Do you have your hot water on constant?

[GinGeum]

I feel like we don’t use our hot water properly and need help!

Our hot water comes on in the morning for a few hours, but DH has the most ridiculously long showers every morning so must drain the tank.

We’ve now just started installing a second bathroom with a bath, and I refuse to have cold showers or baths any longer, or having to remember to switch the hot water back on and wait around for it to heat back up after DH’s showers.

We also have a baby about to arrive any day now, so probably need a more reliable amount of hot water throughout the day.

Do I just leave the hot water on constant? (Apart from through the night?)

I don’t really understand how it works if I’m honest, so I’ve probably had it set wrong the whole time.

Step we have this which says ‘immersion heater timer’ on it. I must admit I’ve never paid attention to it before. It’s switched on - no idea how long it’s been like that as we’ve never touched it, although I know when the electrician was here last week sorting the electrics for the bathroom, the immersion heater kept tripping the whole house. Maybe he left it on. But surely that would mean we shouldn’t have run out of hot water since he’s been gone, and we did yesterday and today.

Jeez perhaps that’s what I need to get DH out of the shower!

I wouldn't use the immersion heater as it will heat using electricity which is much more expensive than gas

Same here Jeez I run out of patience after half an hour and use the tap anyway. [Grin]

Nope, I have it in timer inthe morning and evening. I won't indulge any of my family taking ridiculously long showers. Occasionally we have to put the hot water on for a while in the day.
Don't use your immersion switch unless your boiler breaks down, then use it for hot water, it's far too expensive heating water with electricity.
Ours is a condenser boiler (I think that's right?) and to leave it on cnctantly would just waste so much money.

That looks like a timer switch for the electric immersion heater. Don’t you have any hot water from the gas boiler or do you have electric storage heaters?

We don’t have electric storage heaters. I don’t know how that immersion heater works at all, if it actually does work. The gas boiler does the heating and hot water but we don’t really use the heating so it’s just for the water.

(There’s another control panel in the airing cupboard for controlling the heating and hot water)

Well looking at that photo the immersion heater is controlled by that timer switch. Try turning the immersion heater switch off (the switch at the side of the timer and see if you have any hot water or not. If not you are just using electric and the immersion heater rather than the gas boiler for your hot water. Gas is much cheaper though so you should be using that if you can.

Okay, I’ve turned the immersion switch off and the hot water on. Will try and run a bath in a little while and see how I get on. I’ve turned the black switch to off on the timer box, do you think I also need to turn off the white switch next to it? Hope the immersion heater hasn’t been doing it all this time, although surely we would have noticed massive electricity bills.

Managed to have a hot bath run by DH without the immersion heater so I’m not totally convinced it even works. I don’t think we’d have no hot water as often as we do if that immersion heater had been on all this time.

Since you have a storage cylinder, you should have the hot water on when you're likely to want it. It's a tradeoff - if the cylinder is cold you have to wait for it to heat up, but if it's hot then it's constantly losing energy. Even with the hot water on, the tank can still usually be drained faster than it's heated meaning it goes cold.

The cylinder can probably be heated by either gas or electric (or both at once I guess). Unless your boiler is total junk gas will be a lot cheaper, but you'll welcome that immersion heater if the gas boiler breaks down.