We're in a flat whih has no gas or central heating. There's an immersion heater but no bath, only a shower. We've been boiling the kettle for water to wash with in the bathroom sink and to do the dishes in the kitchen. Bathroom is next to the kitchen so is there some sort of instant heater I could fit that would supply hot water to both areas? Preferably something that could be bunged in a cupboard out of sight by the way.
Have you considered producing all your daily hot water needs by having the immersion on economy7 ?
Or perhaps you already do this, but run out of hot water during the day?
Harry coughed up some electrons that declared:
I'd recommend the 12kW for a shower, though the others will work, just a little less flow.
One thing to watch is that the Hyco ones are not temperature stabilised. They will heat upto 60C, but after that, temperature is related to flow.
There are probably better ones that have proper regulation, but cost more.
But it might be cheaper to get Economy 7 and fix the immersion to run off that if your tank is well insulated.
Cheers
Tim
The immersion is on E7 but while it gives enough for the morning, unless we leave it on all day (!!) it's down to tepid by the evening. Pretty useless overall and we're paying to heat up a LOT of water that way.
Is it a factory-fitted foam-insulated cylinder? When I had a flat with E7 we (three of us) only put the immersion on once every three days ... and that was with daily baths.
Any instantaneous or small stored-water system ie the typical under- sink heater is going to be using peak-rate electricity, and stored one will be running throughout the day to make up thermal losses.
Might be worth considering getting a bigger, better-insulated cylinder that will hold more hot water, and one with two heaters so you can just do an afternoon top-up of the top of the cylinder if needed. I think some tariffs offer an afternoon top-up at lower rate.
Also your existing cylinder might be mixing the incoming cold water with the hot water. It should be temperature stratified so the hot water is at the top and the cold at the bottom, this would go from hot to cold quite suddenly, rather than turning tepid over a period of hours.
Owain
Owain coughed up some electrons that declared:
Hmm. I agree. My last flat had a small square HW tank with an integral mini head tank. I almost never used the daytime secondary heater. That had integral insulation but it wasn't to modern standards.
Is your immersion a full length element, or mounted low down or did someone put a shorty in the top (meant as a top up element only) by mistake? ie is the whole tank hot in the morning?
Can you see insulation? After ascertaining the element is able to heat the whole tank, I would consider wrapping some more insulation round the tank.
Cheers
Tim
Thanks guys. No idea about wet and sparky stuff, I've fitted a shower in the past but had a man in to make the final connections and taps and toilet gear always lead to rounds of "Turn the water on"......followed by screams of "Turn it off, turn it OFF!. The tank is sort of hour glass shaped and has two switches, one for E7 and the other for day time. It has two elements, or at least two sticky out boxy things, one in the lower of the top section and one in the lower of the bottom, if you see what I mean. It's factory foam coated. We just thought it would be cheaper to have an instant supply rather than paying to keep a whole tank hot. The bathroom sink is only used for a quick rinse when not showering and the kitchen for washing up once or twice a day.
One of the simplest ways to get more hot out of a cylinder is to increase the thermostat setting. Because the water's hotter, less of it gets used for a given showering experience, so it lasts longer.
If its in a cupboard you can also fill the entire space round it with insulation, just dont bury power carrying cables
more:
basin in the bathroom and the sink in the kitchen.
So....is the consensus that it's more sensible/economic to use the immersion ( Obviously after whacking the thing round with yards of insulation ) and not - as we'd thought - to remove it and replace with some means of instant hot water?
The wife won't be best pleased, she'd ear marked the cupboard for storage space.
Yes, because peak-rate electricity units are x times the price of off- peak units.
Look on the bright side, that's a shelf-fitting job avoided!
I assume you use storage heaters for space heating though. If you don't, or you don't use much heating, it might be cheaper to come off E7 tariff and just pay all-day rates for everything.
Owain
Owain
Yep, no gas here :-( I'll get us a fluffy jacket for the immersion then and give it a whirl
- never mind the shelves, saves me hacking pipework about and feeding cabling...... Thanks to all.
Agreeing with the other replies you have here - a *good* E7 hot water system is better (IME) than any instantaneous hot water system.
I used to live in a new-build, well-insulated, all-electric flat and it was very rare we had to top up the cylinder with daytime-rate electricity, in spite of twin bathrooms with power showers. At that time daytime units were 3 times the price of off-peak.
The showers were excellent, as hot water delivery is only limited by the size of the pumps and pipes.
There is a cheaper way...
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