Boilermate III boiler high energy use

[divefoor]

I recently moved into a new place and have had some massive electricity bills.

The house seems to use about 9kw of electricity a day when we are not even there
which seems insane.
I think the boilermate is the culprit but it would be great to get some advice on

- whether the boiler energy use seems excessively high and is the likely culprit
- whether this is normal behaviour for a boilermate or sounds faulty
- any tips on resolving


There are two boilers:

- ideal Logic
- Gledhill Boilermate 3

The Boilermate has a honeywell timer to control heating on/off but there seems to be no means to control hot water which is always available.


I recently got an energy monitor to try figure out the problem. This is what I found...

When switched off on the honeywell control the Boilermate still operates for 3-4 minutes between 1 and 3 times an hour. I know it’s the boiler as I can hear it rumble when the energy monitor has high readings.

According to the monitor it’s using 3kw during these times. (I presume this is it keeping hot water available) That’s about what it reads when I boil the kettle.

It also runs at that kw rate for prolonged periods whenever hot water is used.


The base reading from the energy monitor reads anywhere between 125 and 175w. That’s with everything switched off except fridge, cooker, boilers (set to off), alarm and smoke detectors . About 80w of this is the fridge and 5w for the cooker. (I haven’t switched of the fuse for the house alarm or the smoke detectors as I’m paranoid of triggering them!).

Any advice really appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[picasso]

See if there is an immersion heater fitted to the cylinder, if there is switch it off and see if you can get the boiler to heat the cylinder, chances are the pump if f****d and the previous owners were using the back up immersion heater rather than get it repaired.

 

[divefoor]

Thanks very much for the reply.

So you think as the pump may be shagged the system is falling back on the immersion heater which is basically just doing what a kettle does and heating the water in an expensive, inefficient way.

I will have a check and report back.
thanks

 

[divefoor]

I think I have located the immersion heater at the bottom of the cylinder/tank.

I’m a bit green meddling with this stuff so just checking I have the right switch by attaching some pics:

The cable from what appears to be the immersion heater leads to a wall switch.

So if I switch that off what I’m expecting is:

- the immersion heater will no longer be in use

- in theory we should no longer have these 3kw spikes of electricity every 20/30m

- if the immersion heater is being used as back up we would have no hot water while this is off. That would indicate a problem with the pump or elsewhere.


I wonder if there is a possibility the issue could also be with the logic boiler.
My neighbour tells me the logic boiler and boilermate boiler work together but I don't know much more than that about the set up.
There are no fault codes displaying on the logic boiler control screen.
But I haven't checked it while running heating or hot water. Will do so.
By default the burner indicator is not 'on' and the boiler status is 'standby'.

 

[Dan Robinson]

That switch on the left is the immersion.

Switch it off and the Honeywell on and see if comfort remains.

 

[divefoor]

Status update :

- Turned off the immersion heater switch earlier today.

- Turned on the central heating via honeywell.

The logic boiler fired up (burner indicator on) and the heating appears to be working ok.


The energy monitor has not spiked in the past few hours since switching off the immersion heater.


Not that I noticed it myself until attempting to troubleshoot our massive bills and getting some helpful direction here but it seems really odd that the previous tenants would have left the immersion heater set on by default.


Will monitor the hot water situation and any changes in energy consumption and report back.

thanks again for the help!

 

[muggles]

Some people just don't realise how expensive an immersion heater is to run