Economy 7 hot water not working during off-peak times

rustyy

Hi, first time posting here.

I’m on an Economy 7 tariff, but up until recently only used it to heat my storage heaters, but never used it to heat water overnight as I just use the electric shower whenever I need it. I had the boost timer to come on at 7pm for half an hour to heat the water so I could do the washing up. However, the electric shower is broken and am now wanting to use hot water from the cylinder heated overnight to take showers in the bath instead.

I changed changed the off-peak timer setting to come on from 01:30 to 07:00, but woke up to find it hasn’t heated the water at all. I’ve had to resort to using the boost button during peak times to heat the water. The ‘Timed’ light would come on when the timer enters the chosen off-peak time, but can’t hear the water heating like I do when the boost button is pressed. Unfortunately, I don’t know if the off-peak timer ever worked as I haven’t used it since it the timer and cylinder was replaced.

Over 10 years ago the cylinder and 2 switches were changed to a cylinder with one Heatrae Sadia Pullin 11” element on top and a Horstmann Electronic 7 timer. I wasn’t there at the time of the change. I’m confused as to why they stopped using the second switch and went for this setup given that from my searches online everyone talking about Economy 7 hot water setups to have a cylinder with two elements: one at the bottom for off-peak and one in the middle for the boost and 2 separate switches to control them. Also, I noticed one of the fuses on the fuse box for the Economy 7 circuit has burn marks. I don’t know if this was before or after the replacement.

Before I contact an electrician, I’d like to understand if my setup is common as it doesn’t seem like it, and also, what should I expect a good electrician to be doing when assessing, triaging, and fixing the issue.

Thanks in advance.

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately you've posted in the wrong part (it's badly designed) so you may not get many replies.

Try re-posting in Energy.