Economy 7 and underfloor heating

Arl21

I've recently moved into an ex HA 2 bed apartment. It's was completely modernised 5 years ago due to a fire. It has an immersion boiler, running a radiator system with an economy 7 timer. It also has independent electric underfloor heating in each room with each room controlled individually. And finally it has a vent axia ventilation with heat recovery unit which runs 24 hours a day. I currently have a single tariff electric meter (not economy 7) and am only using the underfloor heating briefly in the morning and early evening. The radiator system is off. The flat is warm but my electric bills are nearly £6 a day and it's not even really cold yet. My smart meter suggests that half my usage is at night between 2 and 3am and then 4.30 till 6am when I'm asleep. 
Given I'm not on economy 7 (and don't think it will be worthwhile since I only use the underfloor heating during the day) should I get the timer unit switched on the immersion heater to something that allows me to only heat the water at times I'm actually going to need it, or is there a way to adjust the current timer to achieve the same result?
Any advice appreciated as this system is totally new to me, I've only ever had gas combi heating before. Sorry for the long post!

Swipe

The immersion heater at my previous house has a single element but the 1hr boost button was enough to heat my water without having to have it set to a timed schedule. In the depths of winter it did sometimes take an extra 10 mins of boost on top for the thermostat to kick in.

Gerry1

Welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately you have the worst possible set up because it relies on day rate electricity.  Any savings you might make on overnight E7 hot water will be wiped out by the E7 daytime rate demands from the electric boiler and the underfloor system: the E7 daytime rate is even higher than the ordinary single rate.

Obviously the HA gave no thought to the costs of running the system because it's not their problem.

Sadly the costs will always be cripplingly expensive and the only real solution is to move to somewhere with gas.

wittynamegoeshere

It sounds like there's a wet underfloor heating system in addition to the electric one.  I think the idea is that the tank gets heated on cheap rate leccy in the night, then it gets pumped through the floor during the day.  Presumably it's a pretty big tank.  If that's how it works then it may not be totally terrible.  It's basically a centralised storage heater using water as the storage medium.  It's a modern system, as it was fitted recently.

I'd be inclined to give it a try and see how much comfort you get for how much power.  Then, if it works well, it might be worth switching to an Economy 7 tariff.

Someone decided it was worth paying presumably a lot of money to install it, but sometimes HAs do weird things.

Oh, and you haven't said - is gas available or not?

Arl21

Hi, Thanks for the quick replies. The underfloor heating is great. It's quick, responsive and doesn't leave cold spots or draughts so I'm happy using that and it dies not seem too expensive.
The hot water is more of an issue. I'm certainly not moving house just to get gas, when sooner or later we will all have to switch to electric. The flat is small and I've already lost space to the heater and the ventilation system so I don't really want to install and additional hot water system.
Can I just fit a different timer unit to the immersion heater instead of the economy 7 one? I can't just use the boost function as timer unit operates in 2 modes, ON or TIMER

wittynamegoeshere

You'll need to work out how the timer works.  Is there a mechanical or digital timer somewhere?  It's possible that it may be just wired to the meter's off-peak output.  If you've switched to a single tariff you may need some re-wiring to make it work.