Heating and hot water - advice

Hi all.

Anyone put their heating on yet? Not sure if it's cold enough, so I might wait and save some money.

Also, I have set the boiler to come on for 45 mins in the morning and 30 mins in the evening to keep the hot water tank topped up. Anyone else have a similar setup, what are the average fuel costs per month? Our shower runs on the hot water you see (doesn't heat its own water). I may change that before long as it is bound to save money.

It's our first house and we havent really had any bills yet. (long story, different suppliers etc).

Any feedback would be muchlyo apreciatyo.

After our old boiler gave up the ghost, and dumped a gazillion gallons of water over the kitchen ceiling, we have a brand spanking new boiler.

The old boiler was around twice the size, and when in the shower, it'd last for around 30mins before pulsating hot/cold. It needed something like 30mins to warm up, and then stayed warm for hours, making the airing cupboard nice & warm (and drying out my bike gloves etc etc).

The new one, half the size of the old, is on constantly. It's a new electric type one. It has a switch that it uses to turn itself on & off, and it's rated at the highest efficiency rating. This means that by the time cold water gets into the boiler, it's now hot. Bleeding hot. Also, my airing cupboard can no longer be used to dry my gloves, since the damn thing doesn't let ANY heat out. Literally, you can touch the sides of the boiler and it feels cold, but the water out of the tap would scold you when you're wearing a firefighters outfit!

As for the heating, we have no gas at the house (I live in the sticks), and the heating is a royal pain. Economy 7. Takes hours for the heaters to 'charge' and once charged, they give off heat for what seems like days, and then re-charge again afterwards. That's not turned on at the trip switches yet, mainly because it's such a pain.

Costs? No gas bill. Electrickery is a little over £200/month

Cheers Baph.

I thought about getting it all ripped out, and having a heat on demand system put in. Not sure if the cost of that will be worth the savings on gas.

Our water does stay hot for a long time, and we also have an immersion switch we can press if we want to heat it with electric.

I tend to put that on if the water hasn't been heated from the boiler for a few hours and I want a shower. I then turn it off again when I get out.

Originally Posted by Baph

Costs? No gas bill. Electrickery is a little over £200/month

I thought that our bill - £250 for the summer - was expensive. I am now manic about turning lights off, and wherever I can find a draft gets some insulation. Much more cost effective than changing supplier.

Ed, the thing I omitted was that I have several computers constantly turned on at home. Luckily this is for work purposes, so I get to claim a portion of the electricity bill back.

At the moment, at home, there's a standard tower style PC, a ResearchMachines server, a SPARC-1, a Cisco 2500, my ETH modem/router and a hub sat on/bolted to my desk, all humming away gently. At first, it's a noisy setup, but eventually I'm sure the whole family will get tinitus.

I also have (well, the Mrs does) a pet snake that has to have accurate temperature control & constant light during the day. The light is used as a heater, and has to give off fairly specific UV rays for the health of the snake. The bulbs are damned expensive (something like £12/bulb) and use a lot of juice.

So yea, we have a high load on the line, and that probably helps reduce the need for heating. But that explains the costs.

[Luckypants]

Originally Posted by CheekyLemon

Hi all.

Anyone put their heating on yet? Not sure if it's cold enough, so I might wait and save some money.

Also, I have set the boiler to come on for 45 mins in the morning and 30 mins in the evening to keep the hot water tank topped up. Anyone else have a similar setup, what are the average fuel costs per month? Our shower runs on the hot water you see (doesn't heat its own water). I may change that before long as it is bound to save money.

It's our first house and we havent really had any bills yet. (long story, different suppliers etc).

Any feedback would be muchlyo apreciatyo.

Don't get an electric shower! They cost a fortune in electricity compared to gas heated water.

To save money, make sure your tank and pipes are well insulated, to reduce heat loss. If you have an old boiler, replacer with a new condensing type (and have porperly commissioned) The 30% efficiency saving will pay for the new boiler in a couple of years.

I havnt put the heating on as such, but i'll turn it on if its a bit chilly in the mornings. Two duvets on the bed though!

The times you have dont seem bad, it wont cost alot of money. What times of the day are they though? No point having it come on when your just about to go to bed, although it helps to have it on when you wake up, so it makes it easier to get out of bed!

Matt

We pay by DD for our energy. Our combined bill is £40 per month, but I expect that to go up by a few quid soon, even though we are still a little in credit.

Our boiler is standard (ie not combi) and was newly installed nearly two years ago. It runs 7 radiators, 3 of which are quite large. We have room and water tank thermostats so the boiler runs on the factory default times all year round.

This means it is 'on' if the thermostat temps are not reached between 6 and 10am, and between 4 and 10pm.

Occasionally we use the hour over-ride to get a quick burst of heat or hot water.

We have an open flame gas fire too, but we don't use that too much.

Gas combi boiler which is set to come on for about 15 minutes per hour in winter during waking hours and once every couple of hours at night.

Our bills are £20 for gas and £30 for elec. The combi saves loads as it only heats the water when we want it not for a set time each day.

Thanks guys.

Ours comes on for water in the morning at about 6am (missus has to get up early - sucker!) and goes off at about 6:45am. Still hot when I need it at half 8.

It then goes on again at 7pm till half 7. Plenty warm enough for washing machine, taps etc during the day.

We also pay by DD monthly, and have agreed 20 quid for elec, and 20 quid for gas. As we haven't been in for more than 3 months, and have had 2 suppliers, we haven't had a proper bill yet.