Good morning all - Energy Q from a novice... Moved into our new property in April and went on the

MWT

Prichard said:

Robin9 said:

Continue to read those meters , daily if you can.  You should see a drop in electricity consumption

Thanks & will do. Have also turned boiler down to 30 mins per day. 

Am I correct in saying that outside of the times that the boiler was heating the water tank, the immersion heater would have come on to keep the water (piping) hot 24 hours a day? Presumably sucking up a lot of power as it did so.

Yes, that is what was happening from the sound of things.

Something else to check when you have time is if the thermostat on the immersion is working correctly and check what it is set to as well since there may be times when you will want to use it, but you don't want it to be virtually boiling the water when you do use it...

Prichard

MWT said:

Prichard said:

Robin9 said:

Continue to read those meters , daily if you can.  You should see a drop in electricity consumption

Thanks & will do. Have also turned boiler down to 30 mins per day. 

Am I correct in saying that outside of the times that the boiler was heating the water tank, the immersion heater would have come on to keep the water (piping) hot 24 hours a day? Presumably sucking up a lot of power as it did so.

Yes, that is what was happening from the sound of things.

Something else to check when you have time is if the thermostat on the immersion is working correctly and check what it is set to as well since there may be times when you will want to use it, but you don't want it to be virtually boiling the water when you do use it...

I will do just that. Truth be told; I’m going to need to buy a new boiler anyway in the next couple of years. So when I do I might ask the engineer to give me the run down on it all. 

Will keep an eye on the electricity meter the next couple of days. Should hopefully see the average daily consumption drop. Immersion heater is a 2kwh model so presumably when the water was cooling it was using that energy to heat the water when I really didn’t need hot water! 

CKhalvashi

Prichard said:

CKhalvashi said:

Prichard said:

Robin9 said:

Prichard said:

Estimated Annual Usage

Electricity: 8,726 KWH @ 28.455p (standing charge 43.39p per day)
Gas: 21,678KWH @ 7.479p (standing charge 27.22p per day)

Actual Usage 

Electricity: 1,170 KWH (20th April - today)
Gas: 1,569 KWH (20th April - today)

We have been giving actual meter readings.

Wow  -  its not easy to extrapolate these figures but elec is 600 KWh  a month so I can believe the 8726 figure. Gas at this time of year is not so easy  but with no heating on what are you using gas for  ?

Our gas usage can only be hot water / a small amount of cooking. But as above - our hot water is hotter than the sun. Absolutely biblical heat. I tried turning the thermostat down and also just having it on for 1 hour per day last week. So wonder if that will make much of a difference. 

If you have a +1 button on your controls it may be worth using this.

I have to wait about 15 minutes for hotnwater, but it should save you money overall.

If only having a shower, it may be cheaper to have a power shower installed, which shouldn't use a lot of electricity (at least ours doesnt for a 10 minute shower).

Has two buttons ‘heating advance’ and ‘hot water advance’?

I've got 2 buttons, one with control settings for 'on, timed, all day, off' and another for +1 hour. My old house had the same, so I assume it's common (even though it may not be). This is repeated twice, so one for heating and another for hot water.

I'll take a picture when I get back home.

MWT

Prichard said:

Immersion heater is a 2kwh model so presumably when the water was cooling it was using that energy to heat the water when I really didn’t need hot water! 

Yes, when the water cooled below the thermostat setting on the immersion (usually a screw setting under the cover on the heater element) it will have kicked into action.

If the thermostat is faulty or just set too high that can end up running a lot more than you would ever need just to provide hot water.

Alnat1

Might be a daft question but is the heating definitely turned off? Our control has the options on, once daily, twice daily, off.

You said the boiler (gas) was only heating water for an hour, the immersion was on constant (using electric I assume) so something else is using a lot of gas.

MWT

Alnat1 said:

Might be a daft question but is the heating definitely turned off? Our control has the options on, once daily, twice daily, off.

You said the boiler (gas) was only heating water for an hour, the immersion was on constant (using electric I assume) so something else is using a lot of gas.

... or was using gas, the period in question does cover some likely heating as well.

Might be an idea to read both ,meters again in a week to see what is being used currently.

Alnat1

Yeah I guess that's possible although I know our heating was off from early April.

I'm sure we can halve Prichard's energy use between us 

QrizB

Prichard said:

CKhalvashi said:

If you have a +1 button on your controls it may be worth using this.
I have to wait about 15 minutes for hotnwater, but it should save you money overall.
If only having a shower, it may be cheaper to have a power shower installed, which shouldn't use a lot of electricity (at least ours doesnt for a 10 minute shower).

Has two buttons ‘heating advance’ and ‘hot water advance’?

One of these, or something very similar?

https://www.plumbarena.co.uk/product/Drayton-lp522-twin-channel-timer-52-day-25475

They've been around for decades (mine is very similar to that one, and mine is at least 16 years old). Pretty much foolproof but no "+1" button on mine (and probably not on yours either).

Alnat1

That's mine too, fitted in the cupboard with the tank where there's no light so you need a torch to set it.

Previous owner was a plumber and had a lot of strange ideas. Anyone else have hot and cold taps in their basic wooden garden shed or a shower attachment on their bath that only has cold feed?

Prichard

Alnat1 said:

Yeah I guess that's possible although I know our heating was off from early April.

I'm sure we can halve Prichard's energy use between us 

Haha that would be great. I’ve noticed this evening that the water is now at a temperature I’d expect. Was previously so hot that you couldn’t even touch it. So turning the immersion off has definitely done something. 

When we moved in we were using the heating a fair amount - especially as we have a one year old in a bedroom with a very large and single glazed bay window. 

For the winter I think we’ll get a couple of electric heaters with a 750watt setting. Should cost less than £1 to have on for a couple of hours - can pop one in my home office and one in my son’s room.