Increasing hot water temp in Megaflo CL210 cylinder - safe ?

[Daveydub]

The manual says:

It is recommended that the immersion heater thermostats are set to between position 4
and 5 (60C - 65C), however they can be set between 1 and 5 (10C and 70C).

So you should be OK with is where it is in the pic.

There are two immersion heaters the lower one heats the whole cylinder, the upper one just the top part. The lower one is normally controlled by a time switch so it only comes on at night when electricity is cheaper (if you are on the Economy 7 tariff). The upper thermostat is used during the day to "top up" the cylinder, if necessary.

This begs the question: why are you heating the cylinder by electricity when it can, normally, be heated more economically by the boiler?

Fairly safe to assume there is no boiler

 

[D_Hailsham]

Fairly safe to assume there is no boiler

I would agree if it was a direct cylinder, but the CL models are indirect.

 

[swayzak]

Thanks again for all your help.

The water was hot enough in the morning, but I suspect not as hot as it could be ( to maximise the usage e.g. number of showers etc.). It is also noticeably cooler (but still just about usable) in the evening and I thought that perhaps by increasing temp is would be a bit warmer in the evening (when I have my shower).

From what some have said it looks like there is a possibility that there may be a fault with immersion heater (s) or cylinder (it is at least 15 yrs old I think) .. ?

For whatever reason the previous occupants decided to run this from eco 7 electricity and not from boilers. The megaflo service engineer did mention we could get it connected if desired, but this would cost a fair bit I think (and our gas bill is currently 2x the electricity bill - big 4 storey Victorian house with tandem boilers running the heating).

 

[JohnD]

energy from electricity costs about four times as much as energy from gas (though your night rate will be cheaper provided you have storage heaters or some other off-peak loads making an E7 type rate worthwhile).

 

[swayzak]

So may be our electricity bill would go down relatively more than the gas bill would increase if we converted to running hot water (mainly) from gas ?

We do run a lot of clothes washes / drying cycles at night to utilise eco7 as well. No storage heaters though.

 

[Daveydub]

You could, with a tub of hot water, a thermometer and a multimeter check that your thermostat is switching at the correct temperature but far easier would be to swap the thermostats over if you are happy to do this.