Is your boiler stealing your money?

rolion

Hi All,

Got a e250 gas bill despite having solar tubes,ufh on timer and individual radiator valve controls.
Not sure how,probable previous was estimated.

Then i searched online why and how the boiler works.

Then i found this website H E R E .
A term very tricky was "“standby losses” !

If you have a boiler, chances are, it’s wasting a lot of energy!

At today’s fuel oil costs, (~$3.50/gallon in March 2011), it’s more important than ever to conserve. This is definitely one of those cases where it pays to do your homework.

What if I told you there’s a good chance that your boiler is half as efficient as they told you? You wouldn’t be happy, would you?

Let me tell you a personal story. When I moved in my house, it had a relatively modern boiler, rated at 82% efficiency. It heated the houe and the water. I figured that was pretty good – no need to upgrade, right?

As I started monitoring the boiler and my oil consumption I realized something must be wrong. Come spring, after I turned off the heat, the system was still running pretty regularly. I’m sure you’ve all experienced this. You’re sitting in a quiet house, and every half-hour, you hear your boiler turn on for a few minutes. What’s happening here?

You may have heard the term “standby losses” in reference to water heaters. That’s the amount of energy required for a heater to sit at idle. In the case of a water heater, that’s the heat lost through the jacket that has to be replenished to keep the water at the desired temperature. You rarely hear about standby losses when it comes to boilers, but you should! Boiler standby losses are much greater than water heating losses. In fact, I’ve found that the actual energy lost to just keeping a boiler hot is greater than the energy required to heat water in a typical household! This is no joke.

For water heating, a typical family should require no more than about 1/3 to 1/2 gallon of heating oil per day, assuming typical uses and system efficiencies. Or, if you’re using propane, that translates to 1/2 to 2/3 gallon of LP gas. Or, if you’re on natural gas, this is about 1/2 CCF or therm of gas. But when I look at energy consumption of people using boilers for water heating, I usually see one or more gallons of oil used per day. That means the fuel usage is double what it should be for water heating. Where’s the extra energy going?

With water heaters, we’ve all been trained to install extra insulation blankets to reduce the standby losses. But somehow, we’ve forgotten about the boilers. Boilers run much hotter than water heaters – typically 180°F compared with 120-130°F in a water heater. Standby losses are directly related to the temperature, so, all other things being equal, a 180°F system will lose energy at about twice the rate of a 120°F system. But, all things aren’t equal. Boilers typically have very little insulation. If you’re lucky, they have half the insulation of a water heater, and one third is common. So if you factor those things together, a boiler loses four to six times as much through standby losses as a typical dedicated water heater!

Is it true that if i leave my boiler running at lets say 25 degrees all day and the sign on the LCD shows only the pump running but no fire/gas been used...im still been charged at the gas meter ?!
I have a Vitodens 100, 9 years old now and i was looking to uprgade it to a newer model Viessman Vitodens 200 with latest touch screen,weather compensated and all the gadgetery things.

Still trying to justify it...

Thanks

__________

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• Optional control via apps and internet (Vitoconnect 100, type OPTO1, WiFi module (due October 2016)
• Modulating stainless steel MatriX cylinder burner and Inox-Radial heat exchanger (10 year warranty)
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• Automatic flue adaptor, automatic partial load adjustment
• Quick, straightforward installation thanks to innovative push-fit system (Video), fully assembled and wired.
• Optional sub-mounted mixer kit ideal for Under floor heating or lower temperature heating circuits (see accessories)
• Can be electronically interlocked with SM1 Solar Control Module or Vitosolic controller for optimum solar efficiency
• Installation with Vitocell 200 or 300 cylinder meets G3 Building Regualtions without the need for a cut-off valve and cylinder overheat thermostat; these are now built into the boiler
• High Efficierncy Pump meets ErP directive for A rated energy pumps, save up to 50% of electrical consumption
• Integrated diverter valve

___________

Wearb

You are talking in Gallons which befits the setup that causes such losses. All modern (and most older) systems have controls that prevent those losses that you write about. Its called boiler interlocking.
It doesn't mean all losses are eliminated, but losses are nowhere near those in your post.

