Another huge ESB bill!

aircobra19 said:
How long does it take, 20-30 mins? How often do you need that much water in one go? Usually all you need is a shower or a sinkful. If you are using that much water a lot then you still have to heat the whole cylinder as its constantly being filled with cold water.

IMO its like having a electric bar heater on for 2 or 3 hours vs 24. Doesn't matter if the room get hot or not, its the length of the heater is on. Thats what you get charged for.
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No, you see I stick it on with the timer for 2.5 hours at about 4 in the morning. That lasts the whole day.
Boosting it when required would be by far the most expensive way to do it.
What some people are saying is to have it on 24/7. That way you're using electricity just to maintain heat, not to heat up a large amount of water from scratch. This may or may not be the cheapest approach.
 
Don't get your last post KalEl.

Way I see, having it on 24/7 even its temperature controled and turning on/off itself, it will still be "on" longer overall than simply turning it on for a hour or two at specific times.

Its simply "on" for longer.

We rarely use the immersion. We use the gas to do it on timer.
 
aircobra19 said:
Don't get your last post KalEl.

Way I see, having it on 24/7 even its temperature controled and turning on/off itself, it will still be "on" longer overall than simply turning it on for a hour or two at specific times.

Its simply "on" for longer.

We rarely use the immersion. We use the gas to do it on timer.
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See it's not like a TV where you're talking about it being just on or off.

It requires a large amount of electricity to heat a water tank from cold to hot. Some people believe it uses less electricity to have the immersion "on" permanently. In reality it's not on permanently...it just click on occassionally to maintain the temperature.
Whatever about that, it's certainly more expensive just to stick it on when you need a shower, have to do dishes etc.
 
KalEl said:
See it's not like a TV where you're talking about it being just on or off.

It requires a large amount of electricity to heat a water tank from cold to hot. Some people believe it uses less electricity to have the immersion "on" permanently. In reality it's not on permanently...it just click on occassionally to maintain the temperature.
Whatever about that, it's certainly more expensive just to stick it on when you need a shower, have to do dishes etc.
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I still believe that if you add up all those little times the immersion is actually on, when its left on permanently it will still have been "on" longer in total than if its only put on when you need it. When an immersion is on for 30mins its still only on for 30mins. Its doesn't use more electicity than it being on for 30x1min intervals.
 
I still believe that if you add up all those little times the immersion is actually on, when its left on permanently it will still have been "on" longer in total than if its only put on when you need it. When an immersion is on for 30mins its still only on for 30mins. Its doesn't use more electicity than it being on for 30x1min intervals.
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AND
How long does it take, 20-30 mins? How often do you need that much water in one go? Usually all you need is a shower or a sinkful. If you are using that much water a lot then you still have to heat the whole cylinder as its constantly being filled with cold water.
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The imersion will take much longer to heat even a sinkful of water, usually about 2 hours.

The immersion has a switch sink/bath i leave it on sink constantly and it seems to be the same cost wise as turning it on when needed.

Like other posters said it switches on when needed to bring the temp back up.

You can argue all day long about it, but we used to turn it on when needed and now we leave it on all day (at the advice of an engineer) and no difference in our bills.

As we have noticed no difference we leave it on constantly as it is more convenient to have hot water always available.
 
Thrifty1 said:
....The imersion will take much longer to heat even a sinkful of water, usually about 2 hours....
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Theres something wrong with it then. From cold ours heats a sinkful in under 10mins. Enough for a bath about 30~40mins. Mind you I don't think its a very big tank. If it takes 2 hours everytime you need a sinkful, I can see why you'd leave it on constantly and why theres no signifcant difference between that and on all the time. Theres good and bad engineers.

[broken link removed]
 
Our elec bill is around €150.00 for two months, we leave the imersion on all the time, and it's controlled with a thermostat. We have two storage heaters on down stairs working on the night rate and two heaters up stairs working on the dis-counted day rate.

I went from turning the imersion on in the evening, taking half an hour to heat the water for a warm shower and very little water for to do the dishes to leaving on the imersion and it kicking in when ever it gets slightly colder and now have HOT water in the morning for a shower when I get up and straight away when I go home and all the times in between the day you want to wash your hands etc. No noticable difference in electricty bill.

Aircobra19, 10 mins will not heat the top of the cylinder enough for the water to be hot enough for a hot shower. It wouldn't make sence to turn on the imersion every time you wanted hot water in half an hour. You would need an electronic timer to even accout for the weekend when your at home more and needing hot water.

