How long to heat hot water/insulated hot water cylinder question

mariannewims

Hi all,

I recently moved into a house we had re-plumbed and am adjusting to the new system. Generally, it's great, but I've never lived in a house where I can't physically feel the heat of the water in the cylinder and rely on water heated by the boiler for showers.
What I'm wondering is how long I need to have the boiler heating the water to ensure I'll have enough water for my dishes and one or two ten minute showers a day but not have it on wastefully!

I have a Worcester Bosch Greenstar i gas condensing boiler. It operates three seperate zones; upstairs, downstairs, water only.

I presume when I have the rad on, say downstairs, that the water is being heated too? At the moment I have the water only option on for 30 minutes in the morning and 3 hours in the evening. I always have plenty of hot water but wonder if I could get away with having it on less? The downstairs rads are on for about 3 hours in the evening at the moment, upstairs maybe one hour in the evening.

I really hope someone can help me get to the bottom of this!
The new insulated hot water cylinders are great but it certainly was handy in the days you could just touch the cylinder to see how much water you had

Thanks in advance and sorry for the rookie question!
Marianne.

Dtp79

mariannewims wrote: »

Hi all,

I recently moved into a house we had re-plumbed and am adjusting to the new system. Generally, it's great, but I've never lived in a house where I can't physically feel the heat of the water in the cylinder and rely on water heated by the boiler for showers.
What I'm wondering is how long I need to have the boiler heating the water to ensure I'll have enough water for my dishes and one or two ten minute showers a day but not have it on wastefully!

I have a Worcester Bosch Greenstar i gas condensing boiler. It operates three seperate zones; upstairs, downstairs, water only.

I presume when I have the rad on, say downstairs, that the water is being heated too? At the moment I have the water only option on for 30 minutes in the morning and 3 hours in the evening. I always have plenty of hot water but wonder if I could get away with having it on less? The downstairs rads are on for about 3 hours in the evening at the moment, upstairs maybe one hour in the evening.

I really hope someone can help me get to the bottom of this!
The new insulated hot water cylinders are great but it certainly was handy in the days you could just touch the cylinder to see how much water you had

Thanks in advance and sorry for the rookie question!
Marianne.

Have you a thermostat on your cyclinder?

mariannewims

I'm afraid I had to google cylinder thermostat to see if I had or not
No, I don't.
Sounds like a good idea though, are they difficult to have fitted?

Thanks very much for your reply.

Dtp79

mariannewims wrote: »

I'm afraid I had to google cylinder thermostat to see if I had or not
No, I don't.
Sounds like a good idea though, are they difficult to have fitted?

Thanks very much for your reply.

No extremely simple. I'm assuming you have a motorised valve on the coil of your cyclinder. So basically when your water is at say 60 degrees its closes the motorised valve and stops heating your cyclinder

mariannewims

That sounds just the job, thanks so much for taking the time to reply

corkgsxr

touch the elbow coming out of the cylinder. thats how hot the cylinder is.

but with that boiler. you can afford to leave it on longer just to be sure as it will cut out when its hot enough.

presuming the system is zoned

youtheman

I bought one of these http://www.tcdirect.co.uk/Default.aspx?level=2&department_id=150/9 I cut a small hole in the insulation about 1/2 way down the cylinder and just pushed in the sensor. It's not ideal in that it is a round probe up against a flat surface, but it gives a good indication if the water is hot enough for a shower.

mariannewims

Thanks so much everyone, the replies are very much appreciated!

Corkg... the house is zoned, do you mean that the boiler will only heat the water as long as it needs to even though I don't have a thermostat on the hot water cylinder?

Thanks a mil!
M.

Outkast_IRE

If your house was just replumbed it would of been very silly of them to give you an insulated cylinder, zones for the heating and no zone with stat for the hotwater............. id say its bordering on unusual really, its bog standard these days with any decent retrofit work.

corkgsxr

Better a stat on the tank but once the the water in the cylinder is as hot as the coil the boiler will cut out

mariannewims

Yiz are fantastic, I've cracked it at last
I had a better look at the cylinder yesterday and while the current temperature isn't displayed there is a little box attached to the side of it that has a dial set at 60 degrees. This connects to another box and I copped a light comes on on that when the boiler is on and set to heat the water. So that must cut when the water is at 60 degrees.
Phew, got there in the end
Thanks a mil for your help, that reduces the fear of ending up having cold showers!

All the best,
Marianne.

Merch

Are there sensors/programmers that can be connected to show the actual temperature on any programmers?