Best was to heat water????

lmcg

Hi Guys,
Can anyone tell me the best way to heat our water? Buy putting on the very epencsive oil heating just to heat the water or by putting on the very expensive electric water heater?
Many thanks

Cardew

There have been a number of threads on this subject recently.

Almost certainly your oil will be cheaper; unless you have Economy 7 electricity.

A litre of oil gives approx 10kWh; so at 60p/ltr this is 6p/kWh.

The unknown factor is the efficiency of your boiler which could vary from 50% for a really old badly serviced boiler to 95% for a modern condensing boiler.

So in theory your oil could cost between, say, 6.5p to 12p for a kWh.

Electricity depends on your company/tariff/area but 9p-10p is about average.

Although you pay more for daytime electricity when on Economy 7, there is certainly a case for changing to that tariff and heating your water all year on economy 7.

Whichever way you go, the gap between oil and electricity is narrowing; and for all its disadvantages Economy 7 storage heating is looking more and more attractive in pricing terms.

amtrakuk

How about heat banks?

I've just been reading up about them today, giving the benefit of an unvented mains pressure hot water heater but without the expense of regular maintenance.

Does anyone know the pros and cons?

mute_posting

amtrakuk wrote: »

How about heat banks?

I've just been reading up about them today, giving the benefit of an unvented mains pressure hot water heater but without the expense of regular maintenance.

Does anyone know the pros and cons?

When I refurbished my flat I put in a Gledhill pulsacoil thermal store. Very happy with it.

Quite expensive - think mine was about £650 (ish?) for the smallest model but I was totally re-plumbing and refurbing anyway so made sense to do it.

Like you say, benefits from not having to have an annual check like the unvented mains pressure type.

cons (I can forsee) are that you are reliant on electricity to run the small pump to circuate the store water through the heat exchanger so no hot water when the power is off (I'm assuming that if you have oil, you live in a rural location and therefore powercuts may be more common)

Also, any manintenance required on the heat exchanger.

MP

amtrakuk

Ahh right, so it needs a pump running 24/7?

i heard they use them in hotels, from my experience of hotels there seems to be an almost unlimitless supply of hot water and thought if it was good enough for them....

Does the heat exchanger needs replacing/servicing regally and is it something i could do?

mute_posting

No, the pump only runs when you turn on a hot tap and thus it senses flow through the heat exchanger.

Strictly speaking I think the pulsacoils also run the pump periodically (say 10 seconds an hour) to stop it sticking

I'm sure them manual describes the heat exchanger as a exchange service item, which "I think" means you pay full price and they send you a new one and then when you return your old one they refund part of the price paid if that makes sense.

It is certainly something I will be doing myself if it ever needs it - on mine it is 4 x 3/4" compression joints and a temperature sensor pushed into a tube so pretty straigtforward (after emptying the store!)

MP

amtrakuk

Sounds pretty good but think I'm gonna stay with my 12 kw powerstream.

As I spend alot of time in a hotel room i have often wondered how they get instant hot water (within a second or two) gushing out the hot tap and at such high pressure.

From what i read they use a thermal store but also their hot water pipe work is on a loop, the water is constantly being pumped round this loop, past each room 24/7. When you open the tap of the bath you're "tapping" - excuse the pun, into this loop.

Sounds a great system but I bet it costs a mint to run

desamax

cant these units be fitted to tank supply with a pump or only mains??

amtrakuk

Pass would have thought if you had the time and money you could have a similar setup