This is getting ridiculous (energy prices - Strictly NO referrals!)

[dlockers]

How does a combi heat water in the background anyway, it comes in via mains and goes out at the same pressure, unless you have one with a water tank?

IIRC some combis have a small buffer of hot water to avoid running the tap. Eco mode disables this so you waste water but save on gas.

Just had my first bill through. I randomly clicked on the EON Next app on the 6th Sept and saw I could get a tariff with lower charges so opted into it (odd?).



Seems low given I must have charged the car 3 or 4 times and I've been running the hot water off of the immersion heater.

 

[squerble]

Length of showers can have a big difference, electric showers are even worse. I'd guess 95% of modern washing machines heat the water themselves as it is more efficient. Eco modes, nah probably rubbish tbh. How does a combi heat water in the background anyway, it comes in via mains and goes out at the same pressure, unless you have one with a water tank?

My boiler has a "domestic water pre-heat" button which just toggles on/off the boiler heating a very small amount of water to enable faster delivery of hot water to the taps at the expense of it using a small amount of gas periodically to keep that water hot. From the manual:

PREHEAT - DOMESTIC HOT WATER

The domestic hot water heat exchanger within the boiler can be kept preheated to provide faster delivery of hot water at the tap. This is achieved by pressing the ‘PREHEAT’ button (F) so that ‘HOT WATER PREHEAT ON’ is shown on the display.

The boiler will operate periodically for a few seconds to maintain the domestic hot water heat exchanger in a preheated condition. The avera ge time period between operation is 90 minutes. This may vary considerably due to the surrounding ambient temperature of the boiler. The boiler will operate whenever there is a demand for domestic hot water.

 

[Feek]

How does a combi heat water in the background

From the manual:

DOMESTIC HOT WATER PRE-HEAT:
Pre-heat reduces the time taken to produce hot water at the tap and is controlled by the ECO button (H).
Press and hold the ECO button for at least 3 seconds to select either state:
When the ECO button is not illuminated the boiler will be in pre-heat mode (which will reduce the time taken to produce hot water at the tap).
OR
When the ECO button is illuminated the boiler will be in Economy mode with pre-heat no longer active.

It can take a good minute or so for the water to come through hot when I open the tap in the morning. I normally crack the tap open in the basin when I brush my teeth to get the hot water flowing in time for my shower and it's done by the second or third 30 second blip on the toothbrush.

Your gas usage is half mine for a 2 bed house with zero heating been on for almost a year now

OK so we're lower than yours.

As per my previous post, we used 57kWh of gas for 19 days

And higher than yours.

 

[bigmike20vt]

we really need timers on our hot water taps to save wasting water OR gas.

ie turn tap on, which triggers the boiler but then only starts water flow after say 15 seconds.

probably an expesnsive complicated setup which will be prone to failure just to save a few pennies of water....... but i can imagine water becoming very precious in a few years time - possible more than power assuming we get a handle on renewables.

 

[jak731]

I also have one of the older meters, each unit is 100ft^3, ridiculous. I was watching Leon the Lobster on youtube the other day and Brady said 'water is heavy, 8lb per gallon', and I just shook my head. Why make everything so difficult. Anyway enough metric vs imperial ranting.

Another data point for summer gas use, I average 120kWh a month (4 units), showers for 2 people, manual washing up and a gas hob. For the shower have to run the water for about 30s for heat, reasonable flow rate.

 

[jak731]

we really need timers on our hot water taps to save wasting water OR gas.

ie turn tap on, which triggers the boiler but then only starts water flow after say 15 seconds.

probably an expesnsive complicated setup which will be prone to failure just to save a few pennies of water....... but i can imagine water becoming very precious in a few years time - possible more than power assuming we get a handle on renewables.

These exist, it's called a combi save (first google):

http://teddingtonsystems.co.uk/combisave

 

[bigmike20vt]

we have a shower run off the combi boiler as well....... I have toughend up however and get in immediately, wet myself with cold water and by the time i am then lathered up the water is hot.

can be in and out in at a guess around 3 minutes.

 

[mattyfez]

Washing machine eco modes are generaly water saving rather than electricity saving as they trend to be longer cycles.

