Hi all,
I feel incredibly stupid having to ask this considering I've spent the last 5 years looking after 3 complex industrial heating/hot water systems and I'm struggling to even figure out my own basic home set up. As far as domestic systems go, ever since I've understood how to switch a thermostat/timer controller on, I've always had a standard combi boiler which does the heating and hot water.
Our house that we moved into last year has a cylinder in the airing cupboard upstairs and a smaller boiler in a cupboard in the kitchen.
I thought we'd figured it out ok and it was running fine, but over the last few months my wife has been on at me about our gas bills because although we're reasonably conservative with our usage of the central heating (the heating hasn't been on for more than one or two hours per month since April) and we're all out for most of the day anyway so even in the colder months, it's not on constantly. Oh and we have a gas hob, but an electric oven.
However, for some reason, although our friends who live in the same estate in the same houses (albeit ours is detached whereas theirs are "terraced") who we know leave their heating on during the day while they're out at work and have it on during the summer somehow use about 60-70% of what we use when we compare our bills. None of us can figure it out, but we submit regular meter readings so our bills are consistent with the meter readings and I've checked and double checked the heating controls to make sure the heating isn't coming on at some point that we're unaware of.
The main thing that confuses me about using our system is figuring out when to have the hot water switched on as I'm not sure whether we need the boiler to heat the water or whether the cylinder should be heating the water in the airing cupboard, but so far I've set it so that the hot water is on at the main time control for half an hour in the morning and then again in the late afternoon so we have enough hot water for washing up and bathing the kids.
Is there something obvious that I'm doing wrong because we're at a complete loss and I'm now wondering if I need to get a plumber to come and check our system to see if we have a problem somewhere.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read through all that and I appreciate any advice anyone can offer.
Cheers
Kris
I feel incredibly stupid having to ask this considering I've spent the last 5 years looking after 3 complex industrial heating/hot water systems and I'm struggling to even figure out my own basic home set up. As far as domestic systems go, ever since I've understood how to switch a thermostat/timer controller on, I've always had a standard combi boiler which does the heating and hot water.
Our house that we moved into last year has a cylinder in the airing cupboard upstairs and a smaller boiler in a cupboard in the kitchen.
I thought we'd figured it out ok and it was running fine, but over the last few months my wife has been on at me about our gas bills because although we're reasonably conservative with our usage of the central heating (the heating hasn't been on for more than one or two hours per month since April) and we're all out for most of the day anyway so even in the colder months, it's not on constantly. Oh and we have a gas hob, but an electric oven.
However, for some reason, although our friends who live in the same estate in the same houses (albeit ours is detached whereas theirs are "terraced") who we know leave their heating on during the day while they're out at work and have it on during the summer somehow use about 60-70% of what we use when we compare our bills. None of us can figure it out, but we submit regular meter readings so our bills are consistent with the meter readings and I've checked and double checked the heating controls to make sure the heating isn't coming on at some point that we're unaware of.
The main thing that confuses me about using our system is figuring out when to have the hot water switched on as I'm not sure whether we need the boiler to heat the water or whether the cylinder should be heating the water in the airing cupboard, but so far I've set it so that the hot water is on at the main time control for half an hour in the morning and then again in the late afternoon so we have enough hot water for washing up and bathing the kids.
Is there something obvious that I'm doing wrong because we're at a complete loss and I'm now wondering if I need to get a plumber to come and check our system to see if we have a problem somewhere.
Thanks in advance for taking the time to read through all that and I appreciate any advice anyone can offer.
Cheers
Kris
