Why am I using so much gas

Old_Grey_Mare

Sorry , not sure what happened above. It was a reply to QrizB.

pochase

When was the new hot water tank fitted, before or after the new boiler?

From your description it sounds like the company who installed the boiler was not involved in installing the tank?

[Deleted User]

My brother in law and husband fitted a new cylinder and my husband slapped his old ‘thermostat’ on. The heating engineer who came a couple of weeks ago said regardless, the boiler installers should have made sure the thermostat on the cylinder conformed to regulations. We want the thermostat replaced with a proper one and this is what the electrician will do when he can fit us in.

I appreciate that this isn’t easy for you. Every immersion heater that I have seen in recent years has its own built in adjustable thermostat and thermal cut out. Thermostats for gas heating are separate and are usually linked to the zone valve that allows hot water to travel through the heating coil in the cylinder. If your cylinder is unvented, then the worst that can happen is that hot water from the cylinder will be expelled (usually) into the cold water header tank. Clearly, replacement cold water will heated at cost to you.

Gas or electric? Do not confuse units on the meter with kWh. Gas is not 100% efficient, and the pipe run from the boiler to the cylinder acts as a mini radiator. Every home is different but at this time of the year, reheating my hot water cylinder to 65C uses an average of 8kWh gas and just 4kWh of electricity.

Old_Grey_Mare

pochase said:

When was the new hot water tank fitted, before or after the new boiler?

From your description it sounds like the company who installed the boiler was not involved in installing the tank?

It was fitted at the same time as the boiler was being installed. No the company fitting the boiler didn’t install the tank.

Old_Grey_Mare

[Deleted User] said:

My brother in law and husband fitted a new cylinder and my husband slapped his old ‘thermostat’ on. The heating engineer who came a couple of weeks ago said regardless, the boiler installers should have made sure the thermostat on the cylinder conformed to regulations. We want the thermostat replaced with a proper one and this is what the electrician will do when he can fit us in.

I appreciate that this isn’t easy for you. Every immersion heater that I have seen in recent years has its own built in adjustable thermostat and thermal cut out. Thermostats for gas heating are separate and are usually linked to the zone valve that allows hot water to travel through the heating coil in the cylinder. If your cylinder is unvented, then the worst that can happen is that hot water from the cylinder will be expelled (usually) into the cold water header tank. Clearly, replacement cold water will heated at cost to you.

Gas or electric? Do not confuse units on the meter with kWh. Gas is not 100% efficient, and the pipe run from the boiler to the cylinder acts as a mini radiator. Every home is different but at this time of the year, reheating my hot water cylinder to 65C uses an average of 8kWh gas and just 4kWh of electricity.

The electrician showed me the immersion thermostat at the top of the cylinder. The thermostat for the gas one is about a third way up the cylinder. The cylinder is vented my husband said. The boiler is in our cellar so the pipes have a fair way to go to the bathroom where the cylinder is. It’s a big house.

jennifernil

Fitting a new thermostat for the gas heated water is not complicated as it will directly replace the old one.   I would have thought this was a simple job for an electrician, maximum 20 minutes, but I am amazed that you should have to wait several months to get this done!

We also have a vented HW cylinder, if yours is like ours, the immersion heater heats the water at the top quickly so the thermostat may switch it off before the whole tank of water is hot.   It is really only intended to be a back up should the gas boiler fail.

When using the gas boiler the water heats more evenly and as heat rises and its thermostat sits lower down, it will continue heating the tank completely  and you will have a larger quantity of hot water.  Water in a well insulated HW tank will stay hot for a long time.

Petriix

It's a shame that you didn't dispense with the tank altogether when you got the new boiler and go for an on-demand setup. That's vastly cheaper to run in most cases and far harder to get wrong.

jennifernil

Nothing complicated in a system with a HW cylinder and less to go wrong than in a combi boiler.   Depending on the size of the house, how many bathrooms you have, and how long the HW pipework is,  a combi boiler may not be suitable.

Old_Grey_Mare

jennifernil said:

Fitting a new thermostat for the gas heated water is not complicated as it will directly replace the old one.   I would have thought this was a simple job for an electrician, maximum 20 minutes, but I am amazed that you should have to wait several months to get this done!

We also have a vented HW cylinder, if yours is like ours, the immersion heater heats the water at the top quickly so the thermostat may switch it off before the whole tank of water is hot.   It is really only intended to be a back up should the gas boiler fail.

When using the gas boiler the water heats more evenly and as heat rises and its thermostat sits lower down, it will continue heating the tank completely  and you will have a larger quantity of hot water.  Water in a well insulated HW tank will stay hot for a long time.

Yes my cylinder sounds like yours. When the immersion was used the water wasn’t that hot and didn’t last long so now I understand a bit more about it, it makes sense.

my husband fitted an electronic thermostat which ran off a controller so in order to fit a mains thermostat, a 2.5ml mains cable needs running from the tank all the way to the boiler which is quite a long way. He’s already got the landing floorboards up and drilled a hole in the kitchen wall even though the electrician said he would do it when he could.

Old_Grey_Mare

I don’t know what I’m doing wrong with this quote thing🙄