But it all depends on hot many people you have living in your app, and how often you wash yourself and wash dishes etc.
 
Mr2 said:
....Aircobra19, 10 mins will not heat the top of the cylinder enough for the water to be hot enough for a hot shower. It wouldn't make sence to turn on the imersion every time you wanted hot water in half an hour. You would need an electronic timer to even accout for the weekend when your at home more and needing hot water. ...
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I said 10mins for a sinkful. If you can shower in a sinkful well done. On average a shower use as much water as bath. To use a sinkful you must run through it. :) Like you say it depends on your usage, and its different for everyone, so sweeping generalisations aren't all that useful. We rarely use the immersion at all. Shower is electric and instant. Gas CH heats water on a timer, We only use the imersion to speed up the heating of the cylinder if we are running more than one bathful. Must compare bills with what others have posted. In an another house we lived in, there was a mini cylinder beside the main cylinder that must have held about a sinkful. Never seen that before or since. Its noticeable how much less heating of the water is required when its a warm day, like we've had recently.
 
Our switch has bath or sink options, we leave it on sink all the time. We have an electric pump operated shower with no heater element in it so require the immersion on to get hot water. Out of that we can get two showers and very hot water for dishes.

10mins with the immersion would not get a sink full of water hot enough to wash dishes properly. It might get a enough water warm enough to fill a small basin but thats about it. It would not be hot enough.

Just from the post above, it seems you have a house and before that a house, Have you had an app that was fully run on electricty and have bills
that were broken down into, dis-counted day rate's and night rates?

It wouldn't make sence for you to use your immersion as we do given your sitituation but in our's it does.
 
I don't think the issue here is that theres only one energy source, electricity. But that the immersions are inefficient and take longer than they should to heat up the water. You'd use a kettle quicker than the immersions you guys are using. I've seen this in warmer places, in holiday homes/apts where the immersion can be under powered, as the ambient water temp is a lot higher, you simply don't need that much power when its very hot in the summer. However if you stay there in the winter or have a cold spell and the ambient temps drops the immersions are inadequate to heat the water in a acceaptable time frame. So people who stay there all year round tend to upgrade their immersions. Of course it depend how much hot water you need aswell, number of people sharing the same supply of hot water.

Perhaps a small instantaneous water heater would give you instant hot water much faster than having to heat the main cylinder all day?
http://www.stiebel-eltron.de/en/privatkunden/warmwasser/produkte/index.php

Might be something to ask the landlord.
 
I don't think the issue here is that theres only one energy source, electricity. But that the immersions are inefficient and take longer than they should to heat up the water. You'd use a kettle quicker than the immersions you guys are using
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Aircobra you honestly dont have a clue what you are talking about. The OP lives in an apt and therefore the issue of only one source of electricity is very relevant.

There is no way your immersion heats up a sinkful in under 10 mins, no way at all that water could be hot. Just as there is no way you need a bathful to have a shower.

By shower and bath i mean the amount of water that is heated when you leave the immersion on the shower/bath switch.

Of course you would heat the kettle quicker you are heating a smaller amount of water. :rolleyes:

Like MR2 said 10 mins wouldnt even heat the top of the cylinder enough for a lukewarm shower.

With leaving the immersion on sink it means i have hot water when needed throughout the day with no difference to ESB bill then was i when heating when needed.

But there is a huge advantage in terms of convenience.
 
Well lets agree to disagree.

I reckon theres a problem with an immersion taking 2hrs to heat a sinkful. You don't. I also think on average people use more than a sinkful for a shower, you don't. You think leaving an electrical heater on for 24hrs is cheaper than having it on less than 24hrs a day.

If you turn your hot water heater off during the day, won't it cost more because you then have to heat up the whole tank and wait minutes before taking a shower? Also, isn't it kind of an inconvenience? [FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]No, water heater energy consumption increases with higher water temperatures, and water heaters use more energy to heat water up and keep it hot than they do to heat it up once, because heat is lost through the walls of the tank in proportion to the tank temperature. The same energy is required to heat up the water regardless of whether it is heating a little bit at a time, or all at once. Heat losses through the tank walls or pipes simply add to the cost. So, turning the water heater off for a few hours each day actually saves some energy. This strategy works best for electric water heaters, because they lose heat less rapidly than gas or oil water heaters.[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]If you turned your hot water heater off during the day, it would be an inconvenience if you use more hot water than is stored in the tank. Installing a timer that turns the water heater off or that lowers the temperature during the night generally poses no inconvenience at all. These timers can be set to turn the heater back on an hour or so before you get up in the morning, so your hot shower is ready to go when you are.[/FONT]
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http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/answerdesk_dat.html#wh3

3. It's wisest to leave your immersion heater on 24 hours a day

MYTH

This one is easy. It is always best to place the water heating on a timer, as the energy lost from a hot water tank depends on the temperature difference between the surface of the tank and its surroundings. It's a common myth that it somehow takes more energy to keep heating up a tank than to maintain it at a high temperature.

