Energy & Gas Consumpion on a Semi Detached house

merchcon55

TheElectricCow said:

Haydenlm1 said:

markin said:

FreeBear said:

markin said: The pipe going up from the tank to the loft seems to be lead! so a very old system.

The HW take-off from the tank is (normally) at the top, and any pipe going off to a header tank would be for expansion/overflow. Cold water feed to the tank is usually at the bottom - The pipe & tap on the left hand side would appear to be in the right position, and there looks to be a drain down point at the bottom. But.... The pipe appears to be capped off just above the timer/cables. [edit] There is a copper pipe at the back on the right hand side - Is this the cold feed to the base of the tank I wonder....

The two connections low down on the right are about the right location for the heater coil. What is confusing is the top one appears to be connected to the HW take-off from the top of the tank via a stop tap. In all, a very hinky setup. It would pay to have another engineer take a look at the plumbing with the view to ripping out the tank and plumbing the combi boiler in properly.

I brighten it in photoshop, they aren't connected, its just an air bleed valve.

The old pipe in the corner up to the loft is just painted and looks likes its capped.

I just turned the red tap on the bottom right all the way to the right to turn it off.
The heating is on half on the boiler, and radiators are getting quite hot, got hot water downstairs and the tank is not warming up! In fact, its now cold!
Is that now gonna reduce my gas or electric bill?

The only issue now is that we dont have a hot water in the upstairs sink and shower. Luckily the shower downstairs works fine.

That should cut off the heating to the tank from the boiler, which would reduce your gas bill. As long as the immersion switch (middle one) is off and stays off you now shouldn’t  be using any electric for your hot water heating.

That’s interesting about the showers though, it suggests the upstairs hot water supply is still coming from that tank while the downstairs is plumbed straight to the boiler.

I’m thinking your upstairs shower is gravity fed - which may have had (or still has) a pump to increase water pressure (you have 3 switches and 1 says pump?)

Is the water pressure in your downstairs shower stronger than in your upstairs shower?

when you turn your upstairs shower on - can you hear a pump? Is water pressure good or not very strong shower?

merchcon55

Another possibility - can you show us a photo of your upstairs shower? You may have a combination mixer shower and pump - if yes , that would explain the 3rd switch. The hot water would be supplied from the tank and the built in pump needs electricity.


it’s what I have / a wonderful aqualisa shower / great pressure !!

Crazycatlady2

Just wanted to say I hope you can sort this. We have the same boiler and no tank we run an upstairs and downstairs shower from it as well as all taps etc and radiators no problem in a big 3 bed. I would say get a plumber to look but you already did this 

MultiFuelBurner

Did the original poster ever come back with a list of high use electrical devices as their annual bill of over £3900 on electricity needs some attention. It would all be linked to three switches in a cupboard (I hope) lol

Haydenlm1

theoretica said:

Haydenlm1 said:

markin said:

FreeBear said:

markin said: The pipe going up from the tank to the loft seems to be lead! so a very old system.

The HW take-off from the tank is (normally) at the top, and any pipe going off to a header tank would be for expansion/overflow. Cold water feed to the tank is usually at the bottom - The pipe & tap on the left hand side would appear to be in the right position, and there looks to be a drain down point at the bottom. But.... The pipe appears to be capped off just above the timer/cables. [edit] There is a copper pipe at the back on the right hand side - Is this the cold feed to the base of the tank I wonder....

The two connections low down on the right are about the right location for the heater coil. What is confusing is the top one appears to be connected to the HW take-off from the top of the tank via a stop tap. In all, a very hinky setup. It would pay to have another engineer take a look at the plumbing with the view to ripping out the tank and plumbing the combi boiler in properly.

I brighten it in photoshop, they aren't connected, its just an air bleed valve.

The old pipe in the corner up to the loft is just painted and looks likes its capped.

I just turned the red tap on the bottom right all the way to the right to turn it off.
The heating is on half on the boiler, and radiators are getting quite hot, got hot water downstairs and the tank is not warming up! In fact, its now cold!
Is that now gonna reduce my gas or electric bill?

The only issue now is that we dont have a hot water in the upstairs sink and shower. Luckily the shower downstairs works fine.

Just to confirm - if the heating is off, does running the upstairs hot tap now cause the boiler to fire? 

When the heater is off, the boiler doesn't fire up when using the hot water upstairs!
When the heating is on, it gets slightly warm after closing the red tap!

