Economy 7 meter hell...please help!

[Nearlyspring72]

Has anyone got a water tank and an economy 7 meter? Mine is on between 10:30pm and 5:30am and I have hot water in the morning but by evening I don't? Tried boost function, doesnt make enough hot water for a evening shower. Help please!

You might need to change the tank for a modern one. They are much better insulated and hold the heat much longer. The boost function will also be more effective with a better element. However if you use half a tank in the morning having showers, washing dishes or clothes etc - it will still dilute the tank by topping it up with cold water. That's unavoidable unless you change your water usage routine.

Mine is on between 1am and 7/8am. I still have hot water at night.
make sure there is insulation and the pipes are lagged. Also, you could try ringing electric company and get them to change the times, it should be in line with your economy 7 times which are normally midnight till 7 or 1am -8 or somewhere around that. Also worth checking temp on thermostat.

Had E7 for years and got on with it ok but switching to E10 was the best move we made as it also boosted the heating/water in the afternoon & evening at cheap rate.
So effective, we got rid of the old tank and replaced with a new, smaller one which freed up some airing cupboard space.

Last time we looked, E10 was still being offered to new customers by some suppliers.

I have 135l water tank. That is heated by gas boiler.

One heating (1/2 hour) can get enough hot water for 2x showers over 2 days. The tank loses less than 1kWh per 24 hours so is incredibly well insulated.

Your hot water tank is probably either too small, or too poorly insulated as a pp has commented.

You could get a new one, but it would probably be expensive and take ages to recover the cost in electricity, but you should be able to work out how long - its a relatively simple calculation. Another thing you could do is try insulating the tank better - there are jackets you can buy, although I would be surprised if you could insulate it well enough but it may help a bit if the water temperature is marginal. The tanks with integrated insulation are much better.

I think the E10 is a good suggestion.

I have a water tank and economy 7 meter, but I have an electric shower so don't have to worry about whether the water is hot enough in the evening.

Could be a problem with the immersion heater or perhaps you need to turn up the thermostat on it? Unscrew the black cap on the side of the tank and you should see the thermostat thingy under the black cap.
Is the tank well insulated?

One thing I forgot to say but has been mentioned by other posters.

How well insulated is your tank?
Our old one had a jacket and the airing cupboard was really warm. OH replaced it with a foam covered/full height tank and the heat loss was massively reduced.
When we later got E10 and realised we didn't need need the big tank any more, he replaced it with a smaller, double insulated one. The airing cupboard was no-longer any good for airing so he removed the insulation from 1ft of the outlet (i.e. hot!) pipe, that worked perfectly. 😁

Hmmm can't tell you the type I've got, it's big and newly installed (3 years). I also live alone so am the only one using the hot water. I have showers up to 11pm sometimes and still have hot water then, though it does start to run out towards the end of the shower but it's more than enough time for me.

Do you have the option to switch it to 'always on'? If needed (if I've got guests for eg) I can switch it on, takes about 40 mins to heat up then I've got hot water for multiple showers, I just switch it off when the last shower has been taken.

That is actually a good call. It may be that the water heating is cutting out at a lower temperature, and if you can heat it up say 20C hotter it will stay warmer, and this will be enough. Also, if you heat the water up warmer, you will need less hot water for your first shower (major usage?) as you will blend it with more cold, so there will be more hot water left in the tank to last until the evening.

Change your timing settings, you dont need it heating all night, to have it warm by 5.30am would take a couple of hours at most, and then set it to warm up for a couple of hours in the evening too.

And unless you have storage heaters economy 7 is unlikely to be a beneficial tariff for you. I had this and asked Octopus to switch me to a normal tariff, my bill is cheaper as even though I dont get cheaper overnight elec, my day rate is quite a bit less.

We have a water tank and had economy 7 up to about a year ago . It really wasn’t worth having the cheap overnight electric rate when we weren’t using it and then paying more per unit for the day rate than the average tariff . We kept the same physical meter , but Octopus moved them both to the same rate , so we still give two readings , but they are billed at the same rate .

However I’m not sure why you are keeping your hot water on during the whole of the overnight hours , it seems a huge waste , our hot water tank certainly wouldn’t have kept the water hot from 5:30am through the whole of the day and evening . It has been a long day , so apologies if I’m missing something obvious here , but why not just heat the water for the last hour of the economy 7 period , the tank isn’t going to keep the water hotter for longer just because you’ve heated it for the prior 6 hours as well , as the thermostat will keep it at a constant temperature while it is on , and then from 5:30am it will gradually start to cool .