Is it unreasonable to turn the immersion heater off, help and advice needed!

[Individewl]

We have an extremely old immersion heater, just a tank with a switch, no timer attached. We have been leaving it on 24hrs basically through ignorance and not knowing how it works. Now energy prices are going up I’m looking at ways to save.

we live in a social housing, the property is fully electric with old storage heaters and immersion heater, we are not on an economy 7 tariff just a variable. We are unfortunately on a pre-payment meter left by previous tenant and energy company refused to remove it and said a smart meter cannot be used for our property. Our electric use for last year was 5925khw! But we did have to use fan heaters through winter because storage heaters broke and housing association took 3 months to fix it.

advice please on how to use an immersion heater so we use less energy, I was thinking of turning it off and putting on for a few hours per day?

if you made it this far well done, didn’t want to drip feed!

I've turned the immersion off for the summer. I think we will try 30 minute boost for baths when it goes back on.

This 100%. I've tested it and to turn it off and on takes a lot of money to get it hot enough to use for a bath/shower. I always left mine on. It isn't like a 'kettle' that everyone seems to think. When it gets to the set temperature it stops heating, until it drops below a certain temperature. A kettle constantly left on, boils itself to death and keeps using electricity. Also I knew someone who'd turn it off and in and they had to keep replacing the thermostat (long coil) inside as it kept burning out.

Ask your housing provider to fit a timer. It costs little to and will save you a fortune. It only needs half an hour to an hour a day depending on size. If there is no insulation on it, ask them for a jacket for it. I can't believe in 2022 social landlords are getting away with not doing this stuff 😫

Buy some oil filled plug in radiators which are much better than fan heaters.

Yes. Fan heaters aren't at all efficient compared to other methods. You could also get a couple of convector heaters, like this: www.argos.co.uk/product/9378472 (other brands and outlets are available.) More efficient than a fan heater, and lighter and easier to move around than an oil filled radiator. And will take the chill off a room quite quickly, while the oil filled radiator takes time to heat up.

It doesn't save a 'fortune'. I've left mine on for a week, then switched it on and off. It cost literally the same amount as electricity isn't used when the water stays hot, it inky uses electricity when it drops below a certain temperature and needs to heat back up. Heating the water from stone cold to warm enough for a bath or shower costs £££s and is so inconvenient.

*only

Storage heaters are designed to work on dual meters on economy tariff and come on at night when electric is cheaper If you don't have economy tariff then they are going to be very expensive to run.
Speak to Shelter and they will advise. Pre-payment meters are also expensive.
Good luck.

Usually you just stick it on long enough to heat water so 30mins in our case. We would just put it on for water for a bath. It's like when I was a kid and we all used same bath water 🙈. We had an electric shower put in as cheaper than putting emersion.

6,000 kwh is very low usage if that includes all your heating and hot water. My electricity and gas together are about 14,000 kwh, which is below average for the UK.

If the hot water tank is very well-insulated and in inside the house (rather the being poorly insulated and in a cold attic) then a timer may not make much difference to electricity consumption. Also, any heat lost from the tank will be warming the house slightly, so won't be entirely wasted.

Can you explain why one is more efficient than the other? From the point of view of simple physics, I would imagine all heaters inside a house must be 100% efficient, it's impossible for any to be more efficient than another. If a fan heater produces less heat than an oil radiator from the same amount of electricity, where is the wasted power going?

For any device that isn't a heater, wasted power appears as heat. If a heater wastes power, the waste will also (directly or indirectly) be in the form of heat, and therefore not actually be waster. (So for example, the fan heater will put some energy into moving the air with the fan, but I think physics says that moving air will degenerate into heat, so actually that energy is ultimately not wasted.)

(The one thing that can be more efficient than an electric heater of any kind is a heat pump, as that's not directly generating heat, instead it moves it from outside to in. So they can be more than 100% efficient. But we're not talking about that option here.)

yes this includes everything as our property has no gas all appliances are electric only. The immersion is in a cupboard in the bathroom. I am thinking of buying a jacket to insulate it. Would you recommend leaving it on 24hrs as we have been? Thanks for the advice on heaters we have storage heaters that will hopefully work this winter the fan heaters were a temporary measure for 3 months through last winter but my thoughts are they may have impacted on our use age so hopefully we can keep it lower this winter anyway .

I suspect if you insulate it properly it would be much much cheaper to have it on for a couple of hours every morning rather than all day. But try both options for a week and see what you meter says!

Mine had been on Constantly for 20 years. In March I decided to try turning it off and I now turn it on over night every third night which is enough for showers and washing up.
Electric usage has reduced significantly.

Oh we are E7 and I just turnt the switch off, so I'm not actually sure but we do get hot water?

If its the same as mine the water will start to go cooler after a few days. I then switch it back on over night and try to remember to turn it off the next morning.