn't expect there to be a seperate timeswitch for the I/H. Is there a timeswitch by the meter which controls the storage rads.

Talldave

Noctover wrote: »

This blinking light is addictive. I can see that putting on just 1 small storage heater changes the blink from 13 seconds to 2. They are so expensive i miss gas!

The Geo Minim will convert those flashes to Watts. Then it gets really addictive!

Does the immersion switch off once the water is hot? Is it too hot? Is there a temp adjustment in the "head" (where the wire connects)?

It sounds like an interesting piece of detective work to find out what's going on. It seems like something is switching the immersion heater on, but what and when?

Replace the boost switch with one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horstmann-Electrisaver-E30-30-120-Minute/dp/B0031KCWJI

markin

Upload to https://imgur.com/upload?beta , and post the album link with spaces like this.. https:// imgur .com/

Robin9

Did you read your meter last night?

Noctover

Morning all, slept in would you believe . Set an alarm for 4am to see if the 100A switch had gone off and the immersion heater had stopped which it had. I'm guessing it runs for about 2 hours. I'm also guessing the 100A light only comes on when the immersion heater is on because it was off at 4am.

Thanks for all the awesome advice again everyone, Robin9 you know your stuff i'll give you that!

So i installed my sensor reader this morning and have so far deducted i may never shower again!!! Overall though i'm using between 70 and 200w when the house is "idle" and by that i mean no lights PC on basic utilities like fridge/freezer etc.

I think i confused myself, i was tired getting semi excited with my new found detective job and assumed the higher number was day rate, so actually; i think despite the clock on the meter it is activating my Eco 7 at 12am exactly and that is exactly when the immersion heater comes on which is as it should be, which is a good sign. It makes sense that my night rate is costing me more in this case because, well from 13 second intervals to 0.7 is more than double the usage on a tariff that's almost exactly 50% cheaper (so even with my limited math skills i know that's going to be more overall).

Feel like I've learnt loads, so i'm going away to Italy for 2 weeks in July, I've been away many times and NEVER turned the immersion heater off! Going to save a fortune there . Also, the boost (thanks Robin9 for helping me identify that) has been on always. I've no idea what impact this has been having but i'm assuming after every washing up session this has been running my heater to top it up during daytime hours presumably costing me a fortune, so i'm hoping to make a saving here too also.

Robin latest reading i took was at 2am:

18225 Day
59726 Night

For added reference points:

20/06/ at 4:40pm:

18218 Day
59719 Night

21/06/ at 4:30pm:

18223 Day
59723 Night

It all seems pretty stable and linear right?

Just want to thank you all again for the help, this is a nice forum. Upon posting this im going on a "Thank you" clicking spree.

Robin9

To me that sounds fine - 5 units a day, 4 at night = about £1.50 a day.

Noctover

Agree. Will be interesting to see the nightly usage on a weekend when using the dryer after midnight .

Talldave

I did wonder if the 100A LED is an E7 "active" indication and your lower immersion heater is connected to that E7 output from the meter (which would mean it can only ever work on night rate energy). However, if that LED was off at 4am, is your E7 coming in two (or more) separate time periods? I believe some areas do work like that.

The equation for power from flashing led is
Power!(kW) =!3600!(secs in 1hr) divided by!(the seconds between flashes * number of Imp/kWh printed on meter)