To be honest, unless you have pooped your pants or been on a mountain bike ride or something, a 30 min 30c wash cycle is plenty if the clothes aren't dirty as such, but just need freshening up.

 

[bigmike20vt]

These exist, it's called a combi save (first google):

http://teddingtonsystems.co.uk/combisave

wow, these should be a mandatory fitment with all new boilers. i wish i had known it existed when i had a new boiler 3 or so years ago.

 

[mattyfez]

we have a shower run off the combi boiler as well....... I have toughend up however and get in immediately, wet myself with cold water and by the time i am then lathered up the water is hot.

can be in and out in at a guess around 3 minutes.

Yeh there's no reason to shower for more than 3 to 5 mins if you just get in and get on with the job.

 

[squerble]

Washing machine eco modes are generaly water saving rather than electricity saving as they trend to be longer cycles.

To be honest, unless you have pooped your pants or been on a mountain bike ride or something, a 30 min 30c wash cycle is plenty if the clothes aren't dirty as such, but just need freshening up.

Yea, my partner is quite eco-conscious and we do most of our standard clothes washes on 20C/30C cycles. Imagine we're saving quite a bit on electricity at those lower temps.

 

[SDK^]

Washing machine eco modes are generaly water saving rather than electricity saving as they trend to be longer cycles.

To be honest, unless you have pooped your pants or been on a mountain bike ride or something, a 30 min 30c wash cycle is plenty if the clothes aren't dirty as such, but just need freshening up.

Washing machine Eco modes run less heat cycles, so use less energy.
A normal wash might be 2-4 heat cycles but Eco is just 1.

Same with dishwashers.

I know this because I can see the 3-4 kWh energy spikes on my solar / home consumption use graphs.

 

[krooton]

Washing machine eco modes are generaly water saving rather than electricity saving as they trend to be longer cycles.

To be honest, unless you have pooped your pants or been on a mountain bike ride or something, a 30 min 30c wash cycle is plenty if the clothes aren't dirty as such, but just need freshening up.

Heating water uses way more leccy than spinning the drum, so even with some eco modes running longer, they still save on leccy.

 

[bigmike20vt]

agreed to above. before getting solar and having excellent energy usage tracking i too was a little suspicious of some eco modes, but I can also confirm the longer eco run times use far less power than more intense runs.

 

[jak731]

wow, these should be a mandatory fitment with all new boilers. i wish i had known it existed when i had a new boiler 3 or so years ago.

It should be a fairly easy job for gas Safe engineer when you get the boiler serviced. Can't say what the ROI time would be like, it would help if you're on a water mete though.

 

[mattyfez]

Oh OK, fair enough.. I was making an assumption so.. Yeah.. Lol.
I think my washer has a 30c eco mode so I guess that's a good one to go with for regular clothes washing, despite the much longer cycle? As opposed the the 30min 30c cycle.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Oh OK, fair enough.. I was making an assumption so.. Yeah.. Lol.
I think my washer has a 30c eco mode so I guess that's a good one to go with for regular clothes washing, despite the much longer cycle? As opposed the the 30min 30c cycle.

we use that BUT we noticed black mouldy stuff built up as well as sludge in the guts of the machine..... so now we have found a good balance of using eco wash almost all of the time but with 1 weekly 60 degree towel wash and then a once monthly (actually probably 6 weekly) run through with a washing machine disinfecter. this has removed all black mould build up and we dont get any fusty smells from it.

 

[Bluecube]

Anyone on Octopus Go got any information as to how the energy cap will be applied? I'm currently on a 40p/7p day/night split so I imagine that the 40p/kwh will drop to 34p from October 1st and the 7p/kwh night rate will stay the same?

 

[Bug One]

Check your email. You should have had your new unit rates sent to you. I doubt your day rate will be going down.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

Anyone on Octopus Go got any information as to how the energy cap will be applied? I'm currently on a 40p/7p day/night split so I imagine that the 40p/kwh will drop to 34p from October 1st and the 7p/kwh night rate will stay the same?

That’s a bit like having your cake and eating it.

on average you’ll be paying way less than the government cap rate at 40p/7.5p so there is no problem there.