Phantom Electricity Usage Spikes

victor2

robshak said:

Water heater seems electric, now switched off too. May be this one. 
.....

You've got a few circuit breakers to play around with there. Could well be a faulty water heater or timer. At least leaving that off for a while will soon reveal if that is where the problem lies.

Little_miss_dfw

Apologies for being rude and jumping on someone’s thread but I saw you discussing fuse boxes and have a quick question. 

I had an old boiler with a hot water tank. I have replaced it with a combo boiler. 

After looking at this thread I noticed your fuse box has a water heater fuse. I looked at mines and so do I.
Does this fuse being on use any electricity? Even tho I now no longer have a hot water tank? And if so is it ok to switch it off?

CSI_Yorkshire

Little_miss_dfw said:

Does this fuse being on use any electricity? 

No, if there's nothing connected to it.

Little_miss_dfw said:

Even tho I now no longer have a hot water tank? 

Still no, and probably means there's nothing connected to it.

Little_miss_dfw said:

And if so is it ok to switch it off?

Yes.  And probably a good idea if there's nothing connected to it.  If there is something connected to it, you'll soon find out.

robshak

Found the culprit, finally!!

It was te electric water heater which goes on by itself ever 3 hrs despite the thermostat/programmer being off. Once I switched if off in the consumer unit, the spikes stopped!!

Probably something wrong with the boiler or thermostat and now need to get it investigated by a gas engineer?

lohr500

Without knowing the detail of your specific heating/hot water installation, I suspect the electric water heater may not be connected to the boiler controls.

Do you have a separate hot water tank that stores your hot water or just a combi boiler with no stored hot water?

If you do have a hot water tank, then I suspect the fuse which controls the hot water heater feeds an immersion heater in the tank. If you have a tank look closely at it and see if you can identify an immersion heater inserted either at the top of the tank, or possibly the side. It will have quite a thick mains power lead going to it. 
An immersion heater would usually have either a separate timer control or on/off switch located either close to the tank, or on a wall nearby. It would be unusual for an immersion heater to be wired direct to the fuse on your fuse box.

Now if you do have an immersion heater, it is possible that it has been switched on permanently. And if your boiler is also set up to provide hot water, then depending on the immersion heater thermostat setting, it could kick in periodically to heat the water to the level set by the immersion heater thermostat. Perhaps this is why you have been seeing spikes.

All speculation without understanding your setup. 
    

victor2

robshak said:

Found the culprit, finally!!

It was te electric water heater which goes on by itself ever 3 hrs despite the thermostat/programmer being off. Once I switched if off in the consumer unit, the spikes stopped!!

Probably something wrong with the boiler or thermostat and now need to get it investigated by a gas engineer?

It needs an electrician to look at an electric water heater, but as above, without understanding your setup people are just guessing at the problem and solution.

bob2302

I wouldn't call an electrician until I'd had a good look around for the off switch. It's not necessarily next to the tank, in my case it's in the hallway for easy access.

robshak

lohr500 said:

Without knowing the detail of your specific heating/hot water installation, I suspect the electric water heater may not be connected to the boiler controls.

Do you have a separate hot water tank that stores your hot water or just a combi boiler with no stored hot water?

If you do have a hot water tank, then I suspect the fuse which controls the hot water heater feeds an immersion heater in the tank. If you have a tank look closely at it and see if you can identify an immersion heater inserted either at the top of the tank, or possibly the side. It will have quite a thick mains power lead going to it. 
An immersion heater would usually have either a separate timer control or on/off switch located either close to the tank, or on a wall nearby. It would be unusual for an immersion heater to be wired direct to the fuse on your fuse box.

Now if you do have an immersion heater, it is possible that it has been switched on permanently. And if your boiler is also set up to provide hot water, then depending on the immersion heater thermostat setting, it could kick in periodically to heat the water to the level set by the immersion heater thermostat. Perhaps this is why you have been seeing spikes.

All speculation without understanding your setup. 
    

Thank you all, for taking time and giving suggestions.  This has indeed helped me get to the bottom of the issue.  I have now again tested hot water with boiler on and fuse for water heater off.  This heats water no problem.

Things I have now learned:

- Yes, I have a boiler and a separate water storage tank. This means, I also do have an immersion heater. 
- Yes, I also have a switch in the landing that says 'Thermostat' which is most probably the immersion heater switch.

What could have happened:

- Distant memory (ageing brain cells!) recalls wondering why the 'Thermostat' switch in landing is 'off', so I switched it 'on'!
- This MAY have coincided with when the spikes started.
- Therefore, if I am right, this turned on the immersion heater (it had always been off despite switched on in the fuse box).
- When the water temperature lowered in the tank because I only switch it on once a day (4.30pm) for 30 mins due to being summer, now that the immersion heater was on, it kicked in and continued to do so throughout the night to keep the water temperature as required.

Now that I have switched the immersion heater off in the consumer unit, when the boiler is on timer via the programmer, the water still gets hot which by using gas and NOT electricity.

I don't think anything has gone kaput, but as someone suggested earlier, it is definitely due to USER SETTING and a lot of USER IGNORANCE.  

I will keep this setting for a few days and report back any further anomalies that occur.  In the meantime, thank you again for all your comments and suggestions which has indeed helped me get to the bottom of this myster.

All the best.

victor2

Glad you got there @robshak, you're probably much more knowledgeable now about hot water systems than you ever thought necessary. 
You're not the first to suspect their meter of causing anomalies and won't be the last!

lohr500

Glad you have got to the bottom of it. Leaving the water heater switched off at the fusebox is a good plan just in case "anyone" accidentally switches the wall switch back on!