Best way to heat the water

giftgrub

Hope somebody here can help me out...

Does anybody know whats the best way and most effcient to heat the water tank?

I have an electric immersion and a gas boiler, (installed in the last 5 years)

We're only in the house a few months and we're still getting used to the whole set up.

Is it better and cheaper to heat the water by the immersion switch or should i throw over the boiler's summer valve and use the gas?

yoshytoshy

Gas is always cheaper, especially when there is a thermostat on the cylinder aswell.

meercat

thanks yoshi
any backup on that.cheers

Micky Dolenz

All you really need to do is find out the cost per unit for gas and electricity and then find out how many units it take for each to heat 100L of water from 10c to 60 c.

see simple. :P

yoshytoshy

Backup ? ,it's more common knowledge.
Over the years ,people complaining about having to use electricity to heat the water and how expensive it was.

My own take on it is ...
When you use gas ,the boiler is probably on for about 20 minutes of an hours use ,because there is such a small circuit.
On modern boilers ,modulating gas valves mean hardly any gas is burnt aswell. Older types wouldn't be as good ,but still cheaper than electricity.



When you turn on your immersion ,the element stays on until the water heats up. So it's taking more energy to heat it up. Could be on for 40 minutes or more.

edit * Just checked prices on my bills there , it looks like electricity is 14c per Kwh and gas is 4.45c per Kwh.

Red Alert

Normally the gas is the best option. If there's no cylinder thermostat, which may be the case if there's a manual shutoff valve, don't forget to drop the circulation temperature on the boiler by a little bit - you might save some gas.

Joey the lips

My feeling on the subject have always been simple... You use less electricity and gas in the summer so any expense in the electric or gas used to heat water is not noticeable provided your using a timer in the case of an immersion and heating.

cruizer101

Would the fact that heating it with gas heats the whole cylinder where as the electric element only heats, a small portion on top (assuming its on sink setting which we'd always leave ours on) not mean that the gas would cost more.

Red Alert

Just on the whole gas/electric thing in general - are on-demand systems like direct fired continuous flow systems or combi boilers less common over here than in the UK? I've often thought would it be a good idea to have the hot taps supplied by a combi so no standing losses, and just use the cylinder to supply enough flow for the shower?

Micky Dolenz

Red Alert wrote: »

Just on the whole gas/electric thing in general - are on-demand systems like direct fired continuous flow systems or combi boilers less common over here than in the UK? I've often thought would it be a good idea to have the hot taps supplied by a combi so no standing losses, and just use the cylinder to supply enough flow for the shower?

If you had a good combi with good mains pressure you wouldn't need a cylinder at all.

championc

I've a Combi and have had for about 15 years since first seeing them in my brothers house in the UK. Best thing I ever did. You only heat the water you use. So many people have imersions and heat the whole 100-150L and maybe only use 20L !!. Water in an imersion will possibly lose 1 (or more) deg per hour.


C