Atlantic Dawn

Was you bill an estimate or reading from the meter?

rolion

Wearb wrote: »

You are talking in Gallons which befits the setup that causes such losses. All modern (and most older) systems have controls that prevent those losses that you write about. Its called boiler interlocking.
It doesn't mean all losses are eliminated, but losses are nowhere near those in your post.

OK,thanks for reply.
Found this one here:

Plumbing Information

What is Boiler Interlock?

You should not fit a TRV to the radiator nearest to the room thermostat
(if you do already have a TRV here, then leave it on its maximum setting).
The room thermostat (sometimes called a roomstat) is usually found in the hall.
The boiler is turned off when the temperature set by the room thermostat is reached.
This is called a boiler interlock. It prevents the boiler from firing when there
is no demand for heat from the central heating system.

If all of the radiators in the house are fitted with TRVs, including the radiator nearest to the
room thermostat, then all the TRVs can close at the same time and turn off all the radiators
while the temperature in the house is still below the temperature set by the room thermostat.
In this situation the room thermostat has not turned off the boiler but all the radiators are turned off.
The boiler will keep running and waste energy. This arrangement is not allowed by part L of the
current building regulations concerning the conservation of fuel and power.

An automatic bypass valve must also be fitted.


Copyright © 2015 cfplumbing.co.uk. All Rights Reserved.

rolion

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Was you bill an estimate or reading from the meter?

Dunn,im with FlowGas and they do not have online dashboard.
Im going to check last invoice.
I found it quite big taking in consideration how less the gas boiler works

From today,keeping an eye on the gas meter and associate times on/off and see "when" is the meter running.

Is there a gas boiler that has a built-in gas meter?
I couldnt find a single one...why ?!?

K.Flyer

rolion wrote: »

OK,thanks for reply.
[...]

What is Boiler Interlock?

Its when through the combination of thermostats and zone valves the boiler is switched off when there is no heat requirements.
In other words, say you have the time clock set to run the boiler for 1 hour to heat hot water. If after 30 mins the cylinder is full of hot water the thermostat on the cylinder should detect this and break the current to the zone valve. In turn as the zone valve closes, it in turn breaks the current to the boiler, switching it off.
Although the timer remains on for the timed duration, the stats and zone valves control the boiler as there is no heat requirements.
The same principle applies to room stats and heating living areas.

rolion

K.Flyer wrote: »

Its when through the combination of thermostats and zone valves the boiler is switched off when there is no heat requirements.
In other words, say you have the time clock set to run the boiler for 1 hour to heat hot water. If after 30 mins the cylinder is full of hot water the thermostat on the cylinder should detect this and break the current to the zone valve. In turn as the zone valve closes, it in turn breaks the current to the boiler, switching it off.
Although the timer remains on for the timed duration, the stats and zone valves control the boiler as there is no heat requirements.
The same principle applies to room stats and heating living areas.

OK...turned off the gas suppy and / or the electrical pump !?

K.Flyer

rolion wrote: »

Is there a gas boiler that has a built-in gas meter?
I couldnt find a single one...why ?!?

Why would you want a seperate gas meter on the boiler?
If you feel that the consumption is incorrect, you can have the system checked for leaks and have the boiler checked that it is using the correct amount of gas as per manufacturers design.

rolion

K.Flyer wrote: »

Why would you want a seperate gas meter on the boiler?
If you feel that the consumption is incorrect, you can have the system checked for leaks and have the boiler checked that it is using the correct amount of gas as per manufacturers design.

One single reason:to dont have to go out in the cold and open that fcuking cover and read/record the meter !
I have all the gadgets for the electricity usage pattern and i keep an eye on it, using it wisely and in accordance with the Sun's "hide and seek" game !

Seriosuly,few months ago,with the help of smart electricity "third party" meters i have discovered that after connecting my 2.5Kw PV panels not only i was giving to the grid free of charge electricity BUT i was been charged for it as well,as the meter was doing funny movements / recording the import vs export energy.

