A heavy gas bill (hot water problems??)

[diyken]

Can anybody help me with this one? I have moved into a 4 year old house and am getting £60-£70 a month gas bills which is more than the entire quarterly bill for our last house. We are away more than we are here and in theory the gas bill should be lower because we now have an electric oven. I have noticed strange things with the hot water system such as:

1 Hot water pressure is very high.
2 It takes a long time to get hot water out of the kitchen tap and it is only
really possible to get hot water at all by running it fast.
3 If you are running hot water, turn it off and then back on after a few
seconds it will soon run cold before running hot again. Turn on the cold
tap at this time and it is lukewarm.
4 The shower has very high pressure to the point where it is likely to
wash you away or take your skin off(!!)

The hot water system is a pressurised Heatrae Sadia Megaflo.

Any suggestions greatfully received.

Regards

 

[doitall]

have you had it serviced since you moved in.

 

[ChrisR]

Number 3 is odd if it's not from a combi! What's the boiler - more details please.
Get your gas pressure checked (a corgi). If it's low you use a lot more.

 

[diyken]

The boiler is an Ideal Classic FF60. I have not had the boiler or hot water system serviced since we moved in about 10 weeks ago.

DIYKEN

 

[ChrisR]

COUld be then that your cold hot water and hot cold water are both due to the H & C pipes being in good thermal contact somewhere. See what you can find. If you can get at it, force a bit of cardboard in between.

Er
1 Hot water pressure is very high.
It will be, up to 3.5 bar - which IS mains pressure. This is a Good Thing!

2 It takes a long time to get hot water out of the kitchen tap and it is only
really possible to get hot water at all by running it fast.

Must be a long way from cylinder to tap, and if above is true it's getting cooled on the way. Cylinder not in the LOFT is it??

3 If you are running hot water, turn it off and then back on after a few seconds it will soon run cold before running hot again. Turn on the cold tap at this time and it is lukewarm.

See above

4 The shower has very high pressure to the point where it is likely to wash you away or take your skin off(!!)

People pay a lot of money for those! Turn it down???!

Generally, check the insulation on the pipes, that can lose a heck of a lot. If the HW is kept very hot (there IS a thermostat!) then the pipes to the cylinder from the boiler could be losing a lot, and those pipes are often not in areas where extra heat is useful.

 

[diyken]

Thanks for that Chris R. I will have a look at some of those things. Re the shower, you only need to turn it on a little to get washed away. Turn it on even less and it is totally cold. I need to get the gas pressure checked out as suggested by a previous reply. To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, we are less reliant on gas but our bill came in as 300% up (meter was read the day we moved in) I have worked out the last 3 weeks as £75 which is a bit of hot water and 2 rads on for 3 hours each evening.

Regards

 

[doitall]

correct me if I'm wrong but the megaflo prv is pre-set at 2.5 or 3bar on the earlier models.

You could be getting a back up of cold mains through a mixer tap or shower valve.

run the hot taps then check if the hot pipe goes cold very quickly with the cold open

 

[diyken]

Hi doitall, the manual seems to suggest the system is 3-3.5 bar. I wonder if we are getting to the route of the problem. Sometimes when I turn on the kitchen mixer tap it takes a second or two for water to come out, as if it has drained back a bit. Water is definitely not right at the washer in the tap. I will check out the things you suggest.

Regards

 

[htgeng]

from your gas bills, i doubt you'd be looking at more than 5 years return on investment if you upgraded to a top of the range condensing boiler. Then you would be in clear profit and if you got a decent boiler it would last 10-15years.

 

[ChrisR]

Recentish Megaflo's are 3.5bar, if your mains is that or higher.

Any idea if your mains pressure is high - sounds like it could be. Could also be that when your HW was converted to megaflo, the mixer cartridge on the shower wasn't changed with it! Do you still have a cold water cistern in the loft?

The thing about the gas pressure by the way - the stuff is sold by the cubic foot so if the pressure at your regulator is at a low pressure you have less gas in that cube. They're supposed to be er 22 + or - 2 now I think - if it's low Transco will alter it. Unless you're at the end of a long pipe so the supply to the meter is low!

 

[Pugwash]

Might be worth having the meter checked

 

[diyken]

Thanks ChrisR and Pugwash. It sounds like I need to start with the gas pressure and take it from there. The Megaflo was new with the house 4 years ago. I have been told the Megaflo is a good system. Is that the case?

Regards

 

[PEDANTICVINDICTIVEMAN]

Heavy gas bill, are the pipes lead as this can be a bit heavy.

 

[Pugwash]

Now't wrong with a megaflo, but if you had a boilermate then we would be talking.

 

[ChrisR]

Just done some sums for another thread - yours isn't high usage.