High Electric Consumption

Hoping you can help. Regardless of whether I use any hot water in a day simply having my Pulsacoil A Class boiler on consumes 8-9 units of electricity per day. I dont have an off peak supply as the builder didnt include this when they built the property hence i only use peak rate.

I did have a problem with the boiler a while back where the light was flashing rapidly which indicated some kind of emergen failiure. An engineer called out, fiddled about and stopped the light flashing. It seems ever since then that the daily electricity consumption has increased.

Is there anything that can be done to reduce this consumption, i.e not having the water as hot or even having a timer fitted so that the boiler isnt on all constantly hence not using electric constantly.

Hi Ben,

Yes I recommend you switch to Economy 7 tarrif. They will fit a new electricity meter and you'll need to have a timer fitted in the boiler cupboard to force the boiler to heat only at night. Easy job for a competent electrician.

I can't explain why the bills rose when the unit was repaired. Maybe it coincided with the steep rise in energy costs a couple of years ago.

Cheers, Mike

Hi, regarding the economy 7 tariff does the building not need an actual off peak supply coming into it? As I understand the block of apartments where I live only has an on peak supply coming into it. I

f I can only use a peak supply I'm going to get a fused spur switch which can be set to turn the whole boiler on and off as required as having it on all the time is far too expensive.

Hi Ben,

No, ANY building with an electricity supply can have Economy 7 tariff. The only difference between 'normal' electricity and E7 electricity is the time of day/night it is consumed. The cables into the building are the same.

A new meter with E7 is all that is needed. The E7 meter has a extra, time-switched, 'off-peak' power output for your electrician to connect to the Pulsacoil. If this is impractical then he can install a separate timer in the flat instead to do the same job. Once you have the E7 meter you'll be billed at the low-cost off-peak rate for any/all electricity used between midnight and 7.00am whatever cables it comes through.

Cheers, Mike

Thanks for the advice. Just 1 more question, does the water heated up during the night stay hot throughout the next day or would I still need to have the Pulsacoil boiler switched on during the day?