LE
See the new interface /app here.
Nice one!

K.Flyer

rolion wrote: »

OK...turned off the gas suppy and / or the electrical pump !?

If wired correctly the boiler should switch off completely and go into standby just as if the time clock was in the off position.
As long as the gas valve inside the boiler is not faulty no gas would be used.
The pump should switch off after its timed over run expires, usually a few minutes.

Sleeper12

K.Flyer wrote:

Why would you want a seperate gas meter on the boiler? If you feel that the consumption is incorrect, you can have the system checked for leaks and have the boiler checked that it is using the correct amount of gas as per manufacturers design.

A little off topic here but some might find it interesting: The guy reading our gas meter told my wife that he was requesting a new meter for us. I think he said that it was showing letters as well as numbers. They came out and changed the meter. Got a call a few days later saying after examining the old meter we were getting a refund / credit of over 100 Euro. I'm amazed that they were able to find out how much we'd overpaid. Happy days

rolion

That above and not alone makes me highly considering switching off the gas supply and going with a air-to-water heat pump.
Combined with PV panels, full remote control ,monitoring and reporting...much better transparency.

antoinolachtnai

It really depends on how your boiler is plumbed. I would not think you are really losing that much. If your boiler is indoors, then any losses are going to be a gain to the internal temperature. Not much use in July, but in March or October, the extra heat might be of use.

If the flame is not lit, then you aren't using gas.

In principle you can add a controller to do all that stuff to your existing Viessmann. If there is an opentherm connection (there probably is) then it can be controlled in a fairly fine-grained way.

The main advantage of the newer Viessmann boilers, from what I can see, is that the pump and the fan turn down when the burner isn't burning gas. This should save you electricity, though I haven't investigated it much.

An air-water heat pump system is a great idea if you have PV and if the heat pump is big enough to meet your home's needs on the coldest day of the year. A single-phase heat pump is really only going to give you 10 or 12 kWh on a cold day. Is this enough? If it is, that is fine, but your gas boiler is probably twice that capacity at least.

The capital cost is also quite high. maybe three or four times or more the cost of a gas boiler replacement when everything is said and done.

How did you resolve your metering issue?

rolion

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

It really depends on how your boiler is plumbed. I would not think you are really losing that much. If your boiler is indoors, then any losses are going to be a gain to the internal temperature. Not much use in July, but in March or October, the extra heat might be of use.

If the flame is not lit, then you aren't using gas.

In principle you can add a controller to do all that stuff to your existing Viessmann. If there is an opentherm connection (there probably is) then it can be controlled in a fairly fine-grained way.

The main advantage of the newer Viessmann boilers, from what I can see, is that the pump and the fan turn down when the burner isn't burning gas. This should save you electricity, though I haven't investigated it much.

An air-water heat pump system is a great idea if you have PV and if the heat pump is big enough to meet your home's needs on the coldest day of the year. A single-phase heat pump is really only going to give you 10 or 12 kWh on a cold day. Is this enough? If it is, that is fine, but your gas boiler is probably twice that capacity at least.

The capital cost is also quite high. maybe three or four times or more the cost of a gas boiler replacement when everything is said and done.

How did you resolve your metering issue?

Thanks.
Flogas confirmed that i saved €80 compared with last year same period.
The only diference is the Evohome individual rads valve.

I am lookingin to changing my 10 years old boiler with a newer one,a V200 with latest gadgets. Heat pumps came in discution but i understood they will no beat the good performant gas oiler BUT with lots of solar PVs may make sense.
The only instalaltion change/charge for me will be to install the heat pump above the current gas boiler (outside,on the kitchen roof) and reroute few pipes,well insulated pipes.

The metering issue...they have replaced the meter from analogue one to a digital smart model,free of charge (see my other posts on electrical topic).

Regards

antoinolachtnai

Hang on, are you on the gas network, or on LPG?

