Gas boiler is using 2.4Kwh electricity when being used-is that normal?

Gerry1

Ultrasonic said:

Zandoni said:

There is no way that this boiler is using 2.4 KW and electricity consumption would not be picked up during a service.

...a fault may well have occurred since the last service. 

Unlikely because that 2.4kW has to go somewhere, so something would probably be red hot and/or have caused a fire !  Much more likely that other devices / circuits are helping to draw the unexplained load, or the OP has misread or misunderstood the readings.

Gerry1

midimuso said:

All the above confirmed by SmartMeter and the readings from the supply meters, too.

Our electricity bills have always been more than the 'average' for our size home, but we put that down to us turning a blind eye to causal consumption EG too many showers, too many computers on, too many TV hours etc.

Not having a go at you, but that suggests you are confusing the IHD (In Home Device, the portable shiny toy) with the real meters which are on the wall.  Similarly, you have confused kW (power, instantaneous, a bit like speed) with kWh (energy, cumulative, a bit like distance) so it would be easy to draw wrong conclusion.

If your consumption seems unusually high, it's always a good idea to start with a Meter Sanity Test to rule out anything strange.

Ultrasonic

Gerry1 said:

Ultrasonic said:

Zandoni said:

There is no way that this boiler is using 2.4 KW and electricity consumption would not be picked up during a service.

...a fault may well have occurred since the last service. 

Unlikely because that 2.4kW has to go somewhere, so something would probably be red hot and/or have caused a fire !  Much more likely that other devices / circuits are helping to draw the unexplained load, or the OP has misread or misunderstood the readings.

Which was why I advised turning the boiler off on safety grounds... A fault could literally just have occurred for all we know.

Like others I think there's a decent chance the electricity use isn't actually what the OP thinks it is which is why I suggest some other tests. But I'm not going to start saying it's impossible as the OP may actually have picked up a real fault.

Section62

Mstty said:

Go round and switch everything off except the fridge freezer then go to your smart meter and look at your usage for electricity  now (hopefully between 50-200w) 

I would start by switching everything off - including the fridge freezer - and check the consumption has dropped to zero.

Remembering to switch the fridge freezer back on when the tesing is completed, or within half an hour or so.

Section62

Ultrasonic said:

macman said:

Ultrasonic said:

markin said:

Are you sure its not the immersion heater.

Where would someone with a gas combi boiler have an immersion heater?

As a backup for when the boiler fails? And a lot of people used to use an immersion in the summer when the central heating was off, in the era when the CH and DHW systems could not be run independently.

My question was WHERE given there wouldn't be a water tank for it to be in I'd have thought?

Some people have more than one hot water system - having a combi boiler doesn't exclude the possibility of having a hot water cylinder (with or without an immersion heater) somewhere in the same property.  With a mystery like this, all options need to be considered.

FreeBear

Section62 said:

Ultrasonic said:

macman said:

Ultrasonic said:

markin said:

Are you sure its not the immersion heater.

Where would someone with a gas combi boiler have an immersion heater?

As a backup for when the boiler fails? And a lot of people used to use an immersion in the summer when the central heating was off, in the era when the CH and DHW systems could not be run independently.

My question was WHERE given there wouldn't be a water tank for it to be in I'd have thought?

Some people have more than one hot water system - having a combi boiler doesn't exclude the possibility of having a hot water cylinder (with or without an immersion heater) somewhere in the same property.  With a mystery like this, all options need to be considered.

Electric UFH linked to the same timer as the boiler ?

Section62

OP, something else to check for could be anti-frost heaters.  Either in the loft or under-floor void, or for the boiler condensate pipe.  You wouldn't expect these to draw as much as 2.4kW, but there is no limit to the strange things that people sometimes do.

It isn't unheard of to have anti-frost heaters still protecting a long redundant water tank in the loft.  People doing low-cost installs of combis don't always have the in-depth knowledge and experience to look out for such things, and then remove/disable them.  Their job often ends at cutting pipes and reconnecting them, not decommissioning the entire old system.

BooJewels

Gerry1 said:

Ultrasonic said:

Zandoni said:

There is no way that this boiler is using 2.4 KW and electricity consumption would not be picked up during a service.

...a fault may well have occurred since the last service. 

Unlikely because that 2.4kW has to go somewhere, so something would probably be red hot and/or have caused a fire !  Much more likely that other devices / circuits are helping to draw the unexplained load, or the OP has misread or misunderstood the readings.

Indeed - when I had that blocked water pump in the garden of my parents' home that caused a spike in the electricity use until we found it, the water in the sump and surrounding ground were hot to the touch, radiating out several feet from the blocked pump.  Plus the pump obviously wasn't actually shifting any water.  So if it were similar with a boiler pump, then it perhaps wouldn't be serving the heating (so cold rads) and the boiler casing would be hot to the touch.

Ultrasonic

BooJewels said:

Gerry1 said:

Ultrasonic said:

Zandoni said:

There is no way that this boiler is using 2.4 KW and electricity consumption would not be picked up during a service.

...a fault may well have occurred since the last service. 

Unlikely because that 2.4kW has to go somewhere, so something would probably be red hot and/or have caused a fire !  Much more likely that other devices / circuits are helping to draw the unexplained load, or the OP has misread or misunderstood the readings.

Indeed - when I had that blocked water pump in the garden of my parents' home that caused a spike in the electricity use until we found it, the water in the sump and surrounding ground were hot to the touch, radiating out several feet from the blocked pump.  Plus the pump obviously wasn't actually shifting any water.  So if it were similar with a boiler pump, then it perhaps wouldn't be serving the heating (so cold rads) and the boiler casing would be hot to the touch.

Any idea how much power the stuck pump used?

BooJewels

Ultrasonic said:

BooJewels said:

Gerry1 said:

Ultrasonic said:

Zandoni said:

There is no way that this boiler is using 2.4 KW and electricity consumption would not be picked up during a service.

...a fault may well have occurred since the last service. 

Unlikely because that 2.4kW has to go somewhere, so something would probably be red hot and/or have caused a fire !  Much more likely that other devices / circuits are helping to draw the unexplained load, or the OP has misread or misunderstood the readings.

Indeed - when I had that blocked water pump in the garden of my parents' home that caused a spike in the electricity use until we found it, the water in the sump and surrounding ground were hot to the touch, radiating out several feet from the blocked pump.  Plus the pump obviously wasn't actually shifting any water.  So if it were similar with a boiler pump, then it perhaps wouldn't be serving the heating (so cold rads) and the boiler casing would be hot to the touch.

Any idea how much power the stuck pump used?

It was stuck for something in the region of 3 weeks - we were only visiting once a week then, in the early days of clearing the property and it therefore took a couple of visits to notice that electricity use was quite a chunk up and then to find the cause - complicated by there seemingly being a power cut at some point around the same time. So it took some trial and error to find the culprit - especially in a property you're not as familiar with.

But for that 3 week period we used an additional 366kWh of juice over the normal average background stuff.  I said at the time that the little pebble we found blocking the pump cost me around £70.