Being charged for boiler on timer?

Justlittleoldmehere

Hi all hope someone can help....if a boiler is on timer but without any times to turn on will i be charged? 
Hopefully you're able to understand my question 😂😂

MWT

You will still have to pay the daily standing charge, and if your boiler is an older one with a pilot-light (assuming it is gas) then you could still be using up to around 6kWh of gas a day.

Northern_Wanderer

If the timer is wired then it will be using a very small amount of electric, as would a wired thermostat. The boiler itself will use some electric as they seem to do self checks. I have set my timer to CH off so there is no chance of the heating going on. I still have hot water on the boiler but if you are not using hot water or heating then you could switch the power off to the boiler and there will be no electric used. I'm not sure about pilot lights in older models if they are easy to switch off and on.

Ectophile

If it's only 8 years old, it won't have a pilot light.  So it should use no gas at all if the timer is off.

As others have said, you still have to pay the daily standing charge whether you use it or not.

Brie

is it just for heating or is it also for hot water?  we have out timer turned off but it's the same thing that supplies the hot water on demand.  fyi - our most recent gas bill was a total of £13.80 for the month based on the use of 161 kwh over 31 days.  if yours isn't for hot water then it's just the standing charge which for us is under £8 for the month. 

Coffeekup

Justlittleoldmehere said:

My boiler was new fitted about 8yrs ago.....it has an 'on', 'off', and 'timer' options. I've not set the timer to turn the radiators on at all..... BUT I've put it on the timer mode....I've found that if I turn it to 'off' the pressure starts to get lower.... is it the same as being on standby?  I'm concerned that having it on timer even if I'm not using it  will cost......
Thank you for your help and kindness 🙏💖

If your pressure is getting lower it's leaking water from somewhere.... Radiator... Connection or even inside the boiler.
They do naturally loose pressure over time tho, but if it's loosing pressure quick my guess is it's leaking from experience. Keep it topped up to the recommended pressure and get someone to have a look at it.

Justlittleoldmehere

Brie said:

is it just for heating or is it also for hot water?  we have out timer turned off but it's the same thing that supplies the hot water on demand.  fyi - our most recent gas bill was a total of £13.80 for the month based on the use of 161 kwh over 31 days.  if yours isn't for hot water then it's just the standing charge which for us is under £8 for the month. 

It's just for the radiators...if the radiators aren't turned on I'm assuming the timer being left switched on (but not set) won't cause extra charges?

BUFF

Do you have a room thermostat and/or thermostatic radiator valves?
There really shouldn't be a call for heat at this time of year but if you had set those at something like 28C it probably would fire sometimes.

Alnat1

@Justlittleoldmehere How do you heat hot water?

TheGardener

Alnat1 said:

@Justlittleoldmehere How do you heat hot water?

That is a combi- boiler and can be on 'timed' but if the wall thermostat is set to any temp lower than the actual air temperature then the radiators won't kick in. It could be turned to 'off' and the water would still heat on demand when a hot tap is turned on. The system will use a very small trickle of electricity to run the clock. However, if the boiler was switched off using the big power button (on the right of the photo)to stop the clock then the water wouldn't heat. 
It's very easy on this model to make sure the hot water is set to 55 degs and the radiator flow temperature is 50 which would be much more important and the biggest saving - turning the clock off will be a tiny amount saved. Plenty vids on youtube on how to change the settings for the Valliant Eco-tec Pro28.   

Alnat1

Ah ok, that's fine then. When @Brie previously asked if it was also for hot water, you replied just the radiators, I was confused.

Does it have an instant hot water feature? Some combi's have a small tank inside that can be kept hot 24/7 so you have instant hot water for handwashing etc. and they actually use quite a lot of gas. You don't have something like that turned on constantly do you?