Haydenlm1

merchcon55 said:

TheElectricCow said:

Haydenlm1 said:

markin said:

FreeBear said:

markin said: The pipe going up from the tank to the loft seems to be lead! so a very old system.

The HW take-off from the tank is (normally) at the top, and any pipe going off to a header tank would be for expansion/overflow. Cold water feed to the tank is usually at the bottom - The pipe & tap on the left hand side would appear to be in the right position, and there looks to be a drain down point at the bottom. But.... The pipe appears to be capped off just above the timer/cables. [edit] There is a copper pipe at the back on the right hand side - Is this the cold feed to the base of the tank I wonder....

The two connections low down on the right are about the right location for the heater coil. What is confusing is the top one appears to be connected to the HW take-off from the top of the tank via a stop tap. In all, a very hinky setup. It would pay to have another engineer take a look at the plumbing with the view to ripping out the tank and plumbing the combi boiler in properly.

I brighten it in photoshop, they aren't connected, its just an air bleed valve.

The old pipe in the corner up to the loft is just painted and looks likes its capped.

I just turned the red tap on the bottom right all the way to the right to turn it off.
The heating is on half on the boiler, and radiators are getting quite hot, got hot water downstairs and the tank is not warming up! In fact, its now cold!
Is that now gonna reduce my gas or electric bill?

The only issue now is that we dont have a hot water in the upstairs sink and shower. Luckily the shower downstairs works fine.

That should cut off the heating to the tank from the boiler, which would reduce your gas bill. As long as the immersion switch (middle one) is off and stays off you now shouldn’t  be using any electric for your hot water heating.

That’s interesting about the showers though, it suggests the upstairs hot water supply is still coming from that tank while the downstairs is plumbed straight to the boiler.

I’m thinking your upstairs shower is gravity fed - which may have had (or still has) a pump to increase water pressure (you have 3 switches and 1 says pump?)

Is the water pressure in your downstairs shower stronger than in your upstairs shower?

when you turn your upstairs shower on - can you hear a pump? Is water pressure good or not very strong shower?

Yes indeed, one of the switched i do believe says pump, it is currently off, we turned it off a few months back? should that be on?

I believe the pressure is pretty much the same in the downstairs and upstairs shower !

merchcon55 said:

Another possibility - can you show us a photo of your upstairs shower? You may have a combination mixer shower and pump - if yes , that would explain the 3rd switch. The hot water would be supplied from the tank and the built in pump needs electricity.


it’s what I have / a wonderful aqualisa shower / great pressure !!

I will try get one when im off work, currently doing a night shift!

Crazycatlady2 said:

Just wanted to say I hope you can sort this. We have the same boiler and no tank we run an upstairs and downstairs shower from it as well as all taps etc and radiators no problem in a big 3 bed. I would say get a plumber to look but you already did this 

Thank you that gives me hope.

I am thinking of just getting a plumber to rip the whole thing up and connect everything to the boiler?
Is this a big job / expensive ? Because a few people had this done nowadays

markin

The heating loop is simple to just cap, But would it be easy to get the hot water from the boiler to that location, is it directly below? would it involve ripping up floorboards?

The boiler is 12l per minute, I would presume the upstairs shower would need to be made low flow, Maybe just a new shower head, measure the flow on both showers. 


Changing to new radiators i think should be the first priority.

If you have the money or cheap credit, £6K on Solar, would have 6 year payback.

Haydenlm1

markin said:

The heating loop is simple to just cap, But would it be easy to get the hot water from the boiler to that location, is it directly below? would it involve ripping up floorboards?

The boiler is 12l per minute, I would presume the upstairs shower would need to be made low flow, Maybe just a new shower head, measure the flow on both showers. 


Changing to new radiators i think should be the first priority.

If you have the money or cheap credit, £6K on Solar, would have 6 year payback.

The boiler is downstairs after the kitchen area, and the bathroom is in the middle of the house and upstairs, so I would say its kind of far from it..!

Yeah, I think new radiators is a must , I will invest in this as soon as I can..But I must admin the radiators do get hotter and the boiler CH is below the half way now (it used to be on maximum!) 

frostysaver

To understand your electricity use a smart meter would be helpful.

Alternatively you can get whole-house energy monitors ( eg "owl" devices) you can fit yourself - no electrician or skill needed. Sometimes these can be borrowed from a friend or your council or library.

anon_ymous

MattMattMattUK said:

Your gas is high if you "hardly have the gas on", your electricity usage is insanely high.

Otherwise the gas would be normal. The electricity would be normal IF they've got say two EVs or one person doing a higher amount of mileage and it's also an EV