The reduction in your gas bill is because 2016 has been warmer than 2015. All other things being equal, your gas bill will be 10 percent lower in 2016 than 2015.

Is your existing boiler plumbed four-pipe? Or just two?

What is the estimated capital cost for the heat pump project? Do the experts think it will generate sufficient heat?

rolion

Hi,

Did more work on how the gas boiler work and found this article on how the TPI does its magic. source HERE ( it may require registration,sorry). More info HERE (pdf file)


With TPI, as the document posted above explains, cycling the boiler on and off frequently (10 minute cycles by default) when there is only a small but non zero demand is by design. The proportion of time that it is on for each 10 minute cycle controls the total amount of heat put out by the boiler.

This is to keep the temperature as steady as possible rather than having the room temperature cycle up and down at least +/- 1 degree, this steady temperature is much better for comfort and means you can typically set your room temperature about 1 degree lower than an old fashioned thermostat since the temperature is not dipping below the set temperature for long periods of time.

I know on our old mechanical wall stat we had before Evohome that it had at least a 2 degree differential band - so if it was set to 20 it wouldn't turn off until at least 21, and once it did turn off it wouldn't come back on again until the hallway dropped below 19 degrees. The problem with that is that the boiler would go off for as much as an hour and a half to two hours at a time since the hallway cools so slowly, meanwhile other rooms like the living room would drop 2-3 degrees in that time as they were unable to get any heat. So we'd have to go "tweak" the hallway thermostat when we noticed the living room was chilly, which after a while resulted in the hallway being a lot hotter than the living room. Not good. Not comfortable and not efficient.

Although Evohome also solves this problem by letting each room call for heat for itself rather than relying on a central thermostat (the living room is able to command the boiler on even if the hallway isn't cold) if we had simply replaced the hallway thermostat with a modern digital TPI thermostat then the problem would have been greatly alleviated, because instead of the boiler being on for 2 hours and off for 2 hours, it would be on for 5 minutes and off for 5 minutes to maintain the same average hallway temperature, and this would have allowed the living room to maintain its temperature, assuming a 50% boiler duty cycle was sufficient for the heat loss in the living room. (Possibly not in the coldest part of winter, but still a big improvement over the boiler being off for 2 hours at a time)

So in short, TPI is a vast improvement over traditional "off when its too hot and on when its too cold" thermostats.

I'd suggest your real problem is that you have too many radiators without TRV's - ideally you shouldn't have ANY radiators without TRV's except maybe a towel rail. (And even there I like to have my bathroom radiator controlled as well so the bathroom isn't being heated unnecessarily)

You simply can't expect a system with a bunch of radiators around the house with no TRV's to give you good temperature control. I know all too well how poor this is because there were also NO TRV's in our house when we moved in a couple of years ago, with radiators only having manual hand wheels, so the very first thing I had done was to get someone in to install (at the time) conventional manual TRV's, then a year later I installed an Evohome to replace those manual TRV's. Massive improvement with each step.

As for "the boiler never switches off", I think you may still be stuck in an old pre-TPI mindset - that the boiler should switch "off" completely when a room is "up to temperature". What this neglects is that heat loss from the rooms is constant and ongoing, if you simply turn off the boiler completely for an hour or two at a time as conventional thermostats used to, as soon as the radiators cool down the room temperature plummets and then it has to switch on for a long time (an hour or more) to get the rooms up to temperature again.

TPI switches it on and off much more frequently, and will also still switch it on for a certain proportion of time even when the set temperature is reached so that it is maintained rather than letting the temperature drop again. Total gas use is not any more whether your boiler runs in cycles of 5 minutes on 5 minutes off than when it ran 2 hours on 2 hours off, and in fact because you can set your room temperature a bit lower and still maintain comfort you can have a net saving in gas.

So don't labour under the misapprehension that because the boiler is "always on" (it's not always on, its on for a proportion of time every 10 minutes) that it is using more gas. It isn't.

All decent modern digital thermostats (and this includes evohome) use TPI or OpenTherm to control the boiler - there's a good reason for that, it's simply better.