Advice on our hot water and c/h system, please!

[SSho]

My husband and I moved into our current house about 3 months ago and now that we're approaching autumn we could do with a bit of advice re: our hot water and central heating system.
We rent our house but asking the landlord is simply not an option unfortunately.
Sorry for my complete ignorance - I am lacking in any DIY skills/knowledge and my husband is a joiner not a plumber!

We have a hot water tank in our airing cupboard upstairs, which is switched on to heat by a switch on the wall downstairs in the kitchen. It seems fairly efficient and this is how we've been heating the water for washing up, baths etc so far.
We also have an open fire in the dining room which has a back burner and leads to a c/h pump in the cupboard next to it, turned on by a wall switch. We've yet to try this out, but I am aware we light the fire to heat the water in the back burner and switch on the pump to warm our radiators up. But is this the only way we can heat our radiators?
I don't mind lighting a fire in the evening, but we'd probably like the heating on for a short time in the mornings. Not exactly practical to be lighting a fire for an hour before work!
Can we heat our radiators from the hot water tank? Is there a small, low-cost solution to this?
Any advice/suggestions welcome - I am a complete novice when it comes to these things!
Thank you

 

[Agile]

Unless you also have a gas boiler then the answer is no.

A pretty old fashioned system I am afraid.

You should have been given an energy efficiency classification before renting.

Even here in France the agents do that as well.

Tony

 

[Burnerman]

Your copper cylinder has an immersion heater element that can produce only domestic hot water......it wouldn't be practical to use this to warm your radiators, I'm afraid.
John

 

[stardanny]

Does your hot water heat by immersion heater?

Getting heating on by hot water tank does not work. You will need to light a fire in order to get heat to radiators.

Also the back boiler also heat hot water as well.

You could use a electric panel heaters in each room.

Daniel.

 

[SSho]

Thanks for all your help and advice - I thought this might be the case!
I shall just invest in a cosy pair of slippers and a few thick jumpers!