Horstmann Electronic 7 boiler controller settings

[Poita]

I have an electric boiler and the control panel is the Horstmann Electronic 7 one you see in the screen shot.

I have a few questions about it and the boiler.

1: When I use water at the sink etc, I can hear the water system at the boiler making noise which I guess is refilling the tank. but sometimes I can hear that noise going on when I haven't used any water or turned on the washing machine etc.
Q: What is causing that noise? I can't tell if it is water refilling or a water heating noise. I only have the heating set for 8am - 9am so it shouldn't turn on the water heating at any other time and if I didn't use any water in the apartment it shouldn't require a refil?

2: When I set the timer to heat up the water, I set it to run from 8am - 9am. But it then forces me to set a second and then a third timer. As I only want water heated up at that one hour period every day I just set the 2nd and 3rd timer to the same time of 8am - 9am.
Q: Is there a way to turn off the need for a 2nd and 3rd timer?

3: Regarding the boost feature.
Q: How do I calculate the cost/amount of kwh of using the boost.
Q: As the heater can heat up enough hot water in an hour and the boost isn't that much quicker I might a swell just use the regular heater system but to do so I have to change the heat schedule on all three settings which is a pain in the butt. Is there a way to do it with just one setting instead of having to reprogram all of them as once done it shunts you to the others and makes you do them again too.

 

[stem]

You have shown a Horstmann timer, however some of your questions relate to the "electric boiler" which you mention but don't give any information about. For example, make / model / kW rating. That assumes that you do have an electric boiler. They often look like a traditional gas boiler or sometimes are slimmer, like the example below:

I ask because the controls you show are more commonly associated with an electric immersion heater which is just a heating element that fits inside a hot water cylinder and is something completely different

A bit more information would help.

 

[Poita]

Yes I'm pretty sure the heater is electric emersion.
The apartment is all electric with no gas or gas bills so it must be. And I remember the landlord agent telling me that the boost system uses multiple instead of one heating element.

I took some more pictures. I hope they help.

 

[CBW]

Doesn’t look like you can change the settings, sometimes (standard timers) you can alter to a 2 timed periods. Have a look here, possible reset? https://www.electricity.gg/media/55497/Horstmann-User-Guide.pdf

 

[stem]

So, it's a thermal store. The tank is kept full of water, and when you open a hot tap cold mains water passes through a series of coils inside the tank. This water is then heated by the stored hot water that is inside the tank surrounding the coils, but the two water systems are kept separate, the tank does not empty and as you use hot water it stays full, so there shouldn't be any refilling noise from it at all.

Normally these units are heated by an 'Off peak' electricity supply. During the cheaper electricity supply times [eg economy 7 or 10] the bottom heating element is set to be 'on'. This will heat all of the hot water inside the tank up to the temperature set on the thermostat inside the lid of the 'Off-peak' heater. Once the tank is hot, the heater switches 'off' and no more electricity is consumed. So, even if it's set to be 'on' for all 7 hours, if the tank heats up in 1 hour, then it will not be consuming power for the other 6 hours. [unless you run some hot water, in which case it may need to reheat]

As per @CBW The timer functions are not usually changeable. If you are on an 'off peak' tariff that runs from 1am until 7am [yours might be different] then I would set the 'Off peak' element to be on for 1:30am until 6:30am this will make sure that the maximum use is made well inside the cheaper electricity period. With most programmers, the other available timed periods can be cancelled by setting their 'on' and 'off' times to be identical, for example 'on' at 3pm 'off' at 3pm. If you have economy 10 which has an afternoon boost, and you find that the overnight store is insufficient for your needs then you could use one of the times to have a cheap rate top up in the afternoon.

The boost feature is designed as an emergency top up if you run out of hot water during the day. It should be wired to the upper boost immersion heater and as it uses full price electricity only heats the top half of the tank. The photo you have posted shows it to be rated at 3kW. That means if it was running for an hour it would use 3kW hours of electricity. You can find out the price you are paying per kW/h from your electricity bill. Having said that, the heater has a thermostat, so once the top half of the tank was hot, it would switch off. Once that happened it would not be using any power.

 

[Poita]

@stem wow, I really appreciate the time and effort for your comprehensive input. It helps me to understand a lot thank you.

My rate is not a night time economy 7 one. I'm paying about 18p per kwh regardless of time. I recently enquired about a night time one but although the night price would go down, the day price would go up to about 24p per kwh and I work from home so probably better with me standard charge.

It's good to know that I'd be paying about 50p for a full boost for when I needed hot water suddenly. Though, when I have my water heater on for one hour only per day in the morning it seems to stay hot enough all day even for me to have a longish shower in the early evening. So as long as I can wait an hour then I might as well just change the timer to heat up the water normally. It's just a bit of a pain to have to change three timer settings to do that then have to change them all again after so they are back to the 8am - 9am setting. It's a pity there isn't a boost like button for just turning the normal heater on until it's turned off manually.

In any case, I do hear the tank making noise (I can't distinguish between the heating noise and the topping up noise) during periods when I haven't used any water and it's not scheduled to heat up so I don't know the meaning of that.
(EDIT) I just heard it again and had a look. I noticed in the settings that there is one called 'Boost Programme'. That was set to 'on'. I found a way to change it to off. Does that mean it was programmed to kick in the 'boost' automatically with me pressing the boost button?

@CBW thank you for the link. That's very helpful.

 

[JohnD]

2: When I set the timer to heat up the water, I set it to run from 8am - 9am. But it then forces me to set a second and then a third timer. As I only want water heated up at that one hour period every day I just set the 2nd and 3rd timer to the same time of 8am - 9am.

this might have odd effects.

try setting it:

8am - 9am

9.15 - 9.16

10.15-10.16

or any other well-spaced periods

so there can be no overlap in timings.

if it's an ordinary 3kW immersion heater it will not heat a bathful in an hour, but there should be enough for a shower and washing up.

it is very well insulated, so if you left it turned on all the time I doubt it would make much difference to your electricity bill. Or you could set the third timing to an hour before your usual shower time.

 

[Poita]

@JohnD. Ah that's an interesting point. So if I set the timer to go on more than once during the day, it won't run for the entire duration the timer is set for but will auto turn off once the temperature has been reached. And the water already being hot from a previous heat up means even if I set it for a whole hour it may only run for ten minutes etc?

I have a pretty erratic schedule and live alone. Some days I don't take a shower or bath. And when I do take a bath it's just to soak then have to move to another room where the shower is to wash off

The real annoyance is that as I live alone I often only have one plate, cup, knife and fork to wash and get to scrubbing at them as soon as the kitchen sink water runs. But as it's a distance from the boiler, I've often finished by the time the hot water reaches the tap so I feel it's wasted.

 

[Poita]

Update: I set the 'Boost program' to 'off' but as soon as I cycle back in the settings it is listed as 'on' again and the heater is still making noise at various times of the day as if it's heating up again.

 

[stem]

Difficult to answer without having the unit to actually play with, but you can find the operating instructions below.

https://www.electricity.gg/media/55497/Horstmann-User-Guide.pdf

 

[Poita]

Ah I see I mistook using select to cycle through the timed boost thinking the 'on' and 'off' appearing was turning it on and off but in fact it is telling me what time to set it on and off. So it seems I have no choice but to use the timed boost as there is no just off setting. So I'll turn it on then set the off time to one minute later.