Of course, as with all the urban myths on this page, there are a few "ifs" and "buts". If the tank is highly insulated (so standing losses are very low) and there is an effective thermostat on the tank, then the losses through leaving it on can be much reduced. And some people have a need for large quantities of hot water all day long, in which case they may have no alternative to leaving the immersion heater on. But in general, it is much better to install a timer - a heavy duty one, suitable for immersion heaters, should cost less than £20 and if you can fit it yourself safely, could pay for itself in a few months: an excellent energy efficiency investment.
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[broken link removed]
 
"should cost less than £20 and if you can fit it yourself safely, could pay for itself in a few months: an excellent energy efficiency investment"

We'll have to agree to dis-agree because if from the savings over a few months is only around 20 quid, the difference is tiny.

All I can say from my personal experience on my ESB bill is the difference is so little I can't see it and of course you can't actually say from your experience because you don't have any in this area. You don't have only one energy source.
 
I have experience in using an immersion and how long it takes to heat up a sink/bath/shower. Who doesn't in fairness. IMO its common sense that it uses more energy to leave something on for a lot longer. If nothing else your losing more heat than you would if you have it on for less. But yes I've never worked out why using electricity for longer (leaving an immersion on 24/7) isn't cheaper than having it on less. rob30 said it does make a difference. Maybe you guys simply use a lot more hot water and more frequently through the 24hrs. Whereas others only use it at specific times, and very little outside those times.
 
aircobra19 said:
I have experience in using an immersion and how long it takes to heat up a sink/bath/shower. Who doesn't in fairness. IMO its common sense that it uses more energy to leave something on for a lot longer. If nothing else your losing more heat than you would if you have it on for less. But yes I've never worked out why using electricity for longer (leaving an immersion on 24/7) isn't cheaper than having it on less. rob30 said it does make a difference. Maybe you guys simply use a lot more hot water and more frequently through the 24hrs. Whereas others only use it at specific times, and very little outside those times.
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I think you're oversimplifying things...it it not a case of the immersion being "on" or "off". Vastly different amounts of electricity are consumed depending on how you use it.
If I can have my immersion on between 4am and 6.30 am and still have a hot shower 22 hours later it suggests not much heat escapes from the tank. Obviously it takes a lot of electricity to heat the tank in the morning from cold. Now imagine it was already hot...all that's required is enough to maintain the heat.
I'd say it's borderline stuff as to which is the cheaper approach. But there is no way that heating water with an immersion as you go is the cheapest...I'd wager it's the most expensive because I know. My timer broke once and my bill went throught the roof.
 
Yeah maybe. No ones posting links to prove their case either way. :) 22hrs wow. I know ours stays hot a long time, I doubt it would last 22 hrs and still be hot though.
 
aircobra19 said:
Yeah maybe. No ones posting links to prove their case either way. :) 22hrs wow. I know ours stays hot a long time, I doubt it would last 22 hrs and still be hot though.
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Yeah, the tank seems to be really good in that you get the same amount of stuff done over the day regardless of the time.
Going back to the original query though I'm certain it's heating that's the problem. A few of my neighbours were using their storage heaters incorrectly until I sorted it for them...plus the electric radiators in the bedrooms murder the juice.
 
I dont have links to prove it, my proof is ESB bills, i have used the immersion both ways with no real difference to cost.

I never had to use the electric rads upstairs so i couldnt comment on how much electricity they use, the storage heater in hall gives out enough heat for upstairs, thank God !
 
Thrifty1 et al, I really can't believe how an immersion would take 2 hours to heat a sinkful of water - as Aircobra said something is wrong there. I don't want to ask a stupid question as you seem to know what you're talking about here but to me your timeframes sound more like the regular water heater performance rather than the immersion. Whether you choose to believer Aircobra or not I agree with him/her that 10 minutes is plenty to heat a sinkful of water - we get the same performance from our immersion. I'd like to hear a qualified professional's opinion on this but to my mind leaving an immersion on all the time sounds mad!
 
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