How can I upgrade my water boiler to save money?

maryjtzr

Hi everyone!

I bought my flat back in September and since, I have been using a lot of electricity. Even if all the radiators are switched off all day (we have electric radiators) and barely use lights, TV etc., we are using about 18kWh (£4) of electricity a day.

I think it might be because our hot water boiler my be constantly heating up. The hot water comes out of our taps at literally boiling, scalding temperatures. However, we don't seem to have any controls for the boiler other than 'on' or 'off'.

If I got a plumber in to upgrade our system so that we could alter the temperature better, what should I ask for? Just a 'control panel' or 'control system'? And how much would this normally cost?

Sorry - I know absolutely nothing about boiler systems, or what we have installed, and I need a lot of help even knowing what to ask for!

Thanks

Carrot007

maryjtzr said:

Sorry - I know absolutely nothing about boiler systems, or what we have installed, and I need a lot of help even knowing what to ask for!

First thing to do is find out. Changing will be a payback over many years.

Most (if not all) boilers can be adjusted. It certainly has no reason to be on all the time and temperatures certainly can be adjusted.

Wanting to change something you do not understand is just throwing monmey away.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

Your water heater should be fitted with a thermostat that you can use to adjust the temperature of the water it produces.

Do you know if your flat has Economy 7 or a similar cheap-rate electricity supply? If it does, there may also be a timer for the heater.

Farway

Could you take a photo of your boiler, including controls? Someone on here will recognise it and take it from there

maryjtzr

Carrot007 said:

maryjtzr said:

Sorry - I know absolutely nothing about boiler systems, or what we have installed, and I need a lot of help even knowing what to ask for!

First thing to do is find out. Changing will be a payback over many years.

Most (if not all) boilers can be adjusted. It certainly has no reason to be on all the time and temperatures certainly can be adjusted.

Wanting to change something you do not understand is just throwing monmey away.

QrizB said:

Welcome to the forum.

Your water heater should be fitted with a thermostat that you can use to adjust the temperature of the water it produces.

Do you know if your flat has Economy 7 or a similar cheap-rate electricity supply? If it does, there may also be a timer for the heater.

I've checked our home report and our boiler is an 'electric immersion heater with a combination cylinder'. I've attached some pictures of the only controls I could find, and I am not sure how they work. The boiler is very old I think (at least 30 years), the label attached which gives the dimensions was written on a typewriter!

maryjtzr

Sorry - I forgot to mention I know that the red switch turns the electric shower on/off, so I'm guessing the other little switch turns the boiler on or off.

EssexHebridean

OK so according to those photos that looks like you DO have Economy 7 - that's certainly an E7 tank control. Is that correct - you pay a lower rate for electricity used overnight than that used during the day? 

You need to switch the control panel to "timed" first off - that should stop it constantly burbling away to itself all day. There should - somewhere, and probably near your fusebox - be a timer switch - can you find that? 

lohr500

Instruction and installation manuals here for the controller.

https://www.yumpu.com/nl/document/view/48282140/e7bx-user-guide-horstmann
http://www.gasapplianceguide.co.uk/Horstmann PDF/E7BX-InstallationInstructions.PDF

As others have already mentioned, you need to establish if you have an Economy 7 supply to your flat. Can you take some photos of the meter set up? Is it a smart meter? Does your billing show two sets of readings?

Secondly, look closely at the immersion tank. Can you see two electrical immersion heaters? One at the bottom and one about half way up?

The fact that the description says combination cylinder may well indicate that you have two immersion heaters.

If you have an Economy 7 supply AND two immersion heaters, then the bottom heater should be connected to the Economy 7 feed and should only be powered during the overnight off peak period.
The centre immersion heater is there to top up the hot water if you run out during the day and is known as the "Boost" heater. That should be controlled by the rotary dial on the controller, allowing you to boost the hot water for up to two hours.

If there is only one immersion heater (I can see one at the bottom of the tank from your photo), then the boost dial should energise that heater when the knob is twisted at any time of day, even if it is correctly wired to the Economy 7 circuit.

A competent electrician should soon be able to establish if A) you have Economy 7 and if the single or twin immersion heaters are wired correctly.

Old fashioned style immersion heaters will have a replaceable thermostat under the cap. The thermostats are adjustable. If your water is scalding hot then either the thermostat/s are set too high or they may have failed in the closed position. (Although most do have a safety override which will open the circuit if the temperature gets very hot.)

Please come back to us with answers to my questions and then we can suggest some simple tests for you to carry out to see if the heater/s are being powered all day.
 

maryjtzr

My electricity bill doesn't have separate sections for 'day' and 'night' electricity, so I'd assume not. I give them a meter reading every quarter and they give me a bill (last one was £850...!!!!)

It's usually switched to 'timed', but is constantly on. It's now just switched off on that panel while I figure out what going on.

I truly cannot find a timer switch anywhere in the flat, I have looked everywhere, including by the fuse box (pictured).

It's a bit of a frankenstein flat with lots of bits having been added on by various owners, so things might not match up.

QrizB

So it looks as though your flat used to have storage heaters, but at least some of them have been removed.

On your smart meter, if you press the "A" button it will step through the menus and will give you four different register readings, as well as the total import that it's curently displaying. Are three of those registers zero, with one the same as the "total import" or do you have two registers which together add up to equal the "total import"?

maryjtzr

Yes, we removed the storage heaters and had them replaced with electric oil radiators.

Readings as follows:

Total Import: 17126 kWh

Total Export: 00000 kWh

TOU Rate 1: 17126 kWh

TOU Rate 2: 00000 kWh

TOU Rate 3: 00000 kWh

TOU Rate 4: